Review: What We Can Know by Ian McEwan (DNF)

Title: What We Can Know

Author: Ian McEwan

Year published: 2025

Category: Adult fiction (science fiction)

Pages: 320 pages

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): United Kingdom

Summary: 2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery.

2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, ‘A Corona for Vivian’. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

Review: Ian McEwan is one of the authors who intimidates me. I am not sure why. But both of my book groups chose this book this month, so here I am. I want it on the record that I was absent for both book group meetings, so I had no input on the book choice; it was a coincidence that they both chose it.

I planned to listen to this book but wasn't getting into it, so my friend suggested I read the first section, then listen after that. She said it worked for her to get into it, so I took heed and got a hard copy. She was right; it was much easier to get into this book with a physical copy. However, I struggled. I read about 60% of the book and just couldn't continue.

It's not a bad book, in fact, it is really well written and I understand the lure of McEwan. However, to me, it was the story that didn't work; it felt a bit like academic navel-gazing and reminded me why I did not finish my PhD, but stopped at the Masters degree. I did like the way McEwan presented the climate issues that have plagued the world (mostly rising oceans that have turned the UK into a series of small islands). He didn't preach, but incorporated the situation into the story and the characters' actions.

As I said, both of my book groups chose this book, and I really look forward to hearing what they think. I'm hoping they liked it, so I can hear what worked for them.

Challenges for which this counts: