{"id":43361,"date":"2018-05-08T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=43361"},"modified":"2018-05-07T11:48:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T15:48:48","slug":"author-dubious-about-students-analyzing-his-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/05\/08\/author-dubious-about-students-analyzing-his-novels\/","title":{"rendered":"Author dubious about students “analyzing” his novels"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> is a most amusing little anecdote:<\/p>\n

Ian McEwan, the award-winning author, has admitted feeling “a little dubious” about people being compelled to study his books, after helping his son with an essay about his own novel and receiving a C. <\/p>\n

McEwan, author of works including Atonement<\/em>, Amsterdam<\/em>, and On Chesil Beach<\/em>, said he remained unconvinced about the purpose of asking students to analyse his work.<\/p>\n

“I always feel a little dubious about people being made to read my books,’ he told Event<\/em> magazine, saying his son Greg was required to write an A-Level essay on Enduring Love<\/em> several years ago.<\/p>\n

“Compelled to read his dad’s book – imagine. Poor guy,” McEwan added. <\/p>\n

“I confess I did give him a tutorial and told him what he should consider. I didn’t read his essay but it turned out his teacher disagreed fundamentally with what he said.<\/p>\n

“I think he ended up with a C+.”<\/p>\n

Asked for his thoughts on the literary landscape of 2018, McEwan suggested he was sceptical. <\/p>\n

“Literary fiction is in a curious nosedive saleswise, down about 35 per cent over the past five years,” he said. <\/p>\n

“Everyone’s got a theory: TV box sets, some sort of fatigue, who knows. Maybe it’s not just good enough. <\/p>\n

“When people ask me who are the amazing writers under 30, I’m not in a position to judge. I start a lot of modern novels and don’t find myself compelled to continue.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a most amusing little anecdote: Ian McEwan, the award-winning author, has admitted feeling “a little dubious” about people being compelled to study his books, after helping his son with an essay about his own novel and receiving a C. McEwan, author of works including Atonement, Amsterdam, and On Chesil Beach, said he remained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,79],"tags":[86,504],"class_list":["post-43361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-education","tag-criticism","tag-teenagers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bhn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43362,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43361\/revisions\/43362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}