--- product_id: 440468960 title: "The Innocent: A Novel" price: "149 zł" currency: PLN in_stock: true reviews_count: 5 url: https://www.desertcart.pl/products/440468960-the-innocent-a-novel store_origin: PL region: Poland --- # The Innocent: A Novel **Price:** 149 zł **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Innocent: A Novel - **How much does it cost?** 149 zł with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pl](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/440468960-the-innocent-a-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Buy The Innocent: A Novel by McEwan, Ian online on desertcart.ae at best prices. ✓ Fast and free shipping ✓ free returns ✓ cash on delivery available on eligible purchase. Review: McEwan creates well the atmosphere of a post-war, pre-wall Berlin, amplifying our imaginings. The interaction between Brits and Americans is full of subtle humor, and as it later turns out, great regard and humane understanding. The narrative is smooth and concerns an everyman, virgin, British geek assigned to an American intelligence project consisting of building a tunnel crossing the border into the Russian zone to tap underground phone cables through which presumably important matters are discussed (remember, we are in 1948, almost a decade before Sputnik). Love interest and sexual education is provided by an experienced German girl to our Brit, the virgin geek. The writing is so smooth that one doesn't realize one is turning pages and reading on at a rate as if one were reading a chock-full-of-events thriller when in fact not much is really happening; the tunnel is just chugging along. But McEwan is a "smooth operator" and he is moving you along, hinting at tension, to the point you are expectant of actions or revelations in the intelligence component of the novel to pop-up any minute and throw everything topsy-turvy. Rest assured McEwan is too smart to do that. Nothing happens as such that you are aware of for three quarters of the book until our everyman, the somewhat endearing British geek is plunged into a grand guignol not of his making and totally alien to the place where you would have expected the excitement you were owed to come from.(After all, you bought the book and it was sold to you as a thriller, and after all, it takes place in thriller-city and all major protagonists except two are freeks and geeks and goons and guards mostly in uniform and with varying levels of security clearance in the intelligence services of the powers which split this city. At times it looks as if each agent has his little black book which lists the interests they are called uypon to protect, investigate, eliminate, whatever, and thus move quickly about, talk with other similar blokes and keep moving about. The Tunnel provides a country-club of sorts for those connected with the project. There are body parts indeed, but they do not come from there. So, much activity occurs in our atmospheric tunnel, yes. But nothing happens there really. The unwelcomed death occurs elsewhere, has nothing to do with Military Intelligence. The neatly wrapped body parts do not bring the Tunnel down, it's the disguise they wear. But the story does not end there. Many years later a mature, no longer virginal Brit geek comes back to Berlin, post wall, to revisit sites, and carries with him a letter explaining what precipitated events at the tunnel and freed him of any trace of guilt, if any such he held. The explication at the end of the book is clear, surprising, and truly closes the nattarive in an intelligent, satisfying way. Endearing Love, after such an unforgettable opening and the obsessive development remains my favourite McEwan novel so far. Saturday is contrived, feels Thatcherite and stacked against the lower orders. Nonetheless I appreciated the medical tracts. (It's up for a Booker). In short, I liked "The Innocent" Better. Review: One of my favourite writers. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Customer reviews | 4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars (72) | | Dimensions | 13.16 x 1.85 x 20.14 cm | | Edition | 11/29/98 | | ISBN-10 | 0385494335 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0385494335 | | Item weight | 249 g | | Language | English | | Print length | 288 pages | | Publication date | 29 December 1998 | | Publisher | Anchor | ## Images ![The Innocent: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71DDgNc7ybL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review *by I***R on 14 August 2005* McEwan creates well the atmosphere of a post-war, pre-wall Berlin, amplifying our imaginings. The interaction between Brits and Americans is full of subtle humor, and as it later turns out, great regard and humane understanding. The narrative is smooth and concerns an everyman, virgin, British geek assigned to an American intelligence project consisting of building a tunnel crossing the border into the Russian zone to tap underground phone cables through which presumably important matters are discussed (remember, we are in 1948, almost a decade before Sputnik). Love