Solar by Ian McEwam

[kev67]

I was not expecting to like this book, as I'd heard an adaption on the radio and it had annoyed me, but it was a present from my father so I started reading it. I have to say it won me over. It is about a scientist, Prof. Beard, who once won a Nobel prize for physics for pioneering work he did in his youth. Since then he has been trading on his fame and has become somewhat of a bureaucrat. Beard is a rather cynical person, a borderline sociopath with a chaotic love-life. He is appointed to be the figurehead of a renewable energy research centre where the fun begins. The book deals with society's response to climate change, a subject on which the only other fiction I have read is Michael Crichton's Climate of Fear, but Solar is a very different kind of book. It actually reminded me of an academic comedy, like Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man or several of David Lodge's books. To me, the most amusing bits were when Beard has to interact with social scientists.

Ian McEwan has obviously boned up on physics, climate change and renewable energy, so much so that the book borders on science fiction. The device at the centre of the story is a McGuffin. It did not sound like it would be particularly efficient or the answer to the world's energy problems to me, but that hardly matters. The deficiencies of urban wind turbines was true enough though.

McEwan is author who can write about technology. I read another of his books, The Innocent, which was about an telecommunications engineer sent to set up spying equipment in Berlin. I suppose McEwan's most famous book is Atonement.

[russellb]

I read 'Solar' when it came out. McEwan is a very good technician and he crafts wonderful prose. The book does reflect McEwan's interest in the sciences and doubts he has about the humanities. There's quite a bit of pastiche, i remember, of post modernism. The 'hero' is a somewhat flawed character although i wouldn't suggest he was 'borderline sociopathic.' Perhaps a point of the book is that if the world is going to be saved by technocrats there's no reason why we should expect in them the virtues of 'moral saviours,' the Buddhas and the like. What i do love about McEwan is the wonderful way he can evoke emotions. I think this is brought out in the hero's relationship with his daughter, a child he didn't want. I thought it a very moving moment when the mother says after he has brought home yet another present, bought from an airport, "she just wants you." He may or may not save the world from environmental catastrophe but to his daughter he is the most important man in the world.

[kev67]

Yes, I liked his daughter. She's a very cute toddler.
I gather sociopaths are not uncommon. I heard from some radio program that there's one in every bus load. They are not necessarily violent, just self-centred and lacking in empathy.
I heard Ian McEwan interviewed on a morning news program recently on writing novels with a strong science or technology content.