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Solar

by Ian McEwan, Susanna Basso (Translator)

3.17 of 5 stars 3.17 · rating details · 10,322 ratings · 1,715 reviews

Michael Beard è un fisico teorico, il piú importante del Regno Unito, il successore di Einstein, la star della scienza temuta dai colleghi e ricercata dai media, è il Premio Nobel che con le sue scoperte ha svelato l’intimo legame tra luce e materia. Ma sarebbe piú corretto dire che Michael Beard era tutto ciò. Quei giorni sono passati e il cinquantenne scienziato ormai ve...more

Hardcover, 339 pages

Published November 9th 2010 by Einaudi (first published January 1st 2010)

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Jun 25, 2012 Manny rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Ian McEwan addicts

Shelves: parody-homage, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, science-fiction

The novel is completed. He has posted the bulky typescript to his publisher - old-fashioned, he prefers this unnecessary gesture to the casual economy of e-mailing a PDF - and now he is free of the tormented inner voice telling him to reword, rejig, rewrite, rethink.

He knows it is not as good as his earlier books, which sometimes feel as though they were written by a near stranger, by a person he only half-remembers being. He has poured some of his confusion and disappointment into the novel's...more The novel is completed. He has posted the bulky typescript to his publisher - old-fashioned, he prefers this unnecessary gesture to the casual economy of e-mailing a PDF - and now he is free of the tormented inner voice telling him to reword, rejig, rewrite, rethink.

He knows it is not as good as his earlier books, which sometimes feel as though they were written by a near stranger, by a person he only half-remembers being. He has poured some of his confusion and disappointment into the novel's central character, along with other self-loathings: his treacherous body, his increasingly unreliable memory, the stream of women who - God knows why - want to sleep with an aging, still famous novelist, and to whose insistent demands he occasionally acquiesces. Against his better judgement, he has taken a side-swipe at his own activities in trying to slow the inevitability of climate change, cruelly satirizing the concerned group of like-minded writers who sometimes appear with him on late-night TV programs that few people watch. He wonders if anybody will recognize himself, but considers it improbable; he has moved around the cards thoroughly enough that no one will spot the lady.

He tries not to think about the book's many shortcomings. The passages which laziness and failing imagination have made him haphazardly borrow from his own and other people's writing: an episode from Enduring Love, with the focus slightly changed and Milton replacing Keats; the polar bear theme from that Norwegian novel he read a few years ago; a whole scene from Douglas Adams. Even his timid editor reacted to that last one, and with bad grace he has inserted an explanatory passage that puts him in the clear. Oddly, the thing he feels most distressed about is the letter from his physicist friend, who has faithfully read every line and located a few errors. "Rest mass, rather than resting mass? And surely you mean Ricci tensor rather than Ricci scalar?" Ten minutes on Google show he's right, but it's too much trouble to call the publisher at this stage.

The worst part, he thinks as he pours himself another glass of Macallan, is that it's good enough. He has accumulated an army of loyal fans, and they won't desert him at this late hour. There is plenty of his trademark prose, even if he sometimes lapses into telling rather than showing for pages at a time. The opening is strong and will suck people in. He has cleverly rearranged the timeline to create the necessary dramatic tension, as the plot moves towards a climax as mechanical as that in the only explicit sex scene. It will attract a few positive reviews; who knows, some of them may even be sincere. Above all, he knows it's a page-turner.

But he still feels disgusted with his technical competence, and he has marked that in one of the more bitterly self-referential passages. He re-reads it, and feels an obscure satisfaction. Maybe a few other readers will also be amused for a moment.

He took the bag in both hands and pulled its neck apart, discharging a clammy fragrance of frying fat and vinegar. It was an artful laboratory simulation of the corner fish and chip shop, an enactment of fond memories and desire and nationhood. That flag was a considered choice. He lifted clear a single crisp between forefinger and thumb, replaced the bag on the table, and sat back. He was a man to take his pleasures seriously. The trick was to set the fragment on the centre of the tongue and, after a moment's spreading sensation, push the potato up hard to shatter against the roof of the mouth. His theory was that the rigid irregular surface caused tiny abrasions in the soft flesh into which salt and chemicals poured, creating a mild and distinct pleasure-pain...

The salty residue from the first round gave him the impression that he was bleeding from the gums. He slumped back in his seat, opened his mouth and repeated the experiment, although this time he kept his eyes open. Inevitably, the second crisp was less piquant, less surprising, less penetrating than the first, and it was this shortfall, this sensual disappointment, that prompted the need, familar to drug addicts, to increase the dose.

