Ian McEwan: A ‘first time’ as awesome as Booker night
Ian McEwan on why human nature never changes
Congratulations on making the Man Booker shortlist. How does being shortlisted for ‘On Chesil Beach’ compare to your first Booker nomination in 1981?
Well, to be honest, the Booker Prize in 1981was not quite so grand as it is now. I remember going to the event with what turned out to be mumps, so I was relieved not to win (Salman Rushdie won that year with Midnight’s Children) - I just wanted to go home to bed. In those days literary fiction was not quite such a matter of consuming interest – the Booker Prize is partly responsible for that.
I’m delighted to be shortlisted for ‘On Chesil Beach’ – without question, it’s a great honour. The evening itself can be quite an ordeal for the writers. Writing is no more a competitive sport than reading is. I’ve often thought that the Booker Prize should be even more august, like the Nobel – do away with the shortlist, announce the winner and fiver other commended writers then have a celebratory feast.
On Chesil Beach captures the innocence of the early sixties which, these days, seems impossible to imagine. Do you feel that contemporary society has become completely desensitized by sex?
Society changes, of course, but I don’t think human nature does, however much we’re bombarded by sexual imagery. Even today young people can be vulnerable - that ‘first time’ can be as awesome as a Booker night!
There is some debate in the Man Booker forum as to whether Florence’s difficulties with sex were due to an abusive relationship. Was this plot left deliberately ambiguous so as not to over-ride the rest of the novel?
In earlier drafts it was much clearer and in subsequent drafts I made it less obvious. In the final draft it’s there as a shadowy fact for readers to make of it what they will. I didn’t want to be too deterministic about this. Many readers may miss it altogether, which is fine.
The class distinction between Edward and Florence has led to the novel being compared to D H Lawrence’s writing, one reviewer claiming that you have ‘outdone’ him. Has this comparison come as a surprise to you?
That does surprise me. I’m an admirer of Lawrence – but if he had written this novel Edward and Florence would have had sex at the water’s edge, down on the pebbles being lashed by a storm! On Chesil Beach is rather anti-Lawrentian.
The bookies have got you up for an ‘Oscar (for Atonement) and Man Booker double’? Is there one that is more important to you?
Atonement is not ‘mine’ in that respect so it would be impossible for me to win an Oscar for it, though I’d have liked to have won the Booker for it! If the movie wins an Oscar it will go to Joe Wright, Keira Knightly, Christopher Hampton etc for their roles in the adaptation. Obviously, it would mean more to me to win the Man Booker Prize for On Chesil Beach.
Have the film rights to ‘On Chesil Beach’ been sold/are there plans for a film?
There are discussions at the moment but nothing definite. It would be an interestingly difficult film to make – I don’t know yet how one would set about it.
You’re about to go to the States to lecture at Princeton and appear at the New Yorker Festival. Is the Man Booker Prize a big discussion point when you visit?
It has some impact now – but it didn’t used to. These days the prize seems to have penetrated the entire planet. In the States however they are far more interested in the winner than in the short list.
What would be your ‘Booker of Bookers’?
No doubt about it - Midnight’s Children would be my ‘Booker of Bookers’.
(Interview by Sophie Rochester)
