Between Retrospection and Anticipation: Ian McEwan's What We Can Know

Antakyalıoğlu Er Z.

18th International IDEA Congerence, Ankara, Türkiye, 13 - 15 Mayıs 2026, ss.23-24, (Özet Bildiri)

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Ankara
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.23-24
  • İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Between Retrospection and Anticipation: Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know Prof. Dr. Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu, İstanbul Kültür University This paper reads Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know (2025) as a speculative fiction that interrogates the epistemological limits of historical knowledge in the aftermath of civilizational collapse. By strategically integrating elements of climate fiction, dystopian, historical and (auto)biographical narrative forms, the novel emerges as a hybrid text that articulates humanity’s epistemological paralysis in the Anthropocene. The narrative follows Thomas Metcalfe, a literary historian searching for the manuscript of a lost poem, “A Corona for Vivien,” written in 2014. Structured in two parts, the novel situates the reader at a temporal threshold between the “Derangement” period of 2014 and the “Inundation” of 2119. This temporal configuration recasts the present century as an already concluded past, viewed retrospectively from a devastated future. By adopting a backward gaze from the twenty-second century toward the present, the narrative renders future devastation as a form of epistemic certainty and compels readers to consider “what can be done” with such knowledge. The novel ultimately suggests that the question posed by its title—what we can know—admits a definitive answer; yet the central irony lies in humanity’s inability to act meaningfully upon such knowledge. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s conception of history (Angelus Novus) and Mark Currie’s analyses of prolepsis and future-oriented narrative forms in contemporary fiction, this paper examines the novel as a complex narrative that positions readers between retrospection and anticipation, thereby producing an ethical engagement with the limits of what can be known and the responsibilities of what can still be done.

Keywords: Ian McEwan, What We Can Know, prolepsis, Walter Benjamin, speculative fiction.