What We Can Know

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Like actors, writers can be versatile and traverse the multiverse of genre and form but at the same time they are people with strengthened talents in specific areas. While some actors are usually cast as the girl next door, or the leading man of action, authors are the same with some banking on their ability to create thrilling suspense as others primarily work within the confines of the quest narrative.

Ian McEwan is an author who specialises in dissecting and magnifying the human complexities of his characters, which I think is what makes his books compelling, popular, and perfect for film adaptations. Having only read two of his novels previously I can’t call myself a fan, but I can appreciate his craft and admire his talent for creating compelling and confronting character-driven narratives. I have just closed the cover on his latest book, What We Can Know, and while I don’t think it is a book for me, I certainly was intrigued by it.

Tom Metcalfe, a scholar at the University of the South Downs, spends his adult life poring over the archives of early 21^st century literature, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life in, what he deems, the Golden Age. His prime obsession: a legendary poem by Francis Blundy read aloud during a dinner party in 2014, never published and never heard from again. Over the years the poem has become a great myth and symbol of what has been lost, but when Tom discovers a clue that may lead to the poem’s resurrection, hope of finding this lost masterpiece is kindled. However, the clue takes Tom on a journey of terrible discoveries about a world and people he thought he knew so intimately.

What We Can Know primarily explores the idea, as well as the dangers, of ‘Golden Age thinking’ mixed with that adage of ‘you should never meet your heroes’. Set in a future where the physical world has taken on new shapes thanks to climate change, war, and other human-related follies, it is divided into two parts told by separate narrators. Part One is narrated by Tom Metcalfe and it chronicles both the research and journey to find the lost poem, with the famous ‘Second Immortal Dinner’ pieced together from journal entries and emails, as well as the intimate relationship that Tom has with Francis Blundy, his wife Vivien, and the other figures of his research. Part Two takes us back in time with an intimate journal entry from Vivien Blundy that tells the true story of that dinner, the poem, and what it meant.

McEwan is one of the most intimate writers that I have come across. While events that are dramatic by nature do appear in his novels, they are made more traumatic by their being character-driven and then internally analysed by those characters. The physical events are nothing compared to the emotional scrutiny and dissection that they are subjected to afterwards. What We Can Know chronicles epic journeys of self-analysis, emotional paralysis, metamorphosis, and destruction. Written plainly but with enough adverbs and adjectives that do an impressive amount of heavy lifting, it’s an ingeniously deceptive story that looks romantic, poetic, and exciting on the surface but is dark, confronting, and nightmarish underneath. An olive in a dish of chocolate-coated almonds, a seasoned doughnut where tyrannical cinnamon has overthrown the sugar.

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It's complex, intensely voyeuristic, confronting, and rather difficult to talk about, as it is so provocative and churns up such a tsunami of thoughts that it’s impossible to sort through the wreckage. Fans of McEwan will be delighted, and dabblers will find an appreciation for the insane talent he has for putting the turbulent and terrible nature of humans into words.

Author: Ian McEwan, 2025

Published: Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Vintage; Penguin Random House UK, 2025