He pours a third glass.(less)

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Feb 03, 2010 brian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ian mcewan hates you, dear reader.
have no illusions.
the guy flings more shit and pukes more bile in solar than g.g. allin ever dared dream.

check it: mcewan dazzles in select passages, but the sum ain't always more than its parts -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing. those perfect books with clearly defined themes, succinct, streamlined… yuk. you can have 'em. we like the meandering messes, shot to shit with all the baggage. but at the end of the slop… we've gotta feel something, it's gotta...more

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Aug 31, 2010 Jessica rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who won't drink martin amis neat; swingers

So I imagine young novelists are a promiscuous bunch. Writers play around and flirt with all manner of novels: date one genre for a few months before finding it oppressive.... move in too quickly with a voice that turns out to be all wrong for them.... have one-night stands with forms that are way too experimental. And I'm sure it's great fun for awhile, but it's not what they're ultimately after. No novelist wants to play the field forever! And some do find that special novel early, while for o...more So I imagine young novelists are a promiscuous bunch. Writers play around and flirt with all manner of novels: date one genre for a few months before finding it oppressive.... move in too quickly with a voice that turns out to be all wrong for them.... have one-night stands with forms that are way too experimental. And I'm sure it's great fun for awhile, but it's not what they're ultimately after. No novelist wants to play the field forever! And some do find that special novel early, while for others it takes a lot longer time. Some never do find it, and remain lifelong bachelors, which eventually does become a bit tragic, a guy in his forties chatting up ironic twists on noir that are way too young for him... but I'm not talking about them, the ones still out tom-catting around. I'm thinking about novelists who did find the One.

It's the match they've been searching for, they settle down and buy a house. The novelist and his novel are a symbiotic unit. They socialize with other couples in the cul-de-sac, their kids all play together. The novelists belong to the same club, and their novels are close. When the novelists take the train in together, they ask after each other's novel, with whom they're familiar old friends.

And maybe it goes a little beyond that. As happy as each novelist is with his novel, after some time he can't help noticing how well the other novelist's novel has kept itself up. (Maybe it's all those pilates classes? There's something about the other novelist's novel's thick red hair and super-meta twist endings....) As the years go by the other novelist's novel starts looking.... well, sorry, but novel. Because while there's nothing like coming home to one's own novel each night, the truth must be told that there is nothing quite like coming home to one's own novel each night.... and it could also be the truth that these novelists and their respective novels are in a bit of a rut, and haven't slept together in months. You know how it is.

All this endless babble (anyone still there?) is to say, that I finally figured out what went wrong with fiction this summer: Ian McEwan and Martin Amis went to a key party. They swapped novels, and the results -- while perhaps an invigorating experience for each middle-aged novelist himself -- were far from successful in this reader's eyes.

Full disclosure: I'm only halfway through Solar right now, and am on the fence about whether I should keep reading. (Any opinions on that?) I did manage to finish The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis's take on the McEwanesque themes of a bygone era and erotic longings, but I'm finding this one even less fun. See, youthful sex in an 1960s Italian castle would've been great if McEwan were writing it. But Amis isn't lyrical. Worse, though: McEwan isn't funny.

Michael Beard, the Nobel-prize winning physicist of Solar, is a classic Amis antihero, but with a lot of melted ice. That is, John Self of Money and Richard Tull of The Information are revolting losers who are driven into the ground by their appetites and too horrifically flawed to be real. But McEwan can't pull off the biting, stinging nausea that's Amis's so-bad-it's-good trademark. He isn't funny -- not to me, anyway -- and he just can't go gonzo. This book has slapstick moments, what I suppose was meant to be satire, and plenty of scenes that should have been ludicrous. But the volume's never up high enough, and it's all tempered by that patented lovely-sentenced restraint. The rather bloodless result is something that is not great the way I expect McEwan to be great (to be fair, I've only read a couple of his books), and certainly doesn't meet the searing demands of the topic he's chosen. Martin Amis should be writing about climate change! His take on human greed, sloth, and blind grabbing depravity is uniquely suited to this topic. McEwan's is not. McEwan should be writing stuff like the scene in this book that describes landing at Heathrow, but he shouldn't be writing a Martin Amis novel (he also shouldn't be writing a Richard Powers novel, but that's another rant).

And this really isn't the place to expand on this, but to be fair, the hollow, ineffective, and almost comically amateurish ending of The Pregnant Widow might be something McEwan would've handled brilliantly. Your friend Ian's rendition of "Once in a Lifetime" is inimitable, Martin! So sit down and watch, and don't try it yourself.

Enough of an experiment, you married that novel for a reason. Now go home to her, boys, and tell her you love her.(less)

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Apr 23, 2011 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: blinded-me-with-science, modern-lit

The main character in Solar can’t control his appetites. He eats like Jabba the Hut at a casino buffet, drinks like an alcoholic fish, and chases women every chance he gets. He’s also an unorganized slob who would rather just travel or stay somewhere else rather than clean up his own living space. On top of being greedy, opportunistic, selfish and lazy, he has no regard for the future. He can rationalize any potential warning signs of health issues or unpleasant business he’d rather not deal wit...more The main character in Solar can’t control his appetites. He eats like Jabba the Hut at a casino buffet, drinks like an alcoholic fish, and chases women every chance he gets. He’s also an unorganized slob who would rather just travel or stay somewhere else rather than clean up his own living space. On top of being greedy, opportunistic, selfish and lazy, he has no regard for the future. He can rationalize any potential warning signs of health issues or unpleasant business he’d rather not deal with and just keep living exactly the way he always has.

