He might be one of the most celebrated authors of recent decades, a Man Booker prizewinner, a prolific and varied novelist. But on the Today programme, it was Ian McEwan’s sense of humour that dominated proceedings, chatting with (and clearly enjoying the company of) Sean O’Rourke.
That sense of humour is rampant throughout his new book, Nutshell, a novel told from the perspective of a “highly articulate foetus” and opening with the line, “Here I am, upside down, in a woman.”
“At first it seems oddly restrictive. My fellow, he can’t see anything. But he can hear. And also, he is well placed to witness the most intimate exchanges between his mother and his uncle. He is in bed with them, as it were. He has a rather frightening perspective on their lovemaking.”
The book is loosely based on the story of Hamlet and how Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, conducts a liaison with his uncle, Claudius (renamed Claude in McEwan’s new novel.)
And Sean was not shy about reading on air some of the more salacious details of that lovemaking as articulated by our hero, the foetus. It has to be said, there was certain glee in the presenter’s engagement with the book. And why not, when Ian McEwan gives you lines like this?
“Not everyone knows what it is to have your father’s rival’s penis inches from your nose. By this late stage they should be refraining on my behalf. Courtesy if not clinical judgement demands it. This turbulence would shake the wings of a Boeing.”
It’s called Nutshell, and I think we can safely say, it sounds like a cracking read.
