Solar (novel)
Encyclopedia
Solar is a novel
by British
author Ian McEwan
, first published on 18 March 2010
by Jonathan Cape
, an imprint
of Random House
. It is a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate change
.
winning physicist
whose own life is chaotic and complicated. The novel takes the reader chronologically through three significant periods in Beard's life: 2000, 2005 and 2009, interspersed with some recollections of his student days in Oxford.
but has little faith in the project and sits primarily as a political mascot. He is unfaithful on his fifth wife, Patrice, just as he was to his previous four wives. Instead of recriminations and threats of leaving, Patrice embarks upon an affair with their builder. Beard decides he has found the perfect wife just as he is losing her, and falls into a deep depression. To counter this, he agrees on a trip to the Arctic
, in order to research climate change. He turns out to be the only scientist on an expedition dominated by artists. On his return home Beard learns that his wife has also been having an affair with his junior colleague Tom Aldous. During a tense encounter with Beard, Aldous dies in a freak accident, and Beard inherits his secret research into techniques for artificial photosynthesis. Beard frames Patrice's builder boyfriend Tarpin, who is jailed for Aldous's death.
, where he has acquired another girlfriend, Darlene, a waitress. Darlene wants to marry him, but he has a very comfortable set-up with Melissa and his three year old daughter, Catriona. All his problems culminate on the eve of the opening ceremony for his solar power plant. Tarpin is out of jail and turns up looking for work, Melissa flies to New Mexico with his daughter to try and win him over from Darlene, a patent lawyer arrives with proof that he stole his ideas from the now-dead Aldous, his doctor confirms the lesion on his hand is cancerous, his business partner abandons him to multi-million dollar debts, and then he learns that somebody (presumably Tarpin) has sabotaged his power plant by smashing the solar panels. In the final scene Beard gets an "unfamiliar, swelling sensation" in his heart which he interprets as love for his daughter, but may well be the onset of a heart attack.
Michael Beard's trip to the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen
is based on a 2005 trip McEwan made with a group of artists and scientists that included Antony Gormley
and Rachel Whiteread
. He said later of the trip:
, a British literary award for comic writing.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
author Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
, first published on 18 March 2010
2010 in literature
The year 2010 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February - The Wheeler Centre, Australia's "literary hub", officially opened.*April 3 - First release of the Apple iPad, electronic book reading device....
by Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
, an imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
of Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. It is a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
.
Plot summary
Michael Beard is an eminent, Nobel PrizeNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winning physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
whose own life is chaotic and complicated. The novel takes the reader chronologically through three significant periods in Beard's life: 2000, 2005 and 2009, interspersed with some recollections of his student days in Oxford.
2000
Beard heads a fictional research centre in the British town of ReadingReading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
but has little faith in the project and sits primarily as a political mascot. He is unfaithful on his fifth wife, Patrice, just as he was to his previous four wives. Instead of recriminations and threats of leaving, Patrice embarks upon an affair with their builder. Beard decides he has found the perfect wife just as he is losing her, and falls into a deep depression. To counter this, he agrees on a trip to the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
, in order to research climate change. He turns out to be the only scientist on an expedition dominated by artists. On his return home Beard learns that his wife has also been having an affair with his junior colleague Tom Aldous. During a tense encounter with Beard, Aldous dies in a freak accident, and Beard inherits his secret research into techniques for artificial photosynthesis. Beard frames Patrice's builder boyfriend Tarpin, who is jailed for Aldous's death.
2005
Despite a history of humiliating media coverage, Beard manages to build a reputation as a champion of solar energy, in the process passing Aldous's research off as his own. He has been fired from his job in Reading, but is working on plans for an artificial photosynthesis plant. Beard continues to put on weight and his gastronomic indulgence is described in regular detail. He has a doting girlfriend Melissa who is desperate for a child. Time is running out for her, and so, taking matters into her own hands, she becomes pregnant.2009
Beard is now fatter, and sixty-two years old. He is not in the best of health, and is worried about a suspicious-looking lesion on his wrist. His solar power plant is in the final stages of construction in Lordsburg, New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, where he has acquired another girlfriend, Darlene, a waitress. Darlene wants to marry him, but he has a very comfortable set-up with Melissa and his three year old daughter, Catriona. All his problems culminate on the eve of the opening ceremony for his solar power plant. Tarpin is out of jail and turns up looking for work, Melissa flies to New Mexico with his daughter to try and win him over from Darlene, a patent lawyer arrives with proof that he stole his ideas from the now-dead Aldous, his doctor confirms the lesion on his hand is cancerous, his business partner abandons him to multi-million dollar debts, and then he learns that somebody (presumably Tarpin) has sabotaged his power plant by smashing the solar panels. In the final scene Beard gets an "unfamiliar, swelling sensation" in his heart which he interprets as love for his daughter, but may well be the onset of a heart attack.
Background
The novel is primarily a work of fiction but draws heavily on references to real science and modern history.Michael Beard's trip to the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
is based on a 2005 trip McEwan made with a group of artists and scientists that included Antony Gormley
Antony Gormley
Antony Mark David Gormley OBE RA is a British sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site...
and Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
. He said later of the trip:
We spent our evenings discussing [climate change], talking about how the world needed fundamental changes of approach and culture, and at the same there was this growing chaos in the room next door – the boot room, where all our outdoor gear was stored – our snow mobile suits and so on. It was this disparity between the self-made disorder in our lives on the ship, and our aspirations, our ideals, that suggested that one approach to this subject was through a kind of forgiving humour.
Reception
In 2010 Solar was awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse PrizeBollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize is the UK's only literary award for comic literature. Established in 2000 and named in honour of P G Wodehouse, past winners include Paul Torday in 2007 with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Marina Lewycka with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian 2005 and...
, a British literary award for comic writing.
External links
- Review by RealClimateRealClimateRealClimate is a commentary site on climatology. The site's contributors are a group of climate scientists whose goal is to provide a quick response to developing stories and providing the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion is intended to be restricted to scientific...
- Review by Publishers WeeklyPublishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
- Audiobook review by Publishers WeeklyPublishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
- Review by The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- Review by The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Review by The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- Review by Time (magazine)Time (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...