Ian McEwan is considered one of the most prominent British novelists at the present time, the most prolific of them, and perhaps the fame, because a number of his novels have been adapted for cinema, and the films based on them have won great awards, especially the Oscar won by the movie “Atonement”, which is based on the novel It has the same title, and stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. His novel "Amsterdam" won the British Booker Prize in 1998, and his novels "Stranger's Comfort" (1981), "Black Dogs" (1992), "Atonement" (2001) and "On the Chesil Beach" (2007) reached No. Shortlisted for the award, and other novels of his reached the long list. And this success, in terms of turning a number of his novels into movies, or plays and television series, McEwan wrote some of the scripts himself, as well as a large number of his novels receiving important awards, is something that only a select few of Britain's great writers share.
الرواية بالترجمة العربية (دار الاهلية)Ian McEwan (born in 1948) began writing the short story, and a number of short novels with a gothic, dark, police, or historical plot, which made the British literary community at one time dubbed "Ian the Terrible", before he turned to Writing a novel that takes current events and issues as its narrative material, increasingly interested in shifts in British politics, the dominance of the conservative right, Britain's secession from the European Union, environmental issues, rapid technological developments, artificial intelligence and its impact on the future.
Two new novels
Recently, two translated novels by Ewan into Arabic were published by Al-Ahlia Publishing House in Amman (2021), and they are the last written by McEwan and published in 2019. The first novel, “The Cockroach” (translated by the Egyptian poet and translator Ahmed Shafei), and the second is “Machines that look like me.” Like Me (translated by the Egyptian poet and translator Abd al-Maqsud Abd al-Karim). I have reviewed the two translations and proofread them on the original. These two novels represent the writer's current preoccupations, and his endeavor to identify what will happen to the state of Britain, and the world in general, in the near future, in light of the increasing tendencies of separation, the rise of the phenomenon of extreme right-wing nationalisms, and the escalation of other-hating tendencies in the West, as in the rest of the world. .
"The Cockroach", which is a short novel (novilla), characterized by a quick, breathless narration, a lot of wit, and veiled irony of Britain's current situation, in light of "Brexit", its divergence from the old European continent, its desire to restore the past glory of the empire, and the rise of right-wing power. The irrational whose political reactions are characterized by intuition, instinct, and emotions of a nature closer to the actions of lower beings in the animal kingdom. McEwan uses, to depict these conditions, before and after the “Brexit”, a kind of Kafkaesque reversed event, inspired by the novel “The Metamorphosis” by the Czech writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924), in which Gregor Samsa wakes up He finds himself transformed into a giant insect. As for McEwan's novel, the small insect (the cockroach) wakes up to find itself transformed into a huge human being, whose limbs extend away from his body, and his large tongue lies in his mouth, and he wonders how to move it.
الرواية البريطانية بالترجمة العربية (دار الأهلية)In this novel, which belongs in the history of poetic and narrative forms to satirical satire, full of allusions, parodia, and metaphorical tale of an allegory character, the novelist seeks to write an oblique, sarcastic, funny, satirical commentary on what is happening in the corridors of British politics in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The cockroach, panting out of the damp corners of the Palace of Westminster, traversing the streets, terrified of being trampled by hasty human feet, finds itself asleep in the bed of Prime Minister James Sams (aka Jim). As he looks at himself in the mirror, he discovers that he has already transformed into the Prime Minister's body, and later discovers that the rest of the cabinet members are his brothers and sisters in kind and instinct, who made the same journey, from those damp corners towards their ministries, except for one whom Jim gets rid of by trickery, forgery and lies. and discredit. Based on the instinctive nature of these lower animals, these little insects have set out on their great mission of becoming state-changing human beings, reflecting their reactions to domestic and international politics.
reflexive trajectory
However, what is remarkable in this short novel is not related to this Kafkaesque plot in reverse, in the first place, but rather to the process of insane transformation of the course of economic transactions and material flow, or what the narrator calls "reflexivity", where the worker or employee has to spend what he receives from the wages, and not keep He has money with him, otherwise he will be prosecuted and imprisoned. Also, when companies export their goods, they must attach their exports with the price of these exports. Thus every person has to buy commodities with all he has, in a frantic state of consumption frenzy. This reflexive movement of the economy attracts the attention of conservatives and the political right in Europe and America, but at the same time it works to cause massive political and economic chaos and confusion, turning the world upside down.
