To be honest, I was in two minds as to whether or not I ought to give Nutshell a read. I mean, I love Ian McEwan’s novels – he’s an absolute master when it comes to manipulating the reader’s expectations. But I just had this feeling that this was one literary conceit too far. Hamlet retold from the perspective of an unborn child? Please.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so mistaken about a book before. This is such a masterpiece in terms of the way McEwan turns his source material on its head and also because of the dark simmering wit which runs through the entire novel. Our foetus soliloquizes – because I guess the unborn are natural soliloquists – on the impending betrayal of his father, on his mother issues and on the nature of the world he’s about to be born into with all the verve of an accomplished raconteur. And he’s also something of a wine connoisseur – his mother Trudy is drinking for two – a uterine philosopher and ultimately, like his father, a poet. But this isn’t just one long Shakespearesque monologue. The story also works perfectly as a thriller, and it leaves you guessing right up to the end how on earth McEwan will translate the bloody, corpse strewn finale of Hamlet into a contemporary tale of marital betrayal. Take it from me, it’s worth waiting for.
After reading Nutshell, I decided it was time to revisit Hamlet itself. There’s a great podcast discussing all aspects of the play from the BBC radio series In Our Time here:
Kate Cudahy 