Solar

By: Ian McEwan

Narrated by: Roger Allam, Ian McEwan

Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Universally acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest novelists, Ian McEwan is a Booker Prize-winning, best-selling literary master. He displays a fresh facet of his considerable talent in Solar, a satirical novel rife with blistering humor.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard is fast approaching 60, a mere shell of the academic titan he once was. While his fifth marriage falls apart, Michael suddenly finds himself with an unexpected opportunity to reinvigorate his career and possibly save humankind from the growing threat of global warming.

This audio includes an exclusive interview with the author.

©2010 Ian McEwan (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A comedy every bit as brilliant as its title might suggest....Blazing with imaginative and intellectual energy, Solar is a stellar performance." ( Sunday Times, London)

“A stunningly accomplished work, possibly [McEwan’s] best yet.” ( Financial Times)

What a disappointment

This is very slow moving book. It purports to be witty and humerus? However, the humor is juvenile and in most cases not very funny. I would recommend you save your money and buy another book.

A book of rare humor and intellegence

Don't let the nay-sayers turn you away from this book! It's marvelous! Probably my favorite of all McEwan's books. (I do have them all)

I was not bored for one moment. This is a 'laugh out loud' hilarious, wonderfully witty book! It's full of surprise twists and turns that will keep you wondering what could possibly happen next to this character.

The only thing wrong with the book is that it has to end.

McEwan Does It Again!

Solar is a hilarious, intellectual romp for our times. It's a satire that aims its shots in many directions: at the narrow worlds of academia and scientific research; at the New Age/hug-a-tree/love-can-save-the-world philosophy; at the idealism of the young and the cynicism of their elders; at the wheeling and dealing behind corporate American enterprise; at the inexplicable nature of love and its counterpart, lust.

Michael Beard, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, has been sitting on his laurels for years, working half-heartedly for a British energy center that sees wind energy as the future, spending more time mocking the "ponytails" (the young post-grad physicists who work under him) than developing new theories or resources. In his spare time, Beard has lumbered his way through five marriages and numerous affairs, and his penchant for alcohol, beef, pancakes, and crisps have added more weight to his physical profile than his professional one.

But then things start to happen--call them accidents or fate or coincidences, or just plain opportunities. And Michael Beard is there to pick up the pieces and use them to his best advantage.

I knew how dark McEwan could be, but I had no idea that he could be quite so funny. Several of the scenes, including the one on the Paddington train alluded to by others, had me actually laughing out loud.

I was delighted to find an interview of McEwan by his editor at the end. In it, he discussed his research process and the fact that he has already been approached by a number of physicists who claim they know upon whom he based the character of Beard (he claims it wawas his own creation, but that it's probably a "good thing" there are so many likely Beards out there rather than just one).

Solar is a smart, funny, and perceptive novel. Don't expect it to be another Atonement or On Chesil Beach; McEwan is attempting something entirely different here, and you will have to

Editor? Editor?

Sloooow moving story with descriptions so detailed that you forget what was being described. Who paid the professional reviewers to give this any positive comments?

Skip it - you'll be glad you did....

Stick with it; it's worth it!

I noticed that many of the readers who hated this book gave up on it a couple of hours into it. I was ready to do so at a certain point in the book when something horrific is implied to have happened to the main character. I was disgusted and offended, but then came to realize that this was part of McEwan's humor. Very male humor, I might add. I am so happy I stuck with the book. It is smart and at times absolutely hilarious! The main character is not exactly likeable, I agree, but that's not the point! McEwan gets into some current debates about science and that political rhetoric that uses science to support one side or the other. Some very astute observations here, and well told, both by McEwan and by his reader, whose deadpan style is perfect for the genre.

Droll English humor

I was waiting for an action packed Michael Connelly type novel but it was very slow paced. The main protagonist was one of the most despicable humans ever portrayed in literature and it was hard to get used to him as being representative of the dark side of academia. It took me the entire book to finally get the humor of the book and it was one of those books that I really liked in retrospect. Its a worthwhile read but a reader has to go into it with the right attitude: its a comedy with a message on climate change.

Often hilarious

Narrator does a great job with it, frequently laugh out loud funny. The protagonist is fairly despicable--you have to be willing to spend a lot of time with a raving egotist (but eventually everything catches up with him). McEwan can get bogged down in the science, which is the novel's main fault.

Reader spoils it

This book might be funny if read in a more understated way. It makes broad fun of a fairly despicable man and a wide range of things that probably deserve some deflating. However, the reader piles on, with every (and I mean every) sentence a degree of English upperclass sarcasm that removes any degree of fun from the humor. Like pinning an ugly cat to a wall and throwing snowballs at it...I couldn't watch, so I had to stop listening after a couple of hours. Does the reader think we can't get the point without being hit over the head? Buy the book...you'll probably enjoy it more.

Solar

The written version may have been better, but I seriously doubt it. An endless connection, or disconnection, of metaphors and painful detail about a very boring protagonist in a failed attempt at humor.

McEwan's masterful prose an illuminating sizzler

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
In USA? College degrees required to enjoy this read, hedge fund managers and those of an entrepreneurial bent should find revealing. Anyone booking academic lecture series, this is required reading. No, really. In UK? Everyone. Even footballer's wives (whllst getting nails done). Salman Rusdie probably sleeps with it under his pillow.

Who was your favorite character and why?
Patrice, now that I think of it, her of the red-lipped, scented Friday night departures. "Why" would be giving too much away. And McEwan wrote a memorable and alarmingly accurate Darlene, brief yet ripe and potent. Oh, rats. I have to say the Professor. He's so ... words fail. I really do refuse to "reveal" the plot as the reveal in this particular book is all. Fascinated, compelling, horrorfied, while laughing so hard my bike almost hurled off road.

Have you listened to any of Roger Allam and Ian McEwan ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No. Mr Allam and his mellow tones are new to me and gosh, I thought for the longest time the narrator was Michael Gambon! Dead ringer! Brilliant narration; spot on. My fellow 'murricans may be lost ("euw, he had this weird accent,,,") but the UK crowd will lap his narration up like double cream on rhubarb crumble. And quite right, too.

Who was the most memorable character of Solar and why?
Well, the Professor proves memorable in his ability to live a 100% selfish life unadulturated by concern, care, interest or compassion for either a single living being once they have served whatever purpose he has momentarily brought them into his life, or, our strife-ridden planet. The spotlight (I hesitate to say 'sunlight') is all on the Professor, so, shuddering slightly, I submit that he wins by default.

Any additional comments?
Not for the faint of literary heart nor anyone whose lips move whilst reading Danielle Steel. Yet for anyone who marvels at the intricacies and imaginative miracles wrought by masterful Ian McEwan's astonishing and witty pen. Er, keyboard. Descriptions, travels, narrations, observations, speeches, dialogue .... it's all there, the vast wealth of the English language in every single line and this delightful writer assists me to see it anew.