![]() ![]() An ethically knotty problem in Miranda’s past threatens to resurface, destablising the security that she and Charlie had hoped to find for themselves. ![]() The major complications are intensely moral, based on the most ancient literary form there is (the act of revenge). He’s one of several, both male and female, that have been expensively unleashed upon the world.Īt one point, Charlie is mistaken for his robotic companion, and the plot strands also interweave and mirror each other. ![]() Ian McEwan plays with us: a character should have purpose, but from where does that purpose derive? On a whim, and with an inheritance from his mother, Charlie purchases a top-of-the-range, remarkably lifelike android called, somewhat unsurprisingly, Adam. ![]() He’s bourgeois, with radical leanings, and an expert in electronics (which allows much subtle humour throughout), but has no real purpose in his life. Driverless cars, the internet, mobile phones: it’s all here, but it’s the 1980s.Ĭharlie might have stumbled in from a JG Ballard novel. Crucially, Alan Turing has survived, becoming the father of a new leap into the technological future. “Any part of it, or all of it, could be otherwise.” The Falklands War has been lost, and Tony Benn is a Jeremy Corbyn-like figure, adored at mass rallies. “The present is the frailest of improbable constructs,” muses Charlie, the narrator. The setting is a drab, divided England that has followed a slightly different path from ours but still subtly reflects our fractious land. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |