Ian McEwan

Britain, 1972. Operation Sweet Tooth: Serena Frome, a bishop's daughter now turned spy, is sent on a secret mission to charm Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintian the fiction of her undercover life? Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage... Trust no one. -- Cover.

Sweet Tooth

life of Sebastian Morel ‘a teacher of French’

Beatrix

He marvels at how irrelevant knowledge of rudimentary French is to the lives of these kids. 

He wanted to like them, but he was repelled by their ignorance and aggression and the way they jeered at and bullied any of their number who dared to show an interest in learning. In this way they kept themselves down.

 Nearly all of them will leave school as soon as they can and get unskilled jobs or get pregnant or make do with unemployment benefit. He wants to help them. Sometimes he pities them, sometimes he struggles to suppress his contempt.

…ultimately reality is social, it’s among others that we have to live and their judgements matter. Even, or especially, when we’re dead.

…and when he called after me, I increased my pace, fleeing not only the mess of his emotions but my own unreasonable guilt.

Sweet Tooth quotes

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