Sound like any species you know?

Michael Beard is an English physicist who once won a Nobel Prize and has been coasting off that accomplishment ever since. Rather than do any more work in physics, he’s content to give lectures and take a series of figurehead jobs. He’s also been married five times and has never been faithful to any of them, but wife #5, Patrice, has turned the tables by having an open affair with a workman doing repairs on their house.

Naturally, the self-absorbed Beard wants what he can’t have and becomes obsessed with winning Patrice’s love again. He’s also taken a job as the titular head of an English think tank working on alternative energy sources and stopping global warming. Beard believes in the science of climate change, but he figures it’ll be somebody else’s problem after he’s dead so he’s really only interested in the paycheck. A zealous young researcher is driving him nuts by wanting to work on solar energy instead of the worthless wind turbine Beard has committed the institute to building.

A freak accident puts Beard in a position to claim credit for groundbreaking research and just maybe invent a whole new energy industry and save the world. If he can put aside his greed and need for instant gratification long enough to make it work.

Clever, Mr. McEwan. Very clever. Using a brilliant but lazy man who knows full well that he’s courting disaster with his lifestyle and his actions, but is just too weak willed to do anything about it as both a potential savior and symbolic destroyer of the world was a nice piece of work.
(less)

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May 23, 2012 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pearl-ruled

Rating: two grudging stars of five (p81)

In the middle of a paragraph, a thunderbolt struck me: I don't like Ian MxEwan. I didn't like Atonement...I thought the damned kid shoulda been stoned...I didn't like Saturday...and I do NOT like this tedious tale of a credit-grabbing bore of a has-been.

So that's that. Like David Lodge, I shall leave the McEwanizing to the Brits and their fellow travelers. I myownself will be hornswoggled if I EVER consent to open another of his books.

Rating: 4* of five

The...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Mike by: Brian gave an anti-recommendation

I'm still wiggling on the fence between a hug or an enthusiastic wet kiss. Loved passages and some few hundred of McEwan's sentences, appreciated its whole-hearted embrace of its central cad, smitten by its over-arching conceit (see below), but felt slightly let down by the way that conceit constrains the working of plot so that the novel, by Act Three, chugs less energetically toward its pre-destined conclusion.

But that conceit--whoa. So let's say you're horrifed by the threat of climate chang...more I'm still wiggling on the fence between a hug or an enthusiastic wet kiss. Loved passages and some few hundred of McEwan's sentences, appreciated its whole-hearted embrace of its central cad, smitten by its over-arching conceit (see below), but felt slightly let down by the way that conceit constrains the working of plot so that the novel, by Act Three, chugs less energetically toward its pre-destined conclusion.

But that conceit--whoa. So let's say you're horrifed by the threat of climate change, a determined rationalist yet also a novelist peculiarly attentive to the decadent vice of human passions. All this astounding and terrifying science, captured evocatively and passionately by so much great nonfiction, yet the fuckwitted mainstream narrative remains pundit-bound, holding debates on the deck of the Titanic about whether you could really be certain that was an iceberg, and damn I'm not feeling wet so let's make fun of the chicken-littles, eh? Yet how strange to imagine that--fact seemingly without sway--"it was art in its highest forms, poetry, sculpture, dance, abstract music, conceptual art, that would lift climate change as a subject, gild it, palpate it, reveal all the horror and lost beauty and awesome threat, and inspire the public to take thought, take action, or demand it of others." McEwan's protagonist Michael Beard, a Nobel-prize-winning priapic prat with even more delusions about his own motivations than unchecked appetites, sits through an Arctic seminar, the lone scientist among a slew of artists, "in silent wonder. Idealism was so alien to his nature. . . ."

Ah, ah, ah--perfect. Idealistic art, lofty tragedies, sweeping sombre atonal work meant to shame the already shame-prone crowd into further paroxysms of worry and fear. So what's McEwan do? He gives voice to that dismissal, and tacks against the prevailing winds, in one of Beard's speeches: "How do we slow down and stop while sustaining our civilization and continuing to bring millions out of poverty? Not by being virtuous, not by going to the bottle bank and turning down the thermostat and buying a smaller car. . . . This matter has to move beyond virtue. Virtue is too passive, too narrow. Virtue can motivate individuals, but for groups, societies, a whole civilization, it's a weak force."

