The great news is
that a new book by McEwan will be released September 13: Nutshell. “Nutshell is an altogether original story of
deceit and murder, told by a narrator with a perspective and voice unlike any
in recent literature. Love and betrayal, life and death come together in the
most unexpected, moving ways in this sensational new novel from Ian McEwan,
which will make readers first gasp with astonishment then laugh with delight.
Dazzling, funny and audacious, it is the finest recent work from a true master,
beautifully told, brilliantly executed” (https://www.amazon.ca/Nutshell-Ian-McEwan/dp/0345812409/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466264165&sr=8-1&keywords=Nutshell).
I’ve already posted My review of his latest novel, The Children Act (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2015/12/review-of-children-act-by-ian-mcewan.html),
so in honour of McEwan’s special day, I thought I’d post my review of his
penultimate novel, Sweet Tooth.
4 Stars
Serena Frome, after graduating from Cambridge, gets a
position with the British Intelligence Service after being groomed for MI5 by
an older man with whom she has an affair. Eventually she is given the job of
covertly recruiting a writer who has shown anti-communism tendencies, in the
hopes that his writing will balance the bias of conventional media. Of course
Serena falls in love with her recruit, Tom Haley. As their relationship
develops and becomes “mired in deceit” (319), Serena faces a dilemma: should
she tell Tom the source of the stipend he receives that allows him to devote
all his time to writing and thereby risk losing him because of her betrayal?
The novel is set in 1972, and there is much reference to
domestic politics of the time: miners’ strikes, energy crises, and IRA
bombings. At times I found the political ramblings rather tedious. The other
section of the book that is tedious is the retelling of Haley’s short stories -
which Serena reads prior to deciding if his political views make him an
appropriate candidate to be recruited as a soldier in the cultural war against
communism. Reading the actual stories would have been much more interesting
that being given not very succinct synopses.
Serena is not a likeable character. She has led a sheltered
life, growing up “inside a walled garden, with all the pleasures and
limitations that implies” (1). She is shallow and self-absorbed. For example,
when she fears Tom might throw her out of his apartment, she thinks, “I would
need to remember my hairdryer” (277). On her way to first meet Tom, she
observes, “And how could anyone resist me in my confection of red, white and
black . . . “(136). As she admits at the very beginning, she is not especially
good at her job: “Within eighteen months of joining, I was sacked, having
disgraced myself and ruined my lover . . .” (1). She has her positive traits
such as “cleverness, beauty and tenderness . . . love of sex and fun . . . wry
humour and sweet protective instincts” but for me these are outweighed by her
“impulses of snobbery, ignorance and vanity, . . . minimal social conscience .
. .[and]self-pity” (318).
The novel is a story of deceptions and half-truths. Serena
certainly deceives Tom, but there are several other characters who also hide
the truth. Furthermore, McEwan plays a trick on the reader, as becomes evident
with the twist in the final chapter. At one point, when reading Tom’s stories,
Serena comments, “Vulgar curiosity made me wonder if every sentence confirmed
or denied or masked a secret intention” (109). Readers familiar with other of
McEwan’s novels (Atonement) will
wonder as well as they read this novel. Upon finishing, my immediate reaction
was to begin the book anew to examine it from the new perspective given by the
ending.
Of course, there is foreshadowing, so the reader should be
prepared. Tom and Serena have a discussion about literature: “I said I didn’t
like tricks, I liked life as I knew it recreated on the page. He said it wasn’t
possible to recreate life on the page without tricks” (184). Since Tom shares
several biographical details with McEwan, it is a logical assumption that there
will be a trick, that he will be the “double agent” Serena despises: “I wasn’t
impressed by those writers . . . who infiltrated their own pages as part of the
cast . . . So, no tricksy haggling over the limits of their art, no showing
disloyalty to the reader by appearing to cross and recross in disguise the borders
of the imaginary. No room in the books I liked for the double agent” (66).
I enjoyed the discussions about the different types of
literature. Serena prefers the realist approach; she believes writers “should
make use of the real world, the one we all shared, to give plausibility to
whatever they made up” (66). She goes so far as to admit, “I suppose I would
not have been satisfied until I had in my hands a novel about a girl in a
Camden bedsit who occupied a lowly position in MI5 and was without a man” (65).
What a telling comment! Tom, on the other hand, is a modernist who admires the
experimentalists (184-185). There is also reference to the “lower grade of
fiction, like a mass-market romance” (65). The woman who writes “’a soppy
romantic novel’” (264), what is commonly known as “’Commercial stuff’” (260),
is paid “’a bloody fortune’” and the film rights are bought for her “’pulp
fiction’” (295). Meanwhile, Tom, the serious writer, wins a prize but is still
dependent on “an independent source of income” (319).
I shall return to this book again. I think McEwan’s
technique is worth examining more closely, although at times I got the
impression that the writing of the book was very much a metacognitive exercise,
and I could almost sense a smugness in his cleverness. In my opinion, it does not
rank as highly as Atonement, but it
would be unfair to expect every novel to be such a dazzling achievement.
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