I was traveling recently in London, and my chosen literary companion—a much-celebrated, high-concept novel—had let me down, so I went searching for a new one at a bookstore in Kensington.
There on the table was Ian McEwan's Nutshell. I loved McEwan's Saturday, but Nutshell was yet another high concept novel: the narrator is a fetus who overhears its mother plot the death of its father. Would this one stall out as well? Would the premise be too confining, too confusing, or run out of steam halfway through?
I took the leap and bought the book, and as early as the inscription (a quote from Hamlet, another child wrestling with mother plotting against father), I could tell McEwan was on his game. Within a few pages he positioned the ostensibly outrageous premise in a way that made its own bizarre sense and gave him the latitude to tell the story with complete freedom—other than the narrator being encased in a womb.
What followed was a delightful, if you can say that about a fetus overhearing its mother plot a murder, exploration of modern culture, ranging form biting commentary about an entitled, coddled generation to rhapsodies about French wine to insightful if resentful observations about certain sexual practices—all of this delivered with McEwan's beautiful command of language and a brisk plot.
I lucked out with Nutshell, and I invite anyone looking for a fun, intelligent read to pick it up.
