Solar by Ian McEwan
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Capturing every nuance of absurdity, McEwan records pratfalls that = upend his=20 hero during the eventful decade after his return from the Arctic =97 = such as being=20 led away in handcuffs after jokily lobbing a soft tomato back at a = female=20 demonstrator who flung it to convey her outrage at his (non-existent) = evil=20 eugenic views. Comic high spots range from an expertly built-up = escalation of=20 happenings involving a bag of salt and vinegar crisps on a train from = Heathrow=20 to cameos of pests accosting Beard before he gives a speech (=93a = soft-spoken man=20 with a stutter wanted to tell him about his son=92s physics exam, and = then a tall=20 man with a stoop and a jutting ginger beard and large accusing eyes set = eerily=20 far apart introduced himself=85=94).
Often a source of comedy, Beard simultaneously emerges as a podgy = emblem of=20 instincts that have brought our species to its present hazardous pass.=20 Voraciously self-indulgent, he doesn=92t only womanise on a prodigal = scale. During=20 the novel he puts on more than three stone as he ingests loads of = provender:=20 kilos of salted nuts, fistfuls of =93beef-glazed, toasted corn-type=94 = snacks,=20 =93cubes of belly pork mounted on a hill-fort of buttered rice=94, = Everests of ice=20 cream, mounds of deep-fried appetisers, pancakes and meats. A waddling = time bomb=20 of high cholesterol, he embodies the feckless negligence and greed = endangering=20 not only him but the planet whose resources are being heedlessly = devoured.
Within this flabby, multi-chinned, loose-wattled organism, though, a=20 first-rate brain still functions. And recounting Beard=92s efforts to = use it to=20 fight global warming, about which he has become convinced, the book = opens up=20 another dimension of McEwan=92s genius as a novelist. Easily the = brightest=20 fictional mind we have, he has done the formidable research necessary to = bring=20 credibility not only to Beard=92s schemes to tap solar energy through = artificial=20 photosynthesis but to the novel=92s depiction of the world of physics = and=20 physicists in which he moves. Quantum field theory is made elegantly = accessible.=20 When characters mention M-theory, Nambu Lie 3-algebra and coincident = M2-branes,=20 you feel pretty sure McEwan knows what they are talking about.
Arty condescension towards scientists keeps being skewered. As a = physics=20 student at Oxford =93attempting to come to terms with some of the = hardest things=20 ever thought=94, Beard is patronised by the English literature = undergraduate who=20 becomes his first wife for studying a =93non-subject=94. In the Arctic, = he loses his=20 cool when a novelist vapours vacuously on about how Heisenberg=92s = uncertainty=20 principle proves morality is relative. A savagely funny scene has a=20 postmodernist spouting piffle to a line-up of politely embarrassed = scientists=20 about genes being =93entexted=94.
Milton=92s great hymn to light in Paradise Lost once proved handy to = Beard as a=20 seduction aid. And sizzling lucidity distinguishes this enormously = entertaining=20 novel about rationality and unreason. Right up to its final moment =97 = teasingly=20 poised between the heart-warming and heart-stopping as nemesis arrives = for Beard=20 =97 scarcely a page fails to dazzle with some wittily caught perception = about=20 contemporary life. Blazing with imaginative and intellectual energy, = Solar is a=20 stellar performance.
Solar by Ian McEwan
Cape =A318.99 pp285
Available at the Sunday Times Bookshop price of =A317.09 = (including p&p)=20 on 0845 271 2135
Ian McEwan and Craig Raine will be discussing their new novels at = the=20 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on Friday, March 26, at 6pm. To = book, vist=20 www.oxfordliteraryfestival.com
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