رواية "الصرصار" بالأصل الإنجليزي (أمازون)At this time, the cockroaches revert to their true bodies, leaving the humans in utter chaos and misery. As Jim says in his sermon to his former fellow ministers, returning to their cockroach bodies: "In these closing moments of our mission, we have no duty left but our duty to the truth. And there is a right that we have never hidden from our distinguished citizens. In order that our venerable drives may be reflected." Which manages industry, finance and commerce, it must first slow down and then stop. We will face hardship. It may reach its maximum pain. I have no doubt that its endurance will strengthen this great country. But this no longer concerns us" (p. 135).
The second novel, "Machines Like Me," contemplates the reality of the United Kingdom, as well as the political and technological transformations in the contemporary world, by restoring an earlier moment in Britain's history in the eighties of the last century, and its defeat in the Falkland Islands war with Argentina (1982), and by monitoring the rapid technological developments, starting with From the fifties, ongoing research, by leaps and bounds, in the development of AI artificial intelligence operations. Although the background of the fictional events revolves around that defeat, and the wounding event of national (imperial) pride and the British national self, which led, after a short period, to the resignation of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the return of the Labor Party to power, the plot of the work centers around the human being. The robot Adam, who was bought by the narrator for his passion for technological developments, and for having written a book about artificial intelligence when he was young. To reinforce this line in the development of the novel's plot, McEwan restores the biography of the British mathematician Alan Turting (1912-1954), who developed the computer during World War II, and makes him live in the seventies and eighties, seeking to develop artificial intelligence research, and to manufacture objects smarter than human beings, and they have higher moral values than their makers.
The colonial past
In this context of recovering some of the material of history and its tragic events, with what it entails seeking to adhere to a colonial, colonial, bygone past, and to narrate some of the developments of science, knowledge, and accelerated technology, and man’s dream of a science utopia, which may turn into a dystopia, through evil human use. To her, McEwan contemplates the behavior of humans and their relationships, the destructive policies adopted by politicians men and women, and the biased moral motives that govern human behavior, in exchange for a utopian dream in the behavior of a super-intelligent robot that is governed by moral standards that overcome law and goodness over human biases and differences.
الرواية بالأصل الإنجليزي (أمازون)These sharp differences are evident in the behavior of the characters of Charlie and Miranda, two loving young men who live in the same building, and what the robot Adam does, who falls in love with the girl, but does not hesitate to report her to the police because she broke the law and misled justice when she claimed that a person named Goering raped her From Adam's point of view, her motive, which was represented in revenge for her close friend (the Muslim girl of Pakistani origin), who committed suicide because Goering raped her, does not justify Miranda's misleading justice and lying to her. Justice should be applied to what Goering did, of rape, and what she did of misleading and false claim. This is what prompts Charlie to smash Adam's head, and then, after a while, carries it to Alan Turing, so that the latter can benefit from it in his research on artificial intelligence, based on Adam's last wish while he is dying.
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The conclusion of Ian McEwan's reflection on Alan Turing's utopian future can be found in the latter's words to Charlie at the end of the novel: "It's not like smashing your toy, like a spoiled brat. You haven't denied an important argument about the rule of law. You've tried to destroy a life." He was conscious. He had a soul. How it's produced, wet neurons, microprocessors, DNA networks, it doesn't matter. Do you think we're the only ones with our own gift? Ask any dog owner. That was a good brain, Mr. Friend, better than Your mind or mine, I suppose. It is a conscious existence, and you have done your best to destroy it. I despise you. If it were up to me-" (p. 377)
But if the novel "The Cockroach", whose publication coincided with "machines that look like me" (and may have been written in a hurry inspired by the chaos and confusion caused by Britain's withdrawal from the European Union), is preoccupied with the current British moment, and the fate of the United Kingdom after this political gamble, Economic, and geo-strategic, which conservatives in Britain embarked on, “machines that look like me” are concerned with researching the fate of humanity and the nature of life, in light of the massive and rapid development of technology, and the progress achieved by artificial intelligence research over the past few decades. It can be said, in this context, that "The Cockroach" contemplates the reality of retreat and retreat, and the return to the illusions of the past, to the illusions of empire, and western supremacy (Great Britain in this case), while "machines that look like me" are trying to read what the future holds, and the research progresses in artificial intelligence and robotics. This does not mean that the last novel writes a utopia of the future, technological progress, and man's ability to manufacture a being that surpasses him in performance, ability, and ethics. Rather, it means that McEwan presents two opposite visions of current history; A vision in which the voices of estrangement and hatred of the other, the tendencies of separation, and the politics of identity, which are rigid and closed around themselves, are raised, and a vision dominated by tolerance, love, and moral standards that are not tainted by interests, biases, and discrimination. Here we can see the two works intertwining, and perhaps even complementary, in presenting two aspects of humanity's momentum in the twenty-first century.