Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

This book had outstanding reviews. But from a pleb’s point of view, it was a difficult and depressing read. Ian McEwan has always tackled difficult subjects that raised impossible moral and ethical questions. His people are never particularly likeable. It’s not really fiction, it’s more philosophy. So this one is about a thirty something bloke called Charlie, his upstairs neighbour Miranda and a robot he has bought, called Adam. There are shades of The Tempest here. The robot has to be ethical but it puts into contrast the behaviour of the humans. At one point Charlie tells Adam it’s not always important to tell the truth, but of course this is what the whole novel revolves around and this is the point of difference between the humans and the robot. Perhaps it was me, but I felt I was wading through all these depressing ethical debates when I really wanted to be uplifted by something. And that just didn’t happen. There was no hopeful resolution. Having said all that, this wouldn’t be a bad book for book clubbers because there is just so much to debate in it.