The pronounced political connotations of the plot of this novella and its relevance to the present day right-leaning politics of the UK makes this well-timed squib relatively low-hanging fruit for a writer of McEwan’s stature.ĭone right, this could have been an instant classic, but instead, it turns out to be a tone-deaf, plodding affair. Hailed as Britain’s national writer at one point, McEwan’s earlier novels were dark enough to earn him the title of “Ian Macabre”, but his work since the last decade has veered more towards the political, with copious social commentary. This transition from bug to human is complete when he is no longer just a cockroach in human form, guided by “collective pheromonal unconscious”, but gains an instinctive sense of the basic concepts a person should be aware of: “How familiar he was with the opposition leader’s shouted questions, the brilliant non sequitur replies, the festive jeers and clever imitations of sheep.” McEwan is nothing if not methodical and the novella’s initial pages minutely go over all the varied physical and psychological reorientations that take place when the cockroach transforms into Prime Minister Jim Sams. “That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.” Ian McEwan opens The Cockroach, his feeble satire on British politics, by giving a nod to Franz Kafka’s iconic opening lines of The Metamorphosis.Ī cockroach wakes up at No 10 Downing Street, hung-over and disembodied, only to find out that, overnight, he has turned into a daft, opportunistic prime minister – who eerily resembles the United Kingdom’s current Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Hockey: Udita Duhan puts aside regret to embark on flourishing hockey career.‘Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai’ trailer: Manoj Bajpayee plays a lawyer who prosecutes a godman.On Rabindranath Tagore’s 162nd birth anniversary, read five newly translated poems from ‘Gitanjali’.Why the return of the Rohingya to Myanmar is crucial.
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