Ian McEwan: The Cockroach

The latest addition to my website is Ian McEwan‘s The Cockroach, a satire on Brexit. He uses two clever twists in the book. The first is from Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis). We start off with the eponymous cockroach who metamorphosises into the prime minister, a thinly disguised Boris Johnson, though, at the time of writing, McEwan could not be sure Johnson would become prime minister. The second is that it is not between Brexit and Remain but between Reversalist (equivalent of Brexit) and Clockwise (equivalent of Remain), Reversalism being an imaginary and ridiculous economic theory involving reversing the money flow. The prime minister had been dithering somewhat till he is cockroached and then becomes ruthless and determined. It is amusing but to fully appreciate it, you would need a knowledge of the ins and outs of the political mess that is Brexit and, of course, it has already been overtaken by actual events.

Leave a Reply