Who here has read this What We Can Know by Ian McEwan, besides @Terri_C? I’m getting the feeling this is one of those “love it or hate it” kinds of books. I’d love to hear more opinions on it! I’ve seen a couple of industry reviews that claim this is the best book the author’s written in decades, but I’d appreciate more input. I trust this group’s recommendations!
1 Like
I have a love/hate relationship with McEwan’s books. This was not one of my favorites. I found the first half and second half almost like two different books. I rated it only three stars. I did just post my review so hopefully iT will show up in another day.
1 Like
I was thinking the same thing- it definitely felt like two different writers. Plus I am finding it hard to get through this book but can’t put my finger on why. Hoping reading other people thought will give me the words I am looking for regarding this reading journey.
Interesting… It sounds like the second writer was more entertaining than the first?
Great question Kim! I’m 75% in and the first part is very dry, tedious, and academic.
Here’s an example of one sentence: “She is impatient of what I regard as an essential freedom to speculate, infer, make educated guesses, and animate circumstances and states of mind with the reasonable projection of a common humanity unchanged across the intervening century.”
The 2nd half picks up when we learn more about Vivian and her relationship with Francis.
Here’s part of my review from GoodReads:
The premise is great and has lots of promise. Set in 2 timelines-2119 and 2014, it’s the story of a poem that a famous author (Francis Blundy) read to his wife during a dinner party. The reason that people soon become obsessed with this poem is that it warns against climate change and predicts disaster if things continue on as they are. It’s also written in ‘corona’ style, a Shakespearean method of iambic pentameter that is challenging and rarely seen in modern times.
Fast forward to 2119, when Thomas, a research scholar, is writing a paper on Francis’ poem based on any available information he can find from the journals and writings of the attendees of this dinner party. You see, the poem was never published. As foretold, the earth has been flooded by rising sea water, many species of animal and plant life have gone extinct, and Thomas is nostalgic for the simpler and drier times of the 2000s. He and his wife teach about the past at the local university, citing all the terrible habits that our present day society had-overuse of social media, deforestation, consumer waste, etc..All this was fascinating;seeing how future societies would view ours. He also cites some of the events that caused the great crisis-one of which is rogue AI launching a nuclear strike. All things which are not totally implausible.
The more he gets into his research, the more he falls in love with Vivian, Francis’ wife. I get what the author is doing here. It’s a tale of remembrance, history, and how and what we chose to remember. It just could have been done in a more accessible manner.
2 Likes
I was intrigued by this book and started listening to it on audio and ended up DNFing at about 20%. But then I listened to and read a couple more reviews. Also, the NYT had a great podcast episode by several of their columnists in the Book Review. So I’m going to give it another try in book form.