interest and sexual education is provided by an experienced German girl to our Brit, the virgin geek. The writing is so smooth that one doesn't realize one is turning pages and reading on at a rate as if one were reading a chock-full-of-events thriller when in fact not much is really happening; the tunnel is just chugging along. But McEwan is a "smooth operator" and he is moving you along, hinting at tension, to the point you are expectant of actions or revelations in the intelligence component of the novel to pop-up any minute and throw everything topsy-turvy. Rest assured McEwan is too smart to do that. Nothing happens as such that you are aware of for three quarters of the book until our everyman, the somewhat endearing British geek is plunged into a grand guignol not of his making and totally alien to the place where you would have expected the excitement you were owed to come from.(After all, you bought the book and it was sold to you as a thriller, and after all, it takes place in thriller-city and all major protagonists except two are freeks and geeks and goons and guards mostly in uniform and with varying levels of security clearance in the intelligence services of the powers which split this city. At times it looks as if each agent has his little black book which lists the interests they are called uypon to protect, investigate, eliminate, whatever, and thus move quickly about, talk with other similar blokes and keep moving about. The Tunnel provides a country-club of sorts for those connected with the project. There are body parts indeed, but they do not come from there. So, much activity occurs in our atmospheric tunnel, yes. But nothing happens there really. The unwelcomed death occurs elsewhere, has nothing to do with Military Intelligence. The neatly wrapped body parts do not bring the Tunnel down, it's the disguise they wear. But the story does not end there. Many years later a mature, no longer virginal Brit geek comes back to Berlin, post wall, to revisit sites, and carries with him a letter explaining what precipitated events at the tunnel and freed him of any trace of guilt, if any such he held. The explication at the end of the book is clear, surprising, and truly closes the nattarive in an intelligent, satisfying way. Endearing Love, after such an unforgettable opening and the obsessive development remains my favourite McEwan novel so far. Saturday is contrived, feels Thatcherite and stacked against the lower orders. Nonetheless I appreciated the medical tracts. (It's up for a Booker). In short, I liked "The Innocent" Better. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review *by M***L on 19 November 2021* One of my favourite writers. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review *by G***Y on 15 September 2021* How would an author explain how Germany lost its way, leading to the horrors of the National Socialist Party? One way would be to reduce that world-wide drama to a similar one between two people: one German, one British, for instance. If a reader were to follow that reductive comparison throughout McEwan’s book, he/she would be duly unsettled to observe how innocently such horrors can be carried out. Further, can seeing Germany in such a light change the international perception of that nation forever more? Or can this comparison engender forgiveness? McEwan isn’t one to shy away from asking such literary questions. The multiple layers written into The Innocent involve a German woman, Maria Eckdorf, beautiful and divorced, and an Englishman, Leonard Markham, who has experienced little of life, much less the devastation of post WWII Germany. Leonard is involved in the fictionalized true story of an attempt to burrow beneath the East-West Berlin border in order to tap Soviet phone lines. McEwan’s weaving of Markham’s and Eckdorf’s lives into this espionage adventure isn’t as much a suspense genre story as a metaphor for the fragility, the shattering of innocence. McEwan is one of those modern writers who is able to give the reader details in the extreme without making it seem like a string of information dumps. His style isn’t the American Hemingway-esque one of depicting intimate characterizations as much as it is a return to the origins of the novel. That is, an omnipresent point of view that bounces strategically between multiple characters, their activities and motivations. He does so agilely, which speaks to his gift as a writer, but this agility can be a bit overdone here in places. This is a quibble, one that hardly takes away from the author’s project in this book. it’s a dandy novel that will open a reader to many unsettling questions concerning innocence and experience. My rating: 19 of 20 stars ## Frequently Bought Together - The Innocent: A Novel - Black Dogs: A Novel - Machines Like Me: A Novel --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.pl/products/440468960-the-innocent-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/440468960-the-innocent-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Poland* *Store origin: PL* *Last updated: 2026-05-19*