The Innocent (novel)

The Innocent (novel)

Infobox Book
name = The Innocent
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Ian McEwan
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = flagicon|England England
language = English
series =
subject =
genre =
publisher = Jonathan Cape
pub_date = 1990
english_pub_date =
media_type = Hardcover
pages = 231
isbn = 0224027832
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Innocent" is a 1990 novel by British writer Ian McEwan. The novel takes place in 1955/6 Berlin at the beginning of the Cold War and centres on the joint CIA/MI6 operation to build a tunnel from the American sector of Berlin into the Russian sector to tap the phone lines of the Soviet High Command.

Leonard Marnham is a 25-year-old Englishman who sets up and repairs the tape recorders used in the tunnel. He falls in love with Maria Eckdorf, a 30-year-old divorced German. The story revolves around their relationship and Leonard's role in the operation.

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PLOT

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Leonard Marnham is "The Innocent" of the Novel, a Post Office engineer who is employed by the Americans to install the signals in the tunnel they are building specifically to tap the Russians. The British and Americans view each other with distrust. Leonard is befriended by Bob Glass, an American obsessed with security.

The British are aware that the Americans are on the verge of a breakthrough with decoding, and are annoyed that they have not been a part of it. Macafee, a scientist, insists that Leonard act as a spy for them, as he is in with the Americans. Leonard fails dismally in his role as spy.

Ironically, Leonard lives above a rather stuffy character named George Blake, who was the Soviet Agent imprisoned in the 1960's, and who escaped from Wormwood Scrubs. The Novel neatly intertwines fictional meetings between the two men, and one of Blake's most notorious betrayals is given a new slant by Leonard's foolhardy act.

----THEMES----

Leonard becomes fatally embroiled in the life of his German girlfriend, Maria. He finds his life changed forever in the space of one evening. A virgin, he is introduced to the delights of sex by Maria, who is herself entranced by his innocent charm. She is not threatened by him. and this is very important to her. However her past catches up with her one fateful night. The tunnel, loyalties, all become part of Leonard's desperate attempt to escape his deed.The Novel unravels Leonard's "innocence" in a deceptively comic fashion, the 25 year old Englishman, bumbling along,out of his depth, enduring jokes and insults from the Americans, suddenly finds himself at the abyss of fear and terror, where betrayal becomes easy.

McEwan also wrote the screenplay for the 1993 movie.


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