‘Solar’ – Katya’s thoughts
I had very mixed feelings about ‘Solar’. I really enjoyed the actual storyline, however found the descriptions of physics, string theory, solar energy etc pretty trying – is it wrong to say I skim-read some bits? The other problem was that I found Beard to be a really, really unpleasant character. I like a flawed hero as much as the next person, but really, there was very little to like about him. He was selfish, appeared to have no morals or ethical codes and was mean to the people around him. And it was made pretty clear that he was physically unappealing as well. So how did he get all these women, I wonder?
I felt a tinge of misogyny from Ian McEwan – that although Beard was almost completely unpleasant on every level, this large number of women just wanted to love him and look after him and didn’t mind if they got nothing in return except thoughtless airport gifts, and if he had affairs with other women, just so long as he came back home to them. I know this wasn’t the case with Patrice, but she was really the only female character who stood up to him and showed a bit of backbone; however in the scene towards the end between Beard and Tarpin it appeared that she had been stringing along all 3 men she had been involved with. Certainly the situation with Melissa and Darlene was a bit of an everyman fantasy, two women on the go, separate countries, sex on tap, happy to have him despite less than ideal circumstances.
And – this contains a spoiler, so if you are intending to read this book or haven’t finished it yet you may want to skip this paragraph – in the final line of the book were we supposed to think that he had finally found love via his daughter, or was he having a massive heart attack? Given what he’d just had for lunch I suspect the latter.
So in summary I’m not so sure how I feel about the book overall. I THINK I liked it more than I didn’t, but I really struggled to get past how unpleasant Beard was – that scene when he ate NINE salmon sandwiches before doing his speech was pretty vile, among others. I look forward to hearing what others think.
It is absolutely not wrong to have skim-read the detailed physics bits. In fact, it was the inclusion of so much of the research that really impeded my enjoyment of the novel. Perhaps if it had been a subject that I wasn’t so utterly clueless about, I wouldn’t have noticed it as much, but it smacked of “I’ve done all this research, damned if I’m going to leave any of it out”.
I don’t know whether I would go so far as to say that I enjoyed the book, but I did enjoy certain “episodes” and the overall comic tone. Beard’s trip to the Arctic was great fun – the “farewell” for his trip with the misunderstanding over how long it was for and how adventurous it would be was hilarious – as was his visit to Tarpin and the charade he played out at home, pretending he had a lover to inflame his wife’s jealousy. I guess it was the heaviness of the research that didn’t blend well with the more humourous tone.
Beard certainly was an intensely unlikeable character and, whilst I agree with the fact that the women in the book might have been tinged by misogyny, for my money the rather acid tone of the book painted all characters equally unfavourably. Perhaps misanthropy is necessary for apocalyptic comedy? I read somewhere that, with his gluttony and excess, Beard was a metaphor for humanity’s excesses that have taken their toll on the planet. I’m glad I didn’t pick that up during reading, as that reading wouldn’t have enhanced my experience of the book.
The final third of the book was particularly unsatisfactory for me. The decline started just before Part Three, with the appearance of the Unwitting Thief urban legend. When it happened to Beard, it prompted some Jerry Seinfeld-esque “McEwan!” fist shaking and when it was explained later by the folklorist it just felt a bit pointless. Okay, perhaps I’m pissed off that I was suckered, but… it seemed cheap to try to sucker the reader in this way. The entire section dealing with Beard’s first marriage was something I had read before. I’m not saying I experienced deja vu – I had actually read it somewhere before. It’s bugging me that I can’t remember where – and I’m sure it had been edited so that there was no sense of “flashback” – but because I had read it, it was annoying reading it again (actually, I think it works as a short story, but didn’t add anything to this narrative). As for the Tarpin confrontation, it made no sense to me that Beard, having found out that Tarpin didn’t suspect him of any involvement in Aldous’ death, rebuffed his request for a job. Although I guess he was true to his own pigheadedness.
I liked this more than Saturday, which is to say that I finished it, but I’d have to say that it’s my least favourite McEwan novel (of those I’ve read completely).
Here’s the transcript from when ‘First Tuesdy Book Club’ discussed ‘Solar’: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s2819640.htm