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Ian McEwan - Nutshell (2nd Hand Paperback)
SKU B001072
Availability:
1 available
Original price
£3.70
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Original price
£3.70
Original price
£3.70
£3.70
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£3.70
Current price
£3.70
Synopsis
Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home - a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse - but John's not here. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb.
Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world's master storytellers.
Trapped in the womb rather than his dreams, this Hamlet suffers his story in reverse: he wonders if he should be born rather than if he should die; he starts with his father’s life and goes on to his ghost; he begins in silence but ends in chaos. But the familiar story retains a strong forward momentum.
This can’t be a whodunnit (we know already) or even a whydunnit (the whys are as whimsical and shifting here, as profound, crazed and shallow, as in Shakespeare’s own version). So McEwan makes the story over into a brutally effective howdunnit, magnificently strong on the details of murder : the hats, gloves and waxed fingertips of it, the intimate workings of poison.
Once the deed is done, he turns it into an even more effective will-be-they-be-dun-for-it, one that does not give up its secrets until the last page.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Paperback
- Condition : Very Good
- Category : Fiction - Fiction - Uncategorised
- Published : 2016 (Vintage)
- ISBN : 9781784705114
- SKU : B001072
- PPC : LL250gm
- RRP : £8.99
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
"An astonishing act of literary ventriloquism unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master . . . Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a shocking tale of murder and treachery from one of the world's master storytellers." - Daily Telegraph.
"A creative gamble that pays off brilliantly . . . Witty and gently tragic, this short, bewitching novel is an ode to humanity's beauty, selfishness and inextinguishable longing." - Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday.
"Ian McEwan's embryonic spin on Hamlet is a virtuoso feat of wordplay . . . Virtuoso entertainment." - Tim Adams, Observer.
"While the literary device of an unborn baby narrating a novel from the womb is hardly original. Ian McEwan employs it with aplomb. Here everything is tightly controlled and the tension ratchets up as our all-knowing unborn watches helplessly from his watery sack while the dastardly plan progresses through a series of nail-biting moments. The ending is beautifully contrived . . . The book is elegantly written with plenty of pungent, topical observations upon the world." - John Harding, Daily Mail.
"At once playful and deadly serious, delightful and frustrating it is one of McEwan's hardest to categorise works, and all the more interesting for it." - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times.
The Author
Ian Russell McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 in its list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".
Featured Author . . . Ian McEwan