McEwans’ novel is actually two connected stories. The first part takes place in 2119. Thomas Metcalf is a professor of literature at a university in England. He is desperately trying to find a copy of a poem that was much talked about but never seen. The poem was said to have been written in 2014. What Tom finds instead is a memoir by the poet’s wife. The memoir is the second half of What We Can Know.

Like he so often does, Ian McEwan inserts issues to think about in his prose. In What We Can Know just a few of these are ecology and what we are doing to our environment, the relevance of literature in today’s world, and just how honest does a critic have to be. I found the first part of What We Can Know laborious. However, the second half, the memoir, was disturbing, yet riveting. Is it worth it to slog through the first part to get to the second half? For me it was.