The magus of Fitzrovia

Matthew d'Ancona

04 April 2007

Although he is happy to be doing only ‘minimal’ publicity for On Chesil Beach, this is a big year for McEwan, as his acclaimed novel, Atonement (recently the subject of a contrived plagiarism row), reaches the silver screen, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. The novelist, who is executive producer on the movie, sings the praises of the young actress, Saoirse Ronan, who plays the lead character aged 13, and he seems unfazed at the prospect of his words once again being turned into multiplex fodder.

Which is not to say that every film of his books has turned out exactly as he had envisaged — Daniel Craig in Enduring Love being a prime example. ‘Once he took up the Bond job, I realised that, actually, that was always my disquiet, because he is quite a tough-looking guy, and he can’t disguise it even wearing specs. So he was never really that threatened [by his male stalker]. In the script, and then in the movie, the Daniel Craig character goes round to his pursuer and smashes his place with a baseball bat!’

McEwan has been admirably thoughtful in his response to the war on terror, and refused to endorse the kneejerk slogans of either side in the debate. Iraq, he says, ‘has clearly been a total disaster and one would wish that it had never happened’. But he remains convinced that there was a powerful humanitarian case for the removal of Saddam, which needed to be backed up by serious plans for reconstruction.

‘I desperately wanted it to succeed, and this is where I parted company with those who would rather that Iraq was reduced to a pile of burnt toast than to see George Bush succeed. I thought that was just parochial and cynical. I didn’t like to see murderous Zarkawi supporters slaughtering Muslims at prayer, or in market places, and be hailed by sections of the Left as liberators, freedom-fighters or even insurgents. The silence of the mosques here bothers me when another 80 people are killed.’

He remains a man of the Left, but inquiringly so, constantly testing assumptions and orthodoxies. As a longstanding environmentalist, he watches David Cameron with keen interest. ‘I will judge him by what he does. Obviously riding round on a bicycle is not going to be it. And I bought one of those wind turbines and I sent it back, it was complete nonsense. You cannot generate any useful energy from a £1,500 thing from B&Q.’ As for Blair, he thinks the final audit will be kinder once the bitterness of Iraq has subsided.

I admit that Ian McEwan is a hero of mine: a man of letters and liberty, sceptical, decent and free. As we part company outside the restaurant, the stone of London looking its best in the early spring light, he recalls Bellow’s line that a man could be happy living on Charlotte Street. He looks pretty happy to me.