Beard is here preaching self-interest to a group (posse? murder?) of industrial capitalists, looking to prime the fiscal pump for a hot new green-tech venture, and there's something deeply ironic here and throughout the novel: McEwan's most intelligent claims and criticisms regarding how we approach (or fail to approach) climate change come in a voice of delusional arrogance, of windy self-importance, of crass avaricious need--his Beard for his argument is repellent, a petri dish for vice both bacterial and grand in scope, and wonderfully exaggeratedly so.

I think I just talked myself into that wet kiss. The novel has its flaws, but ambition isn't lacking, and it is relentlessly funny in that casually vicious British style. I think it's damned interesting to pitch an argument about global warming and human self-destruction using an individual racing toward his own immolation. And lest this seem all bleak and good-for-you in a not-really-fun-for-you way, it is full of laughs, a nasty farce full of some amazingly precise comic acrobatics.

So... Brian... did this convince you at all?

(Note: I find it interesting that Kim Stanley Robinson, in his trilogy about climate change, also took a comic-melodramatic stance, turning a more realist and more humanist eye on the subject, yet working the same comic vein--hints of farce and foolishness.)(less)

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Jun 06, 2011 Mal rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was reading in bed last night--I was a little more than half-way through--and it hit me: it is taking way too long to read this thing. Why? Not because it's a big book, or particularly difficult to understand, but because it is so boring. I dread opening it each day so I put it off. I read anything else. I closed it and tossed it aside. I'm done. I'll go find a new one tomorrow at the library.

It's really disappointing too, because when I read the premise, it sounded great! But McEwan spends s...more

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May 14, 2010 Cynthia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2010

A Nobel winning physicist is approaching the descending side of his life. Michael Beard’s had five wives with each marriage leaving a bigger pile of emotional junk in its wake. He can’t or won’t grow up. He just stays in motion hoping it will all sort itself out. It doesn’t. It gets worse. By the end of the book there are sweltering piles of personal and professional cacao threatening to fall on him.

In classic McEwen style there is a pivot incident that changes or enhances the trajectory of Bear...more

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Apr 19, 2010 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010, hideously-vile-protagonists

Nobel Laureate in Physics Michael Beard is a truly revolting piece of work: a slave to his appetites, whose progress through the novel is just one orgiastic frenzy of wenching, gourmandizing self-indulgence because, after all, curbing his sybaritic excess would just be too .... inconvenient. If you think it's a stroke of genius by Ian McEwan to use this troglodyte as a heavy-handed symbol of the kind of behavior that's causing global warming, then good for you. Let me know if you still feel that...more Nobel Laureate in Physics Michael Beard is a truly revolting piece of work: a slave to his appetites, whose progress through the novel is just one orgiastic frenzy of wenching, gourmandizing self-indulgence because, after all, curbing his sybaritic excess would just be too .... inconvenient. If you think it's a stroke of genius by Ian McEwan to use this troglodyte as a heavy-handed symbol of the kind of behavior that's causing global warming, then good for you. Let me know if you still feel that way after 300 pages spent with your nose forced into every appalling detail of Beard's ghastly descent. Personally, it felt like torment to me.

Don't get me wrong. McEwan's got the writing chops. There are whole paragraphs that are hilarious, or exquisitely written, or both. But my guess is that when you turn the page that begins the final section, you'll just wish the whole damned thing was over already.

I was really pissed off that McEwan pulls a Don Giovanni at the end, denying the reader the emotional catharsis of describing the gory details of Beard's downfall.

Two other aspects that bothered me:

Though McEwan has obviously done his homework to the extent of crafting sections about physics that are entirely plausible, I'm not sure to what end. It all seems a little pointless.

The notion that Beard is some kind of irresistible babe magnet is just too ludicrous to swallow. He's a pig. I sincerely doubt that Nobel prize is going to overcome his swinishness.

This book is another example where McEwan's talent seems to have been mischanneled. This is an intermittently amusing, but ultimately repulsive story which showcases McEwan's cleverness, but seems empty at its core.

ADDENDUM: When I think about it, this book was never going to work for me, as I detest books where the reader gets stuck in the mind of a particularly obnoxious character. I should probably develop some kind of brief coding for reviews of books like this, as I know other readers are not necessarily bothered as much by loathsome protagonists as I am.(less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Kernos rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ecofiction, fiction-ordinary

I was disappointed and surprised with this novel. I was disappointed since I expected much more from McEwan's prose and because this novel spent so much time on Beard's love life and gluttony, which bored me. It surprised me as the science and the problems of a scientist's career peaking early were done so well by someone with McEwan's apparent background. This was the 1st of his books I've read, but was familiar with his reputation.

The book has 2 threads—anthropomorphic climate change and Bear...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Ellie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2012-individual-challenge, literary, british

It's been well-documented that Michael Beard, the protagonist of Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, is one of McEwan's more unlikable characters. But then I think that McEwan generally likes the unlikable-I find Briony from Atonement close to unbearable, completely so after she's grown. I can hardly think of a character of his that I actually like.

