Solar

We discussed Solar by Ian McEwan last night at book club. Some of you may be familiar with one of his previous books, Atonement, which was made into a movie. I've never read McEwan before and although there were things about this book I didn't like, he is, without question, a very good writer. As an avid reader I feel qualified to say that, but the host of last night's discussion was Leila's mom, a retired Lit professor, who ought to know! She helped me to see many things about his writing style I hadn't observed on my own.

The main character, Michael Beard, a most unlikeable man, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in his youth and hasn't had an original idea since. An overweight, narcissistic slob, he somehow manages to snag the ladies and goes through wives like a like he's trying out new flavors of ice cream. We discussed at length what women see in men like that (we all agreed that we knew lots of lovely women who've married fat, unattractive, useless men!) and decided it was the allure of being married to a professor supposedly smart enough to win the Nobel Prize.

The appeal of the audacious Michael Beard character is that we all see a bit of ourselves in his neurotic thinking. And since he's someone it's OK to hate, McEwan has Beard suffer through many a funny fiasco. We sat around the table and each told which of his blunders we found funniest. He's also the vehicle through which McEwan delivers the message of the book: that global warming matters and that finding renewable energy alternatives is the only way to save ourselves. That even if personal issues, academic sabotage, and politics are an unavoidable part of the scientific community, the energy issue must be dealt with. And as much as I harp on being green it was McEwan's rather lengthy scientific discussions interspersed throughout the book that dragged it down for me. Some of the information had to be there and some of it was quite interesting (like being able to reproduce the process of photosynthesis as a means for energy production) but eliminating 80% of it would have been fine with me.

I'm glad I stuck with it though. There are some classic events in Beard's life, such as the time he ate the chips of the man sitting next to him on the train, all the while thinking they were his (his were still in his pocket.) Beard glares at him ferociously the whole time the guy keeps reaching into his bag of chips. Beard was too frightened to actually confront him since the man was young, had an earring (Beard spends much time trying to figure out the significance of that earring,) tall, and could probably beat him up if sufficiently angered, so Beard turns his back on him and later hits him hard in the shin with his briefcase. When he discovers his own chips still in his pocket he feels a fleeting moment of remorse but then lets it go. Then there's the wife's lover who accidentally slips on an area rug in Beard's house and dies, and Beard's realization that he would get blamed as the angry husband who kills him after coming home to find his wife's lover in the house. So he implicates one of his wife's other lovers who ends up getting convicted and imprisoned.

I would only recommend this book if you want something really substantial to explore. It was a great book for book club; the human relationships, the psychological  peculiarities of the main character, and the voice McEwan chooses to deliver his message provides much for discussion.