In Which I Can't Let Go of Ian McEwan's "Solar"

Mr McEwan, your book is bad and you should feel bad.

Apparently, some people found Solar hi-la-ri-ous because of all the "fatty eats a lot" stuff. It's so ironic, you see. Michael Wood from the Huffington Post writes:

We can't miss the relish in the writing here, the pileup of horrible detail; but it's worth pausing over the relish's double focus: Beard is wallowing in his own gluttony and recklessness, while McEwan's narrator is writing with the mesmerized horror of a much thinner person. This sort of disjunction is essential to the novel's irony, allows us our complex laughter, and means that McEwan, or his narrator, can treat Beard without sympathy and without condemnation. 

(It's actually a very nice, complex review, if you're interested in reading more about the novel. But I must take opposition with this bit. I'm obviously not part of the "us".) 

First of all, there's nothing complex about laughter at fat people. Fat jokes have been skinned to the bone; there is nothing left but "fatty like to eat haha". It's really elementary school humor dressed up as intellectual fiction with some clever word choices. Secondly, this is exactly why I felt so alienated while reading it. Looking at the first chapter, I was hoping to see a realistically depicted, self-aware fat person, but then all the gluttony comes in and ruins it. It's just not very realistic, and we're obviously meant to see the fat person as an Other. While I may make excuses - he's a man, he's older than me, he drinks so much, etc. - I can't escape the fact that Beard has the same amount of "excess weight" that I have. So McEwan might actually be writing about me, among other people. And he imagines that his intellectual readers are going to be slim.

I did come to realize, though, that the mesmerized horror might actually not be so far off from a fat person's inner dialogue. Most of us have that voice inside of us, even those who are fat acceptant. The voice says, "OMG you're getting so HUGE! Will you stop eating so much!" or perhaps "Oh, eating a chocolate bar, are we? No wonder you're so fat." If you're a fat person and you eat anything, but especially specific "fatty foods" like bacon, chocolate, chips, etc. (which Beard also indulges in), you're bound to hear a voice inside you that says you really shouldn't. That's what this culture does to us. Exploring that voice might have been interesting, but McEwan doesn't bother to do that.

The problem with Solar is that it seems to suggest this is the voice of reason, not internalized fat hatred talking. This is, of course, what most people already think. Should I expect McEwan to rise above such cultural norms? Well, I'll say yes - he wrote Atonement, On Chesil Beach and many other beautiful novels where he really went into the characters' heads, even if these characters are women from another time. But apparently he can't afford such empathy and humanity with fat people.

I also disagree that the book is without condemnation. Bearing in mind that Beard drives an SUV (because he can't fit into other cars),  flies planes constantly, and eats primarily meat, McEwan might even be suggesting that fat people are particularly guilty of ecological "crimes" that cause CO2 emissions. Beard never once contemplates on this. When it comes to his body, even if Beard is aware of the fatness, he is also in deep denial about how bad things are. When the doctor gives his list of predictions, we're meant to think it's time for Beard to wake up - and yet he lapses into a blissful feeling of freedom as soon as he leaves the doctor's office. The ending of the book is left open, but most likely he has a heart attack and dies. It's alluded to in no uncertain terms. It may also be seen as a final judgement or punishment for his indulgence. 

In my view, the book would be a lot more powerful if Beard went on his big diet, lost all the weight, and became physically fit but was still a really disgusting human being. That might actually be a lot more current and deep-thought: poking fun at the fitness culture and people's obsession with their bodies; showing that someone who has "will power" over their body is not always a good person in other ways.

After writing the previous post, I've also thought of Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character, Gaius Baltar. Baltar is loathsome in many ways: cowardly, selfish, weak, arrogant, often rude. He has a lot in common with Beard in these ways. Interestingly, however, he is not fat. He is short, like Beard, and this might be an instance of lookism (or heightism?) in both stories. But Baltar was, throughout most of the seasons, quite thin. He indulged in smoking, drinking, women, and arrogance, but not in food. I never really thought of this before, but I like that. What if he had been fat? Would he have been even more irredeemable in some people's eyes? He is already loathed by many fans, but I love him. It might be because the writer Ron D. Moore and the actor James Callis decided to give him some humanity. Some empathy, a lot of guilt, a position as a pawn. There's a lot of humanity to his weakness.

