Originally published in The Students Magazine
Picture a middle-aged, overweight, balding, Nobel Prize-winning physicist with an addiction to crisps and extra-marital affairs. Now throw in a psychopathic builder, global warming and artificial photosynthesis and what do you get? Not the whirlwind of random elements that one might expect.
Ian McEwan’s ‘Solar’ is an unusual book. A blurb on the cover places it in the humour genre, and yet it isn’t like other books in the category. It begins, of course, with an unusual situation. Michael Beard, currently in his fifth marriage, has just discovered that his wife Patrice is having an affair. He isn’t shocked, just surprised, considering he’s had 11 affairs in their five year marriage, and she’s had only one. It seems only fair that she’d want to even the score. Beard would be content with this twisted situation if it weren’t for the fact that: a) he’s still in love with Patrice, something he’s never experienced with his previous wives, b) he hasn’t produced anything remotely ingenious since his Nobel Prize-winning work and, c) he really needs to start losing weight.
McEwan provides us with a character that we would surely despise, and yet, as the author takes us through nine years of Beard’s life, we cannot help but begin to understand that the character doesn’t mean to be a heartless jerk, he just doesn’t know otherwise.
‘Solar’ has a tendency to go into lengthy details about photovoltaics and such, which is understandable considering the context, but once you get past that the author’s beautiful, flowing narrative draws you in. One begins to enjoy the satire of not just life but also the most-talked-about topic of global warming. Take for example, this passage from the book that sums it up perfectly:
“The party would comprise twenty artists and scientists concerned with climate change, and conveniently, just ten miles away, was a dramatically retreating glacier whose sheer blue cliffs regularly calved mansion-sized blocks of ice onto the shore of the fjord. An Italian chef of ‘international renown’ would be in attendance, and predatory polar bears would be shot if necessary by a guide with a high-calibre rifle. There were no lecturing duties– Beard’s presence would be sufficient– and the foundation would bear all his expenses, while the guilty discharge of carbon dioxide from twenty return flights and snowmobile rides and sixty hot meals a day served in polar conditions would be offset by planting three thousand trees in Venezuela as soon as a site could be identified and local officials bribed.”
McEwan subtly points out the greed and selfishness that drives actions that would otherwise be considered noble (pun intended). ‘Solar’ isn’t a deep, thought-provoking or spectacular book. It is a simple book that touches on unusual subjects but manages to do so with clarity, leaving the reader amused, with an understanding of how foolish and shallow we all really are.
The Verdict: An entertaining book that makes for a good light read.