"In his latest novel, Ian McEwan imagines a future world after a century's worth of disasters. The good news in "What We Can Know" is that humanity still exists, which McEwan calls "nuanced optimism." He and David Remnick discuss the tradition of the big-themed social novel, which has gone out of literary fashion-"rather too many novels," McEwan theorizes, hide "their poor prose behind a character.""
"But is the realist novel, Remnick wonders, "up to the job" of describing today's digital life? It remains "our best instrument of understanding who we are, of representing the flow of thought and feeling, and of representing the fine print of what happens between individuals," McEwan responds. "We have not yet found a compelling replacement." And yet he does not care to moralize: "the pursuit has also got to be of pleasure.""
A recent novel imagines a future world emerging after a century of disasters while preserving human existence and characterizes that endurance as "nuanced optimism." The conversation examines the decline of big-themed social novels and suggests many such works mask poor prose behind characters. The realist novel is defended as uniquely capable of representing the flow of thought and feeling and the fine print of interactions between individuals. No compelling replacement for the realist form has been identified. The literary pursuit is emphasized as also seeking pleasure rather than moralizing, and these ideas appear in public-program and podcast formats.
Read at The New Yorker
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