Home > The Magazine > Features

Friday 5 September 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

The magus of Fitzrovia

Matthew d'Ancona

Wednesday, 4th April 2007

‘I didn’t decide [on the title] until the end, actually, and at that point on the computer I just called it “Seaside Novella” or something bland like that. Maybe I just called it “Short Novel”, I can’t remember. But inevitably, once I did call it that, I thought back that maybe it is a sort of resumption. I don’t think the novel would have made any sense if it had been set in a little hotel in the Midlands, or inland anywhere. It had to be on the sea.’

Much of the novel’s imagery — ‘the matter lay between them, as solid as a geographical feature’ — as well as its physical context is supplied by landscape. He calls the beach ‘a stage projected into the water’ where a terrible human drama is played out.

‘Landscapes are so powerful, I think, to people in love,’ he says. ‘To be in a landscape in love — I mean, the city obviously has its attractions, too, but there is something that I remember as thrilling to be in love in a beautiful place where all those pathetic fallacies really do reign.’

All who know the novelist attest to the personal happiness and peace that he has enjoyed since marrying his second wife, the journalist and author, Annalena McAfee, ten years ago. Arnold’s poem ends on a famously pessimistic note, whereas McEwan, a humanist to the last, concludes by celebrating the healing power of ‘love and patience’ — even if it is too late for Florence and Edward.

‘If only he had spoken up — a word or a gesture — but he understands that, that’s the difference, I suppose. Anyway, his life hasn’t added up to much, but it’s not tragic, and we can assume that hers was at least a success professionally. I spent a long time thinking that, actually, I had to make her disappear from the last pages or else we wouldn’t miss her in the way he does. She has to be off-stage, she has to just be an unseen box, a collection of Schubert or Beethoven.’

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Next page

More articles from: Matthew d'Ancona | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to the author William P. Young, whose self-published religious novel has astounded the publishing world and sold nearly two million copies

In defence of David Southall

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple examines the evidence against two much-vilified British paediatricians, Professors Southall and Meadow, and finds it sadly lacking

What possessed McCain to take a punt on Palin?

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that the appointment of an inexperienced, gun-toting formerbeauty queen as his running mate may well be John McCain’s undoing

Labour’s punishment freaks are hounding honest citizens

Ross Clark

Ross Clark says that far from keeping our streets safer or cleaner, the government’s new force of amateur policemen are ignoring the worst offenders and pursuing law-abiding innocents instead

‘Whoever killed Benazir wants to kill me’

Christina Lamb

Christina Lamb interviews the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, who hopes to be named President of Pakistan this Saturday

Here’s how McCain can beat Obama to the White House

Reihan Salam

The acclaimed young Republican writer, Reihan Salam, says that McCain can win the presidency if he appeals relentlessly to the non-college-educated white middle class, pursues family-friendly tax reform and stands for global peace through American strength

Beijing Notebook

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson recalls his recent jaunt to China on the occasion of the Olympic games

America is still the nation whose eyes say ‘yes’

Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths

Russia’s ignorant still hate Solzhenitsyn

Owen Matthews

Owen Matthews says that the great literary prophet has been attacked on the internet by Russians who associate him with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The truth still hurts

An innocent at Home

James Forsyth

Dominic Grieve, the new shadow home secretary, tells James Forsyth that he won’t ‘resort to soundbites’. But is this a sensible approach for a modern-day politician?