What We Can Know

De: Ian McEwan

Narrado por: David Rintoul, Rachel Bavidge

From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Atonement and Saturday, a genre-bending new novel full of secrets and surprises; an immersive exploration, across time and history, of what can ever be truly known.

2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery.

2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, ‘A Corona for Vivian’. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

“A philosophically charged tour de force by one of the best living novelists in English.”—Kirkus (starred review)

©2025 Ian McEwan (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Second half makes up for the first and more

Not sure if it was the male reader in the first half that spoiled it, or if the failure was purposeful misdirection and superficial storyline. BUT, the second half more than makes up for the endless pursuit of a missing poem, which sounded underwhelming, not brilliant. By the end, McEwan had me spellbound and genuflecting before his genius again, as with Atonement. Stick with it and you shall be rewarded. Favorite part: When sentence adverbs are weaponized against the pompous poet.

A great smart funny book

Some smart futuristic sci-fi and some great observant things about couples and especially about literary lions. As always with McEwan a great pleasure to read. Nicely read as well. Highly recommended.

Great writing, and a slow-burning plot

A very fun read, with lively and poignant prose, three-dimensional characters, some perceptive social commentary about the blind-spots prevalent in our current era, and a clever set-up and twist. What seems like an almost plot-free story in the first half is revealed to be not-what-it-seems in the second half. Both readers are excellent. “Hopefully” you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

I should have known the ending would save the book

A bit hard to get into, but knowing this author’s books, I pushed on and yes, the ending made the use worth it. Not nearly as good as “Atonement” but a worthwhile read. The story of marriages especially Vivian’s marriages. It’s skid a good look at the harsh reality of handling a partner with dementia.

A simply beautiful and haunting novel

Typically, I much prefer non-fiction to fiction, but I prefer this wonderful novel to nearly any non-fiction book I have completed in the last five years. It is extraordinarily vivid, clever, poignant, beautiful, mysterious, and real. The narrators do a great job with their roles, and my imagination was awash with curiosity about the places and events they described. Bravo to the author and bravo to the narrators of this fine and important novel..

I should have read this on Kindle

I almost gave up on this book. The narrator for most of the book had a stuffy professorial tone which made the book sound like an article in a refereed journal. The storyline kept circling and I would think I had somehow lost my place, but no, it was just another perspective on the same events. I read Amazon reviews which encouraged the reader to hang on, it gets better, and it did. Toward the end, we got a new narrator with more energy and a writing style which was less ponderous. It was worth waiting for, barely. I highly recommend that you read this book, do not listen to it

Utterly compelling

Loved this book. A story unlike any other, with a twist 2/3 of the way through that cast a different light on everything that had come before - thus proving the title. One of my favorites of this year.

McEwan Does It Again

I have been reading Ian McEwan since the 1970s and I always look forward to a new work by him. "Atonement" is my favorite McEwan novel and I think it is his masterpiece. "What We Can Know" is not far behind. At first, I was not impressed. I thought he had churned out a simple post-apocalypse story of societal and environmental disaster. But McEwan does not write simple stories and soon his brilliance came through. No writer can juggle timelines as well as he does. The plot and characters of a current timeline mesh seamlessly and masterfully with those of tale set in the early 22nd century. The result is an entertaining and intelligent commentary on how we discover and understand the past. And a very good listening experience! I do not think that this work is a great as "Atonement". But it, too, shows that McEwan is a virtuoso of intricate plotting. I hope he has more novels to come.

Dissatisfaction of the reader at the author’s broken promise

I listen to 25 books or more a year. I am an English teacher. I have loved this author’s previous works.

This book felt like asking the reader to trust a lot, do a lot of work, hold out for the epic ending. But then it did absolutely nothing deliver.

The biggest disappointment was the absence of cultivation of relationship between readers and characters.

Excellent layered story

I think reading this book instead of listening to it would have been better since the story is a bit complicated to follow initially. I ended up re-listening to several of the earlier chapters to get a better footing.

Anyway, it's a well-written. very interesting story with twists and turns that are unexpected! Great read!