21623 - ams - Ian McEwan and Lessons

 'The Cockroach' by Ian McEwan borrows heavily from Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. The opening lines of the novel is a testimony to this - “That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.” Ian McEwan is also inspired by the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift when he compares politicians to cockroaches. It is a 'toxic metaphor' used to describe the British politics during the Brexit-era. Ian McEwan has been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize six times, winning it in 1998 for 'Amsterdam'. McEwan’s new novel, 'Lessons' was published on September 13, 2022. The story is told through the experiences of a single man, and it covers a lengthy human timeline from post-WWII to the pandemic. The book explores memories of love and scars of childhood trauma. The publisher Jonathan Cape describes 'Lessons' as "a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime". Ian McEwan denies that the book is autobiographical but says that he had 'raided bits of his own life'. He wrote it during the three lockdowns and the politics of the lockdown finds a place in the novel.