Well, now I digress into my fandoms. My point was going to be this: if you have anti-hero character, and you wish people to care about it, you need to give him something we can relate to. Nobody is completely evil, and if you draw your protagonist that way, you're making a caricature, not a character. Beard is indulgent, selfish, despises most people, and doesn't even care about his own child. As he is the most central character, that soon begins to grate. On topic: Jason Cowley with The Guardian finds the protagonist one-dimensional. Tell me about it. 

It was always going to be high risk, wagering so much on having as your central character a comic grotesque so loathsome and self-pitying, with thoughts mostly so banal, and then leaving the reader trapped, unrelieved, in his company for nearly 300 pages.

I must say, this description is much closer to my feelings than the "complex laughter" quote above.

McEwan won a humor literature prize for Solar. He bought a pig and named it after the protagonist. How deliciously ironic.

This whole has angered me so much that I have decided to make an art project out of it. I decided to cut up the book and place some of the words on my fat body. I'm not sure if McEwan cares - in fact, I'm quite sure he doesn't - but the blubber wants to talk back. And it will.

Some preliminary ideas (my camera doesn't handle small text very well, sadly):

(These are not meant to be erotic pictures, more like feminist art. So I hope you don't mind the nudity.)

Fat Hate in a Time of Climate Change: Ian McEwan's "Solar"

I love Ian McEwan. Atonement is one of my favorite books ever, and I re-read Solid Geometry (from First Love, Last Rites) about once a year to enjoy a great, if bleak, surrealist fantasy. McEwan's writing is often dark and shows humanity and life in a pretty grim light. But in his new book, Solar, this is particularly pronounced, and I'm sorry to say, exaggerated. If you're going to write about an anti-hero, you should at least give him some human moments. Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica is a good example: he's cowardly, weak, selfish, sometimes loathsome, but he does have some skill for empathy and redeeming moments. McEwan doesn't afford Michael Beard anything redeeming at all. His protagonist is, I wouldn't even say anti-hero, just a plain old villain. He is a Nobel laureate working for alternative energy sources, even if he doesn't truly care about saving the planet. He is a complete douchebag: lazy, selfish, uninterested in basically anything, indulgent and perhaps a complete narcissist. He fails to love his women and even his own child. When his character flaws bring him problems, he refuses to acknowledge it was his fault. Til the last minute, he denies any problems and just goes on as before.

He is also increasingly fat. This is used as shorthand for the usual character flaws: sloth, gluttony, lack of self-control, complete negligence of one's health. It starts off fine, with him gaining a little weight and resolving to lose some - he is at least aware of it - but then, as the years go by, he gets fatter and fatter, eats more and more, and is just plain out of control. This makes me mad.

To be perfectly honest, I liked it at first, because I have a weight-gain fetish. It's really very sexy to me to read about someone's wanton weight gaining. But the more I think about it, the more it troubles me. Obviously we're meant to hate Beard. Many online reviews mention his eating habits as "disgusting". He eats enormous amounts of food, basically nothing but meat, butter, cheese, chips, chocolate, and the like. He hates salad (of course!), and even if he vows to start a healthier life, he never does. He is also an unwitting alcoholic, constantly drinking gin and scotch.

So that's my first issue with this book: I feel like I'm supposed to find him irredeemable, inhumanely gross and disgusting, but I don't. I can relate to his lifestyle. I don't eat anywhere near as much, but it's human to eat like that. He's being offered food everywhere; it's natural for human beings to crave food when it's presented to them on a plane or at a conference. It's normal to eat pancakes and bacon when you're  on a trip to America. It's normal to crave chips and make them a daily habit. If you gain weight, it's normal for your appetite to increase, because you need more calories just to get around. And even if I'm not an addict, I find even the alcoholism relatable. It's a disease, not something I'm going to despise people for. Beard could even suffer from binge eating disorder, considering his guilt over his eating habits and the constant inability to stop himself. But I have a feeling that's not where McEwan is going. I'm sure most readers will find him irredeemable, comical, and pathetic. But what about his fat readers? What about the readers who perhaps do eat like this? Do we not exist?

The second issue is with the details. This is a difficult issue, because not everyone will feel the same weight in the same way, but it really reads like "fat is a death sentence" and "no fat person could possibly be comfortable in their own skin". The book is divided into three parts: 2000, 2005, and 2009. I'll leave out the rest of the plot, but in 2000, Beard is 15 pounds overweight and his weight is still a side issue; in 2005, he is 35 pounds overweight, tired and achy, and eats and drinks constantly; in 2009, he is 65 pounds overweight and his heart and liver are failing. He's eating even more than before, has trouble breathing and walking.

