He cannot hope to laugh the terrible reality of Brexit out of existence, but McEwan’s comic parable at least provides some relief from a political farce that has long gone beyond a joke." Įrik Martiny also praises the novel in The London Magazine, "With politics the main focus of his attention, McEwan gives it all the pizzazz he possesses and with hilarious results. How do you make a show of people who are doing such a fabulous job of making a show of themselves? McEwan manages to do so with great style and comic panache.McEwan elaborates this great scheme in prose so finely wrought that the plan seems to have some genuine gravity. Brexit has such a camp, knowing, performative quality that it is almost impossible to inflate it any further. And even in that McEwan faces a formidable challenge. Reception įintan O'Toole in The Guardian praises the novella "It is written to comfort and entertain those who already believe that the Brexit project is deranged. Trade functions by exporters giving Britain money to take their goods Britain will in turn pay other countries to import its products and services. Workers pay money to their employers, and in turn are paid to shop. Instead of Brexit is the theory of Reversalism in which the flow of money is reversed. All of his cabinet except the foreign secretary are also cockroaches in 'superficial human form'. No one’s going to say, ‘I’ve just read The Cockroach and I’m becoming a Remainer.' If only! So I don’t flatter myself that I'm going to have any impact on this process." Plot Ī cockroach takes over the body of the prime minister of the UK and finds itself in 10 Downing Street. "I’m afraid the people who like it will probably be Remainers and the people who loathe it will be Brexiters. I probably have to get back to it.” He hopes readers find the novella “therapeutic” but doesn't expect it to change any minds. McEwan doubts The Cockroach will be his last word on the subject. I wish I could give you some arguments for it." When I'm abroad and people say, 'What the f*** are you doing?' I say, 'I don't know. "Let’s stop pretending that there are two sides to this argument," he says. McEwan on the Today Programme, declined an invitation to say something conciliatory about Leave voters. The Cockroach is a satirical novella by the author Ian McEwan, published in 2019 by Jonathan Cape, inspired by Kafka's The Metamorphosis and loosely based on the ramifications of Brexit.
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