Solar by Ian McEwan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"She was an objectivist, in that she believed the world existed independently of the language that described it; she spoke in praise of reductionist analysis; she was an empiricist, and, by her own proud admission, an 'Enlightenment rationalist', which was [...] a tad regressive, if not hegemonic, after all."

Solar (2010) is the seventh book by Ian McEwan that I am reviewing on Goodreads and it might well be relegated to the seventh place in my personal ranking of the writer's works. I did read the book with some interest, finished reading not that long ago, but now I have to strain my memory to remember what the novel was all about. It felt like the author was doing an exercise in plot building: he collected the requisite components, assembled them into a complex enough story, but what resulted is just an empty structure that does not affect the reader in any particular way. Sort of like a literary equivalent of "elevator music," pleasant, inoffensive, listenable, yet devoid of any impact whatsoever.

The first part of the plot takes place in 2000. Michael Beard, a world-famous quantum physicist, is deeply unhappy: his marriage (fifth for him) to a much younger and beautiful woman is disintegrating. She discovered his infidelity and seems to enjoy it as a pretext to engage in her own extramarital affair. Dr. Beard is also bitter about turning 53 and not having been able to achieve anything important in his research since that youthful explosion of mathematical genius that yielded the Beard-Einstein Conflation theory. The theory brought him the Nobel Prize on which he has since been coasting: teaching, giving speeches, chairing various committees, and being a titular head of physics research centers.

One of his postdocs, totally devoted to environmental issues like the climate change, works on revolutionary ways of harnessing the solar energy. Dr. Beard is too busy with the marriage crisis and participation in a celebrity trip to the North Pole to help the young researcher with his work. Dramatic events that involve Dr. Beard and the postdoc happen when he comes back from the trip: the events set up the second part of the novel that takes place 2005. The third part takes us to the vicinity of Lordsburg, New Mexico, where a conference on solar energy is taking place and a demonstration of new technologies is under preparation.

In addition to the marital/sexual thread the plot also contains a criminal story as well as a legal thread that concerns the intellectual property rights. All these motifs are sort of cleverly superimposed on trendy topics like global warming and renewable sources of energy. I write "sort of cleverly" because I seemed to like the plot while reading the book but just a few days later I was finding it hollow and superficial: it was a short-lived reading pleasure.

I only remember a few scenes: the eating of crisps on a train and the consequent passages about attributing events that actually happened to "urban legends" - very funny in my opinion. I also remember - as predictable and thus not very funny - Dr. Beard's adventures with low temperatures during the North Pole trip. I also appreciate the author's fascination with the concept of "narrative," within the narrative of his novel (wow, how postmodern, insert a smiley). But even these goodies are not enough to recommend this overwrought, awkward, and ultimately empty novel. It would be good for a long train ride or maybe a flight to the North Pole. And then - for a coaster under the coffee mug.

Two stars.


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