Conservative

I have been ignoring the whole spat around whether Ian McEwan plagarized a nurse's account of her work in London during World War II -- a 1977 memoir by Lucilla Andrews, "No Time for Romance" -- even though it is normally the kind of thing I jump all over. I think the main reason I'm not jumping on it is that I think McEwan is a terrific writer and I thought "Atonement" was great. Knowing that he lifted phrases or passages from Andrews' book doesn't ruin his novel for me. Jack Shafer, in that Slate piece, suggests that McEwan is getting a pass because he's already a big shot. Shafer means that in an uncomplimentary way, but my feeling is, well, yeah. Barry Bonds is getting a pass on steroids for the same reason. Call him what you will, but it sure is fun to see those home runs fly out of the yard.

My friend Badger disagrees fervently. To her, the right and ability of women to speak for themselves is practically a life-or-death issue. Read her entry about the affair; it's more passionate and pointed than anything else you'll find, and has none of the cynicism that characterizes most treatments.

Coincidentally, the Guardian (U.K.) published an odd piece by a Muslim writer alleging the existence of a
group of "Blitcon" or British literary neoconservative writers, among whom he includes McEwan, Martin Amis, and Salman Rushdie. I don't like the latter two very much, though I think Amis is much the worse, and that since 2001 has become a sort of crackpot like Robert Heinlein or Harlan Ellison. As for Rushdie, I just can't get into his books, but I think he has generally shown a lot more courage and class than the writer, one Ziauddin Sardar, gives him credit for.

But to understand more about why Sardar lumped McEwan in with these other two, I read another of McEwan's books. Not "Saturday," the one he cites, but "Amsterdam"*, and here I see more of what Sardar means, perhaps more than Sardar himself intended. In "Saturday" McEwan is indeed conservative in the book's identification with high culture and its contempt for low, and while separating indulgences in sex and drugs from any moral or political stance -- a very British stance -- it is rooted in a rather conventional sense of morality about fairness, hubris, and humanity. What seems particularly conservative about this to me is the certainty expressed by the author in the values that the characters either hold or do not uphold in the course of the book. Liberals are rarely certain; conservatives and radicals always are. McEwan is also conservative in his use of language and style. He writes good, clean sentences and paragraphs, doesn't try any tricks -- certainly unlike the other two cited.

I guess I ought to read "Saturday" to see traces of the same "conservatism" I found in "Amsterdam," though I don't find what he says about "Saturday" very convincing. (This blogger really goes at Sardar, at length and with vigor.)

One more thing about "Amsterdam" -- I also admired the book's economy. I read it in two sittings, but this is mainly because the whole thing is simply enormously compact, and I found this quality quite admirable. I wish every 193-page novel had this much good writing and tight plotting; most short books seem short to me because the writer didn't have much to say; most long books seem too long to me because the writer couldn't decide what he wanted to say.

* The reviewer is no relation to me.