Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love in a Secular Age

Abstract

In Ian McEwan’s 1997 novel Enduring Love no character declares a belief in God except a mad stalker suffering from a delusional syndrome, and that character does not appear to hold recognizable theological or doctrinal positions of historical/institutional Christianity. On the other hand, the novel focuses on the conflicts between rational, emotional, even spiritual, behaviour as the characters search for enduring love in a postmodern culture. These ordinary characters’ interactions as they respond to a hot air balloon accident help to define and interpret the nature of religion and spirituality in our “secular age.” What characterizes our “secular age” and the nature of its religious impulses McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor aptly examines in A Secular Age (2007). Taylor traces the historical threads emerging from the Protestant Reformation that now appear in the 21st century as multiple alternatives for making sense of life and experiencing fullness. Using Taylor’s analysis as an interpretiv...