Despite this, I like McEwan very much. His writing is near pitch-perfect. And there's something freeing in seeing the seedier side of humanity at the center...more It's been well-documented that Michael Beard, the protagonist of Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, is one of McEwan's more unlikable characters. But then I think that McEwan generally likes the unlikable-I find Briony from Atonement close to unbearable, completely so after she's grown. I can hardly think of a character of his that I actually like.

Despite this, I like McEwan very much. His writing is near pitch-perfect. And there's something freeing in seeing the seedier side of humanity at the center of his stories as they-we-are the center of their-our-lives. His characters are flawed in the direction of barely salvageable. They're not excitingly "dark", just selfish and self-serving in the banal of ways, although this sometimes leads to devastating consequences.

Beard may be the apotheosis of this type of character. Not quite "perfectly" bad, not evil, but unbearably self-indulgent, with a record of past brilliance which he is ready to dine off the rest of his life until a series of circumstances-and actions as well, though he might barely acknowledge it-give him an unearned fresh lease on fame and scientific prestige.

As an English major, I read of Beard's dismissal of the arts- "From the moment he won Maisie, he was intellectually free"-and wondered, what if in his campaign of seduction in which he studied Milton to win the girl, he'd discovered another world? What if it had opened him up instead of confirming his smugness? But then, he'd hardly be the self-satisfied character he is and this book would not exist.

Solar has flashes of poetry as well as consistently fine writing; in the inevitable airport (a location I have to admit to loving as both liminal and mundane), Beard muses, In an airport, of course, "He was thinking of that time [right after college], the way one does on long journeys when rootlessness and boredom, lack of sleep or routine can summon from out of nowhere random stretches of the past, make them as real as a haunting. And he was almost there now, here, in the dining room of the Randolph, in suit and tie and the white shirt he had ineptly ironed himself."

Despite all this, and understanding so many of the reviews I've read, I deeply enjoyed this book. I even (for reasons unclear to me) came to care about Beard. At least a little.(less)

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Jul 05, 2010 DJ TweakyClean rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I admit that I probably should not have picked this book up after reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I was halfway through this novel, when all I could think about was how much I wanted to start "The Girl Who Played With Fire." The issue ultimately though, I realized when I finished this was that, where McEwan has created characters in the past for whom I find to be reprehensible (Atonement) or just plain idiotic (Amsterdam), I still find myself compelled and even emotionally connected i...more

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May 27, 2011 Francisco rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novela, ingleses

Descacharrante, cínica, divertidísima... y sin embargo triste novela, en la que, entre bromas y veras, se nos muestran los amargos momentos que vive una persona en declive permanente, pese a un aparente triunfo profesional.
El marco económico, social y político muestra de manera descarnada nuestra situación actual, en la que las distintas tendencias intentan imponerse a las demás sin limitaciones éticas ni morales, primando los intereses particulares disfrazados de ideologías populistas (incluido...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Rosa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As�� es como me ha dejado este libro. No es que quede inconcluso, es que te quedas con la sensaci��n de que faltan 10 o 12 p��ginas m��s que rematen la historia. Aunque reconozco que es incluso mejor as��, que escribirlas habr��a resultado demasiado obvio. Por lo dem��s, me ha parecido un libro genial. El personaje principal, un premio Nobel de f��sica, me ha recordado a los protagonistas de Amsterdam, extraordinarios, brillantes genios, con ��xito inigualable en lo profesional pero con montones...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Marc Maitland added it · review of another edition

This is Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It is by far the funniest of his writings, and some of the scenes he vividly paints literally had me laughing out aloud. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing any of these miniature masterpieces, but they combine an acute awareness of human nature, double-entrendre and irony that have long been the hallmarks of authors such as Michael Frayn.

The “hero” of the novel is an inherently unlikeable person, rich in the unattractive traits of a certain type of self-i...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Charlotte added it · review of another edition

Very disappointing. I am a huge McEwan fan but like many others, agree this is probably one of the worst books he's written. For a start, it's taken me months of reading, putting down and forgetting about, and reading again to actually finish the book. I never felt entirely engaged from the start, unlike many of my favourites of his such as Enduring Love and Saturday. The plot itself is one major fault: dealing with the themes of solar energy and global warming and making these issues interestin...more

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May 03, 2011 Project rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: global, warming, solar, power, nobel, prize, arctic, new, mexico, london, relationships

I may just be slow, but it took a little while for the pattern to emerge here.[return][return]Michael Beard had one good idea a long time ago and he's been living off it ever since. That one good idea might have some practical application to the problem of how we are going to power our civilisation once all the oil runs out, and there is the basis for the story.[return][return]The pattern is that Beard makes all the wrong decisions. Every single time he has to make a choice, he turns a situation...more

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Jun 16, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: july-aug-2010

