Ian McEwan is one of those novelists who is guaranteed to make the news when they release a new work. Considered one of contemporary English literature’s most significant voices, the British writer first gained recognition for dark short stories, followed by morally provocative novels like “The Cement Garden” and “Amsterdam,” which won the Booker Prize in 1998.
The Lost Poem
Tom, the narrator, is a historical scholar living in 2119. This is after an ecological calamity flooded much of the world in 2042. This disaster was due to the effects of climate change and a limited nuclear weapons exchange. Many major cities are gone, and the UK has been transformed into an archipelago.Tom’s primary research focus is on a poet of our time, Francis Blundy, who has become a cultural icon for many in Tom’s era. Outside of Blundy’s poems, one event in his life gained an almost mythic quality: the so-called “Second Immortal Dinner,” a birthday dinner party for his wife, Vivien.
Held in a cavernous barn in rural Gloucestershire in October of 2014, Francis recited a special poem as a gift for his wife, “A Corona for Vivien.” A corona is an unusual type of poem that’s exceptionally difficult to do well.
The dinner guests hailed it as genius, but couldn’t recall many details afterward. Francis gave the only copy of it to his wife, but that copy has never been seen or heard of since. Francis himself never talked about it, believing it would be “uniquely precious” when it eventually resurfaced. A hundred years later, it has still never been found.
Much like Alan Ginsberg’s “Howl,” fans began to perceive the corona as a reflection that defined the cultural anxieties of their time and that it might have foretold the coming ecological crisis. By its very nonexistence and loss, the corona has become a “repository of dreams, of tortured nostalgia ... and a focus of unhinged reverence.”
Unlike previous literature icons like Shakespeare (of whom we know next to nothing), today’s data-driven age means so much information is available that “we have robbed the past of its privacy.” But does this mean Tom can find out what happened to the poem?
A particularly lovely aspect of McEwan’s novel is how he weaves the Immortal Dinner events and characters into Tom’s narration, as if the past blossoms to life before us. As though he’s lecturing his students, Tom uses his vast research to recreate every minute detail, including inner thoughts taken from personal journals that add precious insights.
Drowning in Data
Does more information necessarily mean a more profound understanding? A significant aspect of what McEwan is pursuing here is the question of what we can ever truly understand about the past.Tom narrates as an omniscient observer, but he’s fully aware of the vast gaps in his knowledge. A journal entry from Vivien about her late first husband reads: “I never hated him. Never! But.” What could be meant by that “But”? There are a thousand interpretations, along with countless other questions, and no definitive answers. “Sustained historical research is a dance with strangers,” he observes.
However, there is also a bit of irony in McEwan’s future world. Unabashedly liberal as he is, most of his calamitous events are a fantasy checklist for leftists: global warming, white supremacy receiving their comeuppance, patriarchal oppression, and more. A flooded earth is particularly in vogue right now, as seen by the surging subgenre of “cli-fi,” or “climate fiction.”
No one knows the future, of course, and McEwan’s vision might indeed come to pass—or it might not. Regardless, parroting this laundry list contradicts the central theme of the book.
After all, doomsayers in the 1970s were predicting a population explosion that would cause massive global privation by the early 2000s. Instead, global wealth has risen significantly, and there is a looming population collapse. Who knew?
But this is a minor criticism compared to the fact that McEwan is a fine writer. His prose is among the best you’ll find today, the intricacies of his characters are a marvel to behold, and his seamless transitioning from past to present is thrilling, like falling into a dream.
“What We Can Know” questions our limits of understanding, but readers can feel confident in knowing this is an excellent work of fiction.