I began to wonder at some point if McEwan did his research for this, specifically the number of pounds. In the first chapter, Beard is described as "human blubber" (p. 7) (at least in his own eyes); he has trouble getting out of a low-riding car and bending over. When I got to "He was fifteen pounds overweight. Act now or die early" (p.101), I basically exclaimed, "A measly fifteen pounds?!" I had expected him to be at least forty pounds overweight, what with all the references to his girth. I might have the wrong idea of male bodies; maybe fifteen pounds feels like more when it's all on the waist. But still, it just seems off to me.

I'll quote form the 2009 section and a doctor's visit. This is where it really gets ugly.

"It was true, the doctor did not lecture or moralize, but he compensated with a disengaged, insulting frankness. With each instance, each looming physical catastrophe, the wise turtle head protruded a little further and he gently tapped his own palm with a pencil. No one, he said, not even Beard, would choose to walk around with a body like Beard's." (p. 329)

Stopping here for a minute just to say - is this not a judgement? Also, we're probably meant to think that his hate of doctors' judgements is simply a form of denial. He should be ashamed and humiliated and berated for his lifestyle.

"He was carrying an extra sixty-five pounds, the equivalent of a combat infantry-man's full pack.  His knees and ankles were swollen from the weight, osteoarthritis was a growing possibility, his liver was enlarged, blood pressure was up again and there was a growing risk of congestive heart failure. His bad cholesterol was high, even by English standards. He was clearly experiencing breathing difficulties, he stood a decent chance of diabetes mellitus as well as advancing the likelihood of prostate and kidney cancer and thrombosis. His one piece of luck - luck, Beard observed, not virtue - was that he was not addicted to cigarettes, otherwise he might already be dead." (p.329-330) 

OMG 65 pounds! OMG SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS. It must sound like a huge load to McEwan, but I'm at about 65 pounds overweight and.. I feel fine? I mean, sometimes my knees do ache, but I have no heart and liver trouble, I don't have trouble breathing, and in general feel fine. The complete physical decay described here seems pretty exaggerated. In addition, Beard is an alcoholic, completely sedentary, has a lot of stress, travels a lot, and is sixty-two. All of these factors are going to play into it. But I get the feeling the book is telling us that his OMG GLUTTONY IS KILLING HIM and he doesn't even CARE.

As for the infantryman's pack? It's not exactly scientific to make such an analogy. Obviously, any extra weight is an extra strain on your system, IF we assume that there's a definite point where it becomes "extra". If sixty-five pounds "overweight" is the smallest a person can be, it might actually be the right weight for their bodies. Weight is individual. That said, I realize a doctor might well not share these views, and might say that about the pack.

"As he listened to Parks enumarate his possible futures, he decided not to mention his recent acquisition of a classical symptom: a feeling of tightness around his chest. It would only make him appear even more foolish and doomed. Nor could he admit that he didn't have it in him to eat and drink less, that exercise was a fantasy. He could not command his body to do it, he had no will for it." (p. 330) 

It's all about willpower, y'all! He may want to do it, but he's too weak to even try. He might be dying, but he's not going to admit it to his doctor, because he's too proud or something. I'm not sure how to read this. Maybe we're meant to think he deserves his just desserts - pun intended - and should die from a heart attack right now, because his lifestyle is so omg bad? Or are we to see it as an endearing human frailty, this pride and inability to admit to his failing health? I have a feeling we're not. 

Throughout the book, his weight is a hindrance to him and feels like a huge burden. I can't really argue that it's an unrealistic depiction, because some men might beg to differ. Some women way bigger than me can dance all night and have no knee problems; some women way smaller have high blood pressure and feel tired. Weight affects people differently. But I'd still say that this is a lot of scare tactics. Beard's whole life is, at this point, falling apart; his career and relationships are feeling the strain of his flaws, and so is his body. He also has melanoma (how ironic, a sun-related ailment on a scientist working on solar systems!). His out-of-control eating is just one instance of his flawed nature, his inability to be good. It's very disappointing, because McEwan is an intelligent writer. It's lazy thinking, really.

In his future books, perhaps McEwan will explore some other deliciously bad characters. Like a really hysterical woman! Or a fanatic Christian who hates all non-Christians! Or a lazy Mexican, or flamboyant nymphomaniac homosexual... The opportunities are endless! I see a great future for him as a comedy writer.