Critics expressed decidedly mixed opinions about McEwan's latest work--and perhaps it's no surprise that he was better-reviewed on his UK home front. While most critics on either side of the pond praised the author's intelligent plot (especially his command of science) and ample storytelling gifts, the majority agreed that Solar is not his best novel to date. A few commented that the several narrative strands, which take place over more than a decade, do not cohere; Beard's jaunt to the North Po...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Terri Vlasak rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is not my favorite McEwan. The main character is unsavory Nobel laureate, Michael Beard - a physicist. He is withdrawn and cares little about himself or others. He is parasitic - attaching himself to the lives and theories of others, feeding on them, then dissociating himself and moving on. I found Michael Beard to be highly unsympathetic. The most interesting ideas in the book to me were the discussions about 'matter' and the universe between science and humanities. This is a tragic tale,...more

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May 07, 2013 Mary Soderstrom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

High Temperatures for May: Time to Read a Funny Novel about Climate Change

The weather as I write this is exceptional, spookily so. Ian McEwean's novel Solar is excellent reading for such a time. The hero (and I use the term advisedly) is a physicist Michael Beard who for complicated reasons becomes deeply involved in reseaching alternate energy sources, specifically solar power.

Beard is fat, grasping, unpleasant, and very funny. Creating him was a way for McEwan to talk about a depressingly seri...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Derek Davis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This would get at least four stars on the quality of writing (as usual, with McEwan), but it's a terribly constructed mishmash of a novel. For starters, the all-too-central character, Michael Beard, is a Nobel laureate in physics, and thus quite intelligent, but without a single other redeeming quality: an overweight, seedy womanizer, a plagiarizer, a bad friend, a borderline alcoholic, he's also lazy and self-deceiving. And he just gets worse as it all goes along, never showing the slightest hi...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I knew of Ian McEwan but had never read anything by him; I grabbed this when I was desperate for something to listen to in the car. I was blown away by the quality of the prose. If I were an English teacher there are countless passages I would use to illustrate the heights of descriptive writing. The story was incredibly well researched, the plot unpredictable, the main character by turns venerable, pathetic, comic, despicable. I especially appreciated the editor's interview with the author incl...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Solar is the story of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Michael Beard, whose best work is long behind him and whose personal life is shambolic. Then a freak accident becomes a catalyst for change, providing Beard with an opportunity to revive his flagging reputation and save the planet through an innovative scheme to exploit solar energy.
The novel operates successfully on a number of levels. There's the hapless, deeply flawed, utterly selfish anti-hero, driven by appetites he is unable to...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Paolo Gianoglio rated it 2 of 5 stars

Un McEwan che non ho riconosciuto, forse eccessivamente caricato di grottesco, descrive una parabola in declino che è chiara fin dalla prima riga. Non so se questo libro non mi è piaciuto in sè, o se mi ha disturbato perchè il protagonista incarna una serie di difetti da cui vorremmo dirci immuni. Una sorta di apatia verso tutto e tutti, con l'unico obiettivo di salvaguardare i nostri privilegi, lo status quo, la carriera, i soldi, il successo. E insieme a questo una assoluta inconsapevolezza di...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Jillwilson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“He belonged to that class of men, vaguely unprepossessing, often bald, short, fat, clever -- who were unaccountably attractive to certain beautiful women.” OK – you automatically want to read more – correct. This is the opening sentence of ‘Solar’ – it describes the main character, Dr Michael Beard – who never becomes more appealing. In fact, as the novel progresses, he becomes fatter, unhealthier and more venal. He can’t control his appetites (for sex, food, alcohol, status). The corruption of...more “He belonged to that class of men, vaguely unprepossessing, often bald, short, fat, clever -- who were unaccountably attractive to certain beautiful women.” OK – you automatically want to read more – correct. This is the opening sentence of ‘Solar’ – it describes the main character, Dr Michael Beard – who never becomes more appealing. In fact, as the novel progresses, he becomes fatter, unhealthier and more venal. He can’t control his appetites (for sex, food, alcohol, status). The corruption of his body possibly works as a blunt metaphor for the degradation of our planet as climate change hots up (so to speak.

This is an interesting but only partially successful novel. McEwan was invited on an excursion to the Arctic Circle with a bunch of artists and scientists; this experience formed part of the stimulus for the plot. “Well, I was interested in climate change and had been for a long time, and I have another interest in life which is hiking in remote places, and this was the Norwegian Arctic, and Spitsbergen was particularly beautiful…We were living for a week on a boat that was frozen into a fjord. The best kind of boat, really, one you could walk off onto the ice. And that was an extraordinary week, because we were very passionate about our discussions and there was a lot of humour in the air. We were very much struck by the paradox that to get into this beautiful place not only did we have to fly there, but ride these noisy, stinking, oil-burning snowmobiles into this pristine wilderness. And that gave us some pause for thought. So these kinds of things were very much in the air. But meanwhile next door was our kit room where we kept all our snowmobile suits and helmets and goggles and as the week progressed this rather cramped, ill-lit space got more and more chaotic, and I was rather struck, in a humorous way at this sort of divergence between our passionate talk and the state of this boot room, as I came to call it, which was so much larger than the earth that we were trying to straighten out at that point.” (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/p...) The boot room is an ironic symbol of the disarray we are in as a world; we cannot take steps to address the large problems we face because of individual short-term self interest.

