Scala Radio Book Club: Lessons by Ian McEwan
A powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man’s lifetime
Last updated 15th Sep 2022
In the Scala Radio Book Club on Thursday 15th September, Mark Forrest chatted to award-winning novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan, on his brand-new novel Lessons.
When the world was still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain had closed, young Roland Baines’s life was turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother’s protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracted piano teacher, Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chornobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.
From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means – music, literature, friends, sex, politics and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?
Epic, mesmerising and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times – a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man’s lifetime.
Mark began the interview asking what inspired Ian to take on this project.
‘I've always been interested in character, and I thought, perhaps the most interesting way to explore them would be to study them over a whole lifetime,’ said Ian. ‘So, I knew I was going to be in for a long haul. I then decided that the scheme of this would be world events, but it would also have my own life through entirely fictional events. This is something I've done with characters before, I've always had the invention plus the memory, plus the shared reality. But this time I really wanted to settle in. I'd done a lot of travelling that year and I really wanted to be at home, so I said to my wife in 2020, “I really just want to stay at home and work”. Of course, be careful what you wish for! So this was a very luxurious opportunity to totally immerse myself.’
Mark said, ‘Much of Rowland's life is drawn from your own life. What made you want to dig deeper into your own story?’
‘I've reached this age, I'm in my mid-70s, and it’s time for the long backward glance. What made it distinct from my previous writing or to a biography, was just the possibility of using all the techniques of fiction, to bring it to life. So, yeah, it was an interesting exercise, I made discoveries along the way about my own life.’
Ian McEwan has written numerous screenplays of adaptations of his novels including The Good Son in 1993, starring Macaulay Culkin, and The Children Act in 2017 which starred Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci.
Mark was interested to know more about Ian’s work in the film industry.
‘I really got involved in movies just because it's irresistible. I mean, it’s just wonderful to work with other people. There's always a buzz about a film set. It’s marvellous with all the expertise that comes rolling in, it's a thrill. But you know, work on a film, you get marvellous reviews, and 10 days later, it’s gone. Whereas novels, I know they're on a smaller scale, but they seem to have a life.’
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