Your novel’s best subject is right in front of you

[Arnold]

One of my favourite writers is Ian McEwan. His characters are always totally believable. His strength is to take an everyday subject and use it to convey important concepts. A great example is On Chesil Beach, seemingly just about a just married couple on honeymoon on the English south coast in 1962. In passing, this novel provides Ian McEwan with the opportunity to show how society has changed. Yet, I was just a bit disappointed with his latest Novel, Solar.

The main figure in Solar is Michael Beard, a famous scientist who is working on solving the problem of global warming. There is practically no development in this person’s character. Right at the end of the novel we are dealing with the same person we started out with, still apparently without a conscience even though he has had his up and downs. Michael Beard isn’t a character who rings true. How can a man without any real passion for his subject go so far in science? It is very hard to figure out what motivates Michael Beard. Beard is a perfect parody of a scientist.

The other characters stand out even less. This could well be due to the fact that they are presented to us from the point of view of the very bland Michael.

The discussion of scientific matters in Solar is correct but rather tedious. It seems as if McEwan main aim was not to trip up on the science. This just detracts from what is normally McEwan’s strongest point: character development.

I have the suspicion that Solar was not as close to his heart compared to his other books. I felt the same when reading Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee as well as A week in December by Sebastian Faulks.

Three writers I very much admire and who went for a fashionable subject, however thoroughly researched, of respectively: climate change, animal rights and the financial world. Yet they didn’t produce their best work.

My premise is the best books are written by writers who stay true to themselves.

[Marja]

Dear Arnold,

Do you really think that a writer cannot produce a great novel on a subject with which he hasn’t got an intimate connection?

This would mean that there aren’t any excellent historic novels because the writer couldn’t have attended the events.

As a matter of fact it is interesting to note that almost all literature written in the Middle Ages which is still read today is of an historical nature.

You do mention that A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks is not close to his heart and yet he can deal with a different society, for example in Birdsong, which is set during the First World War. This is really a most beautifully written book.

[Peter]

Marja, I don’t think Birdsong is a good example of the point you are trying to make. Unless I am mistaken I have read that Birdsong tells the story of Sebastian Faulks’ own family.

[Arnold]

Dear Peter & Marja

I think that in order to write a good book, the subject has to be something which is very dear to you and this is also true for historical novels. I do not know for certain if Birdsong is about the family history of Sebastian Faulks but I found this passage:

Faulks was asked in a 2001 interview why he is so fixated on war and he noted,

‘... he is not, no more than many men of his age and upbringing. “It’s just what the 20th century did. I’m just a reporter”. As a six-year-old he was taught by a man “who had an arm tucked in here, and a gammy leg, and he’d been ripped apart by bullets”. Wherever he looked there were men scarred by war. “And my father was wounded three times, once in the head and twice in the arm” [his father, who died in 1998, was a trainee lawyer when he joined the army as an officer]. Faulks says the war made his father relaxed, un-ambitious – having survived the horror, he was content with family and friends, peace and a nice garden.’

Another example, also set during the First World War, is the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker. In this case too, there is a link with her family. It concerns her step-grandfather, who never wanted to talk about the bayonet wound he sustained during the First World War.

A historical novel therefore can certainly be written out of necessity. It is much harder to maintain that this is the case for most thrillers, fantasy and science fiction.

Well, actually it does happen for certain thrillers if they touch upon a deeper meaning. Story wise you could consider Engleby by Sebastian Faulks a thriller but it is never classified as such. This is because of the underlying theme about cynicism – even nihilism – and loneliness in our modern society. By the way, this novel is a textbook example of how you can empathise with an obnoxious main character.

What about science fiction? 1984 by George Orwell should be classified as science fiction because it was written during 1947 and 1948. It is a warning against totalitarian regimes. So this too has a deeper meaning.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is another novel that you could categorise under science fiction. It tells the story of people who are cloned to serve as organ donors but at the same time it makes profound observations about morality and science. It is a beautiful novel which I would not dare to call science fiction.

Just now, I can’t think of a good example of a fantasy book which offers a more subtle level of understanding. Maybe The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien comes closest. He was much interested in religion and mythology. I find that this work drags on. Reading about all these hobbits and elves becomes quite maddening. It is in fact quite a thin story and resembles a gripping children’s book.

To conclude: good literature conveys an extra layer of material related to the writer’s theme which reveals why the work simply had to be written. Hence, whatever the subject matter, it is no longer a historical novel, thriller or science fiction but just a literary novel. Still, fantasy remains a tricky genre.