The Book: The year is 2119 and the earth has suffered a series of cataclysms due to global warming and AI. What was previously the island of Britain is now an archipelago. But universities still exist and the humanities are still under siege. Thomas Metcalf is a scholar who studies literature from the early 21st century. He is primarily studying the poet Francis Bundy (a sort of minor Seamus Heaney) and his wife Vivien. Back in 2014, at a birthday party for Vivien, Francis presented her with a long poem said to be one of his greatest. She possessed the only copy. But what did she do with it? Metcalf wants to find out everything he can about Vivien and Francis but especially wants to find that poem. If this premise sounds similar to A.S Byatt's prizewinning novel Possession, it is. Both involve long dead poets and a scholar's search for information about their private life. But, in fact, it more resembles her much less acclaimed novel The Biographer's Tale which seemed to say that in the end all biography owes something to the creative ideas of the biographer - and wouldn't they just rather write fiction? In all three of these novels the premise is that scholars in the future can only know a limited amount about the life of someone in the past even when, in the case of Francis and Vivien Bundy, there are digital archives of every email, text and social media post they ever made.
The Author: Ian McEwan
Genre: Literary Fiction
Length: 301 pp (hardback)
One good thing: McEwan creates a very believable 2119 which is similar and yet different from the early 21st century. Although he explains how the world ended up the way it did, he doesn't dwell on the "why" but focuses on how things are at that time.
One not-so-great thing: The novel is divided into two parts. The first part, the longer of the two, is the story of Metcalf's research while at the same time the story of his relationship with his lover and colleague Rose. Metcalf creates a believable story about Francis and Vivien and their friends out of the information he has reviewed although Rose warns him that some of this story is just his own speculation. In the second, shorter, part we go back to the 21st century and learn what really happened. That section is very much a narrative with little dialog and action and in my opinion it went on too long.
Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":
Story: There is a story arc, although not a lot of action. This is a very cerebral novel. And yet, as long as you are in the mood for a cerebral novel, the story does move along keeping the reader in suspense.
Characters: We see the character of Tom Metcalf through his first person narrative and while he has a bit of a character arc I don't feel that at the end of his story he is significantly different than he was at the beginning. The more interesting characters are the other "historical" characters that Tom is researching and they are interesting partly because Tom has made them interesting. If you are someone who dislikes when Ian McEwan reminds the reader that novels are FICTION, this might bother you.
Setting: McEwan is good at describing the world of the future where English people must travel by boat from island to island. But this isn't a true science fiction novel in which he creates a whole new world.
Writing: As usual, the primary reason to read a McEwan novel is the writing itself. Even though there isn't a dynamic plot, he moves it along (until the end) and even though we are seeing characters through Tom's eyes, and therefore we cannot rely on it, they are interesting. And the world of the future is very cleverly created.
