#BookReview ‘Nutshell’ by Ian McEwan #crime

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I can see Nutshell by Ian McEwan occupying many inches of column space this autumn. Where to start? You must have heard by now that this is the one about the foetus who overhears his mother Trudy and her lover, her brother-in-law Claude, planning to murder Trudy’s husband and father of the narrator. Ian McEwanIt is both ingenious and awkward. At one moment I would chuckle at the audacity of the unborn narrator and his take on life, the next I was hit by a brick wall – how would a foetus know that? He is an incredibly sophisticated, philosophical, well-educated foetus. I’m sure I missed loads of literary references. McEwan covers this off very early by saying his mother, Trudy, listens to Radio 4 documentaries by day and mind-improving podcasts by night. I know the reader is expected to suspend disbelief, as we do in the theatre, the fourth wall and all that; but in Nutshell the fourth wall is more a flimsy partition.
Is it too clever? Perhaps. But the author is Ian McEwan whose books I love, so I was prepared to indulge him. At the back of my mind all the way through was, in this foetus an unreliable narrator? After all, he is blind, can’t touch or smell. He doesn’t know everything, although he talks as if he can. He can hear and taste – primarily his mother’s imbibing of red wine. But his take on life is limited and he is not privy to the workings of Trudy’s mind.
For many it will be a Marmite book, a love/hate thing. For me, the narrator’s voice got more sophisticated and all-seeing as the story went on and it began to grate. I read on because I wanted to know who died in the end.

Try these reviews of other McEwan novels:-
MACHINES LIKE ME
THE CHILDREN ACT

Read the first paragraph of these McEwan books:-
ENDURING LOVE
THE CHILDREN ACT
THE CEMENT GARDEN

If you like this, try these:-
‘Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle
‘Butterfly on the Storm’ by Walter Lucius

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NUTSHELL by Ian McEwan via @Sandra Danby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2aR