"'The family division is rooted in the same ground as fiction..."

September 13, 2014 3:49 PM

Ian McEwan: the law versus religious belief. [The Guardian]

The conjoined twins who would die without medical intervention, a boy who refused blood transfusions on religious grounds…Ian McEwan on the stories from the family courts that inspired his latest novel.

Related: a review of Ian McEwan's latest novel, The Children Act.

posted by Fizz (9 comments total)

That's a really pointless article if you've read the book, which covers exactly the same cases (in greater or lesser detail) and has the same point about the private lives of the judges. Though I'd suggest just reading the article, which -- unlike the book -- doesn't include someone who lied about rape in order to get money for a Playstation.
posted by jeather at 4:48 PM on September 13, 2014

If it wasn't obvious, I didn't like the book. The article itself is actually quite interesting, and you should read it instead of wasting your time with the expanded novel version.
posted by jeather at 4:51 PM on September 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well jeather it seems that if the article is a better experience than the book, the article isn't pointless, no?
posted by localroger at 4:54 PM on September 13, 2014

If you've read the book, the article is just a summary version of it and it's pretty pointless. If you have not read the book (a course I recommend), then read the article instead, which is interesting in that it uses the correct number of words and women who lie about rape to cover the exact same territory.
posted by jeather at 4:58 PM on September 13, 2014

I'm about three chapters into the novel and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I've not read any Ian McEwan prior to this and I like his writing style. I have no problem with him using the novel form to explore a legal case.

You're obviously not a fan jeather, but I'm going to go ahead and finish the novel and see where it takes me. I'll share my thoughts in here when I finish. It's not a very long novel. Cheers.
posted by Fizz at 5:07 PM on September 13, 2014

Can't quite share his admiration of the judges, either in the article or the book. I know he recognises on an intellectual level that their godlike role is open to criticism and that they do sometimes get it terribly wrong, but he loves those judgements and the people who produced them a little more than I can manage.

He is, however, a consistently brilliant writer, one of the few whose stuff I would read automatically, confident that it was going to be really good - and that remains the case.
posted by Segundus at 8:46 PM on September 13, 2014

I'm sure McEwan will bring the same amount of impressive research that he brought to Amsterdam with its "oh you can get somebody euthanised just like that" plot.

I don't understand why McEwan (or Amis for that matter) is so highly respected: his novels are undemanding and middlebrow, his politics are horrible and reactionary (Saturday, oh my god) and he seems to get a pass on it all because he fits in so well with that London clique of eighties writers & critics that's still seems to dominate the British literary scene.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:43 AM on September 14, 2014 [5 favorites]

(Saturday, oh my god)

MW, I have always respected your submissions to this site. Now, I think I love you.

I was afraid to say this about the Blessed Ian because of the opprobrium it generated on the one occasion I did.

I loved McEwan's early work I was 20 (Amis can go fuck himself). I even enjoyed "The Innocent". But I hadn't read any recent stuff until I read "Saturday" a couple of years ago. If he was to come out and say, "Aha, fooled you all, I wrote that for a joke.", then that would be the only logical explanation for such an offensive bag of shite.

Don't tell anyone I said so, tho'
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 3:18 AM on September 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't understand why McEwan (or Amis for that matter) is so highly respected: his novels are undemanding and middlebrow, his politics are horrible and reactionary

So you do understand why.
posted by forgetful snow at 6:12 AM on September 14, 2014 [5 favorites]