Nutshell by Ian McEwan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

" "We're safely on the ground floor, among the busy morning hum of flies that cruise the hallway's garbage. To them the untied plastic bags rise like shining residential towers with rooftop gardens. The flies go there to graze and vomit at their ease. Their general bloated laziness invokes a society of mellow recreation, communal purpose, mutual tolerance. This somnolent, non-chordate crew is at one with the world, it loves rich life in all its putrefaction. Whereas we're a lower form, fearful and in constant discord."

An audacious literary effort! Hamlet rewritten from the point of view of an eight-month-old foetus ready to come out of its maternal closet. Only a writer of the first rank would have a chance to make it all work. While Ian McEwan does not quite succeed in Nutshell (2016) I appreciate his trying. Better that than indulging the readers by offering them what they are used to read.

The Hamletian foetus narrates the story from his mother's womb. The mother, Trudy (wink, wink!) no longer loves her husband, John, a not-quite-successful poet whose publishing business is failing. Instead, Trudy is in a relationship with John's brother Claude (get it?), a boring simpleton who speaks in clichés and banalities but is more successful in business. Yet what he is most successful in are carnal couplings with Trudy: Claude seems to fulfill all her needs. The narrator, who despite his temporary enwombment has full awareness of the goings-on in the external world, has figured out that Trudy and Claude are planning some dreadful event that may harm his father.

Nutshell may be considered a sophisticated, erudite literary thriller; indeed, it is quite suspenseful as the events unfold, even if - and perhaps particularly if - the reader knows their Hamlet. Naturally, I like the novel for the language rather than for the story. As usual, Mr. McEwan delivers stellar, captivating prose, with occasional highly quotable pearls of wisdom, like the following extraordinarily insightful statement:

"Sex, I begin to understand, is its own mountain kingdom, secret and intact. In the valley below we know only rumors."

We find some bravura passages like the following bit about Danish (again, wink, wink!) takeaway food:

"Pickled herring, gherkin, a slice of lemon on pumpernickel bread. [...] Soon I'm whipped into alertness by a keen essence saltier than blood, by the tang of sea spray off the wide, open ocean where lonely herring shoals skim northwards through clean black icy waters."

One will also find lots of humor mostly grounded in sexual context:

"It bothers me that what she swallows will find its way to me as a nutrient, and make me just a little like him. Why else did cannibals avoid eating morons?"

So all would be nice and spiffy, creeping up toward a four-star rating, if not for what I believe is a major inconsistency in the literary device used by the author. Mr. McEwan presents the whole setup on the first few pages of the novel and while I find the main premise inspired and hilarious I question the author's need to explain how the foetus knows so much about the world outside of the womb. The awkward explanations sound contrived. Once we suspend belief to enjoy a fantastic story we do not need attempts to make it partially plausible. I have no problem with assuming that the foetus knows the history of the Western civilization so I do not need to be told that the foetus hearing the words spoken by other characters is not a physically impossible phenomenon. Or this about colors:

"I see the world as golden, even though the shade is no more than a name. I know it's along the scale near yellow, also just a word."

To sum up, the author himself spoils the audaciously original setup and the novel eventually disappoints. The prose is absolutely first class and the whole thing is fun to read yet Nutshell has not touched me in any way, unlike, say, On Chesil Beach or The Child in Time by the same author.

Three stars.

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