The topic of climate change has the potential to be scary and dreary – McEwan runs a kind of mild satire through the narrative in order to engage. For example, on arrival at the arctic study tour: “on arrival, as he passed through the mess room on his way to find his quarters, the first thing he had seen, propped in a corner, was an acoustic guitar, surely awaiting its strummer and a tyrannous sing-along”. Tim Flannery in The Monthly wrote: "Where McEwan excels is in his descriptions of all the tiny physical changes that accompany our reactions and emotions. From the pain involved in having one’s penis frozen to a zipper to the sensation of eating a salt-and-vinegar crisp, his descriptions are sublime." It reminded me of the writing of David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury and Ben Elton – who all like working at the expense of a very flawed main character.

At one level it is about the politics of the scientific world – take this (almost one-sentence) description of Beard’s career: “He held an honorary university post in Geneva and did no teaching there, lent his name, his title, Professor Beard, Nobel laureate, to letterheads, to institutes, signed up to international “initiatives,” sat on a royal commission on science funding, spoke on the radio in layman’s terms about Einstein or photons or quantum mechanics, helped out with grant applications, was a consultant editor on three scholarly journals, wrote peer reviews and references, took an interest in the gossip, the politics, of science, the positioning, the special pleading, the terrifying nationalism, the tweaking of colossal sums out of ignorant ministers and bureaucrats for one more particle accelerator or rented instrument space on a new satellite, appeared at giant conventions in the United States–eleven thousand physicists in one place!–listened to postdocs explain their research, gave with minimal variation the same series of lectures on the calculations underpinning the Beard-Einstein Conflation, which had brought him his prize, awarded prizes and medals himself, accepted honorary degrees, and gave after-dinner speeches and eulogies for retiring or about-to-be cremated colleagues. In an inward, specialized world he was, courtesy of Stockholm, a celebrity, and he coasted from year to year, vaguely weary of himself, bereft of alternatives. All the excitement and unpredictability was in the private life. Perhaps that was enough; perhaps he had achieved all he could during one brilliant summer in his youth.”

At another level, it is about the issue of climate change; he presents a variety of perspectives in the novel whilst firmly endorsing the position that humans are impacting on the climate in deleterious ways. “Beard's argument about the correct response to climate change, an argument that McEwan has also made, is that we have no choice but to hope that technological ingenuity, enlightened self-interest and the market's allocation of resources can get us off the hook; personal virtue counts for little.”

I think the novel is also about notions of authority – I don’t agree with everything that Anis Shivani writes in this article in The Huffington Post but I think there’s something in what he claims about McEwen’s view of authority: “The book is actually about truth versus lies in all endeavors lending themselves to authoritative pronouncements, and there has been no greater recent authority in Western civilization than the church of the scientists. They often leave us feeling bamboozled, with their jargon and inaccessibility, their utter disdain for us non-scientific mortals who can't tell Schrodinger's equation from Schroedinger's cat. The assault McEwan is mounting on all forms of authority based on exclusivist expertise makes it an important book, something Paul Goodman or Ivan Ilich would have loved in the sixties. It is a very countercultural book, and shows McEwan at his most instinctual, most playful, perhaps his joyful silliest yet."

As I said, it didn’t quite work for me. Most of the characters are quite one-dimensional and I just got sick of being with Beard all the time. I couldn’t believe that someone so charmless might have been married five times and at the age of 70, to have at least two women chasing after him. It means that you don’t take him too seriously, and therefore the seriousness of the real plot is diminished. Ben Elton might have been better at injecting some charm into him. But you have to give McEwan some credit for taking on a thankless topic.
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Jan 08, 2013 Dave marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: calibre, fiction

SUMMARY: The literary event of the summer: a new novel from Ian McEwan, as surprising as it is masterful. Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in his professional life, Michael’s personal life is another matter entirely. His fi...more SUMMARY: The literary event of the summer: a new novel from Ian McEwan, as surprising as it is masterful. Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in his professional life, Michael’s personal life is another matter entirely. His fifth marriage is crumbling under the weight of his infidelities. But this time the tables are turned: His wife is having an affair, and Michael realizes he is still in love with her. When Michael’s personal and professional lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways, an opportunity presents itself in the guise of an invitation to travel to New Mexico. Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man’s ambitions and self-deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty, and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers. SUMMARY: The literary event of the summer: a new novel from Ian McEwan, as surprising as it is masterful. Michael Beard is a Nobel prize–winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in his professional life, Michael’s personal life is another matter entirely. His fifth marriage is crumbling under the weight of his infidelities. But this time the tables are turned: His wife is having an affair, and Michael realizes he is still in love with her. When Michael’s personal and professional lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways, an opportunity presents itself in the guise of an invitation to travel to New Mexico. Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man’s ambitions and self-deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty, and stylish new work from one of the world’s great writers.(less)

