Ian McEwan: Comments on his novel, “Enduring Love,” and on Writing

Enduring Love

McEwan: “Well, its narrator is…a successful science journalist, with a particular cast of mind—a highly organised mind—and I wanted immediately to suggest this kind of mind…to suggest someone who has got a fairly confident grip on the world…So the characterisation of Joe was central to that.

“Secondly, I’d read that de Clérambault’s syndrome—this strange psychotic delusional state—is often triggered by an intense moment. When I started Enduring Love I didn’t have that intense moment; this opening chapter that people have liked was not written until—I don’t know—halfway through the novel, when I found the sort of thing I wanted…from the point of view of Jed Parry—a lonely man, very much an outsider with his own deep intrapsychic world…a way of triggering his particular delusion that Joe loves him…

Interviewer: “And then the third point of view, which you play off the other two, is Clarissa’s as a university teacher who specializes in a Romantic poet, John Keats. Why did you choose that as the third counterpoint?

McEwan: “She just sort of grew. I mean, one doesn’t map these things out…I wanted someone both sympathetic and wrong…So in Clarissa I wanted someone who was very sympathetic, who had her own enduring love, not only for Keats…And I wanted the reader to side with Clarissa. There are all kinds of false trails in Enduring Love. I wanted the reader to toy with the idea that Joe might be going completely crazy, or maybe even that Joe was Jed. These are games one plays, and withholding information is crucial to this kind of novel writing. But I wanted Clarissa to be wrong. I wanted the police to be wrong. I rather like those plots…” (1, pp. 83-84).

Erotomania

de Clérambault’s syndrome, more commonly known as Erotomania (2), is a subtype of Delusional Disorder (3). The person has a psychotic delusion that someone loves them, but there are not enough other psychotic symptoms to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

More on Writing

“Well, like many writers, I suppose I have a sponge-like quality…I absorb things from other people without being fully aware of it. This has obvious advantages for a writer, but if I’m not careful, people can invade my space all too easily. I’ve had to put up barriers…if you open yourself up too much you can be taken over. There are always people who want to take you over” (1, p. 74).

“I have to say that over the last twenty-five years my pleasure in writing has steadily increased, to the point of delight. It used to be a source of pleasure-pain, a kind of compulsive self-torture. But now I know that the crucial ingredient of writing-pleasure is surprise. Surprising oneself with a thought, or a formulation. Making something that seems to come from a mind that is better than your own” (1, p. 78).

1. Ryan Roberts (Editor). Conversations with Ian McEwan. Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 2010.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotomania

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder