To be (born) or not to be (born)? This could have been the central question of 'Nutshell'

Celebrated author Ian McEwan’s protagonist in his 17th novel, Nutshell, is witty, eloquent, articulate, observant, contemplative, sceptical in parts and prone to fits of soliloquies. The Booker prize-winner Ian McEwan has taken the saying, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings…” quite literally. All of nine months old, the unlikely narrator is a foetus whose brain resembles that of an erudite, middle-aged man well into his third mid-life crisis.

The worldly-wise nine-month old, who is just two weeks short of being born, loves spending his free time – of which he has aplenty – in his mother’s belly, floating in whatever little space that is left, absorbing the world through podcasts, radios, fleeting conversations and an imagination unparalleled in fictional embodiment.

"We shall find out"

The novel begins in utero and ends in inevitable birth and chaos. In between there are shades of a crime novel, interspersed with Shakespearian assonance. Bad decisions are made, worse ones witnessed, all from inside the womb.

Could the Hamlet-like feel to the narration, mayhap, be intentional? After all, it is the year 2016 – Shakespeare’s 400th death anniversary. McEwan dispels all doubt by beginning with the following prelude:

Oh god, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams.

— Shakespeare, 'Hamlet'

"Is she a woman or a mouse?"

Enter stage left, the mother who is named Trudy, who obviously is Hamlet's Gertrude. Then there is an uncle named Claude – Claudius in the original – who is aiding and abetting the mother in her plan to kill the father of the child, John.

The prenatal is obviously enveloped by his mother, whom, as he keeps reassuring the readers, he loves very much, though he does have his doubts. Especially when he finds out that she is planning to kill his father. And, more so when he realises that she is in cahoots with his uncle – the sperm-contributor’s very own brother.

Trapped in the belly of the beast, the unborn foetal observer has to passively bear the burden of his mother’s and uncle’s pathological natures. The embryonic hero of the tragedy is as much in the dark (literally) as readers about the actual reason of the murder being planned.

It throws no light on the mystery of the unborn murder that the 28-year-old mother-to-be lives in a priceless palatial London townhouse owned by John, who also happens to be a poet and the owner of small flailing publishing house.

Additionally, the unnamed baby is not very happy with the arrangement she has with his paternal uncle vis-a-vis their love-making. The front-row seat to all the action is not very pleasing to the unborn tragic hero. His unformed brain is constantly digressing on the clinical aspect of having so much sex in the last trimester of the pregnancy.

"The rest is chaos"

The word play of the thought process that the gravely profound Nutshell contains is a slightly problematic premise. How does a foetus imbibe so much in such a short span of time? Many readers might have a hard time envisioning an unborn baby using this profound a level of thought and speech.

Early on, McEwan underlines the fact that the foetus picks up everything from podcasts which the mother probably reads to keep herself engaged. Cleverly, the author manages to intertwine news articles about refugees, world peace, climate change, religion extremism, bigotry, free speech, moral corruption, injustice into the ongoing narrative.

That the omniscient unborn baby is aware of his free will (he can kick to make his presence felt) makes an interesting anti-abortion statement. An independent, free-wheeling thinker with a preference for French wine, the Hamlet-like creature has opinions on all matters under the sun. Is this a sly attempt to recast the foetus as an emotionally and intellectually aware being?

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

How many times can the story of Hamlet be told, however? McEwan shows, in many ways, that this is a tale that can be recounted forward and backward, set in any period, and from any perspective. Nutshell is anything but a summary of a saga that somehow seems to touch our dilemmas and despair in any age, and at any age.

Modern versions of Shakespeare's plays are all the rage right now. But despite the contemporary competition from the Hogarth Press's series – Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time (The Winter's Tale), Howard Jacobson's Shylock Is My Name (The Merchant Of Venice), Anne Tyler's The Vinegar Girl (The Taming of the Shrew), and Margaret Atwood's as yet untitled version of The Tempest) are the first four – McEwan shows great material becomes even greater in the hands of a consummate artist.

Exactly as Shakespeare did over four hundred years ago.

Nutshell, Ian McEwan, Penguin Random House.