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Dec 19, 2012 Hezza H rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction

I think my first Goodreads review has to be defending this old favourite, which is absolutely in my top three Ian McEwan books and also my top twenty books ever. You're not interested in me, but when someone who reads a significant amount has a book among their all-time favourites that book must have some redeeming qualities, I find.

Solar is the story of Michael Beard. Michael Beard has been characterised among reviewers and Ian McEwan fans as "obnoxious", and they say this ruins the book, becau...more I think my first Goodreads review has to be defending this old favourite, which is absolutely in my top three Ian McEwan books and also my top twenty books ever. You're not interested in me, but when someone who reads a significant amount has a book among their all-time favourites that book must have some redeeming qualities, I find.

Solar is the story of Michael Beard. Michael Beard has been characterised among reviewers and Ian McEwan fans as "obnoxious", and they say this ruins the book, because we spend all of the relatively long novel in his company. I must respectfully disagree, though I haven't read anyone who agrees with me. I'll come right out and say it - Solar is a long book which is an analogy for global warming. But you knew that. And Michael Beard reflects this, in a way many seem to have wantonly ignored. He is not obnoxious - he is entirely uncaring, disconnected from the human experience. He crushes things and people in his path without remorse, it is true, but he also does it without vindictiveness. Michael Beard is a perfect reflection of the benign indifference of the global warming phenomenon and reviewers who term Michael obnoxious - would I dare say they are a perfect reflection of those who choose to ignore reality in favour of ease?

Solar is a fabulous book. Some call it slow: you may find it slow. I did not, at any point. Clearly, I stand alone. Nonetheless, there are moments of brilliance in Solar, and there are moments of slightly lesser brilliance. But I didn't find any paragraphs which didn't give me the old chill of a good Ian McEwan, from his A Child in Time and Black Dogs phase. And the ending - I will avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say (or will it suffice? I can only hope) that critics calling it abrupt and unsatisfying are. Well. Misguided. I found it one of the most poignant endings I've recently experienced. I sat on my bed and cried. And that's a wonderful thing, especially for something so scientific like global warming to bring such intense human emotion out of me.

Solar is well worth a read, because for some people it will just be another book and for some it will be extraordinary. And if you, like me, are one of those who find it extraordinary, you don't want to miss out on the feeling it will bring you.

It was a cold night in the middle of November and I had just finished the book I read after Solar. It was a good book, and yet at its moment of climax I remember distinctly thinking "I miss Michael Beard". Solar haunted me then, and it still does now, because it resonates, and that is all I ask for.(less)

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Nov 04, 2012 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ian McEwan’s latest novel Solar reminded me a lot of Richler’s Barney’s Version: a crotchety old man who eats too much, cheats on his wives, cheats his way through his professional life, is exceptionally self-deluding, dirty and grumpy. I loved Barney, I wanted him to figure things out, to be okay (thus the brilliance of the novel). I didn’t care one way or another whether Michael Beard had things work out for him in the end, and in the end he really did have a hell of a lot to be worried about:...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Mil Norman-risch rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Funny? No. The central conceit (Michael Beard = us/ indulgence has led us to this point where nothing can save us, where we do not even recognize our own gross appetites, and where anyone who bears responsibility and public shaming is enabled rather than brought to justice, and where intelligence has never been yoked to visionary thinking) is only tiresome page after page. There is no role for the reader to play. To condemn Michael Beard? Yes, we condemn him; he's gross. But we've done that by p...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Maya Lang rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Truly have no idea how to rate this book. It's not my favorite Ian McEwan, but I have a huge amount of respect for it--partly for the absurd amount of research involved (into physics! and not in a superficial, passing gloss, but in an involved, detailed, headache-inducing way) and for the risks he takes, including with the foray into comedy. Michiko Kakutani of the Times was put off by the unsavory character of Michael Beard, but I loved this about the book--I love that we are stuck in the head...more

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About Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan was born on 21 June 1948 in Aldershot, England. He studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970. He received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia.

McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last...more

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Quotes from Solar

“Being late was a special kind of modern suffering, with blended elements of rising tension, self-blame, self-pity, misanthropy, and a yearning for what could not be had outside theoretical physics: time reversal.” — 4 people liked it

“He saw it for the first time: on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered e-mails, and in the hovel he called home there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, and unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply and lovers he had not owned up to.” — 2 people liked it

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