Reviews on What We Can Know (3)

Ian McEwan, always a class act

What We Can Know

Set in two centuries, partly around 2014 and then in 2119 when what happened has happened, climate change and a catastrophic tsunami drown much of the UK and Europe. Basically a love story set in academia, a famous poet writes a poem for his wife, he reads it out at her birthday and she receives the only copy which is then lost. So come 2119 an academic is searching for the lost poem and McEwan treats us to a twist in the tale. Thus the story is about our destroyed world and also a love story and a mystery. He leaves us to our own imagination - perhaps the most powerful way to get across what is happening to our world. I would have loved more detail but this is not a literal account but an elegiac story from a writer with a great command of ideas and language.

Brilliant Book Embracing Multiple Themes

What We Can Know

I'm totally blown away by this book. It can't be judged per chapter. Every detail comes together as the story develops. Even the earlier chapters, which are somewhat slower in terms of the central narrative, set the scene. Themes include: What the world might look like given current sea level rise plus additional catastrophes How mystery turns the unknown into something of infinite value, even when it is not The way we often misconceive history based on our preconceptions The vagaries of love and desire And more. Pay attention while the scene is set. You will be rewarded!

Difficult but rewarding read

What We Can Know

The narrator of the first half of the story is an academic in 2119 who is left in what remains of Britain after cataclysmic climate and political upheavals. He is researching a love poem written in 2014 that is now lost. This is Ian McEwan as his most obscure - it is difficult as well as uncomfortable reading. The second half is much easier. Here the narrator is the women the poem was written for and is set back in our current times. Here he brings all the confusing threads of the narrative together to a convincing conclusion. 'What we can know' highlights what we cannot know.