 |
| Ian McEwan Flaming Ferrari, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
INTRODUCTION
Ian McEwan’s 2010 novel Solar is a biting satire about human folly, climate change, and the failures of personal morality. The book follows Nobel Prize–winning physicist Michael Beard, a man whose intellectual brilliance has been overshadowed by his gluttony, selfishness, and moral weakness.
Through Beard’s failures, McEwan crafts a tragicomic portrait of human inability to rise above personal appetites in the face of planetary crisis.
This comprehensive summary offers a scene-by-scene chronological breakdown of the novel while exploring its major themes—science and morality, climate change as a human problem, and the comedy of self-deception.
SHORT SUMMARY
Solar, a 2010 novel by Ian McEwan, is a satirical and darkly comedic story that follows the life of Michael Beard, a brilliant but morally flawed physicist. The book’s plot spans several years, chronicling Beard's professional and personal decline as he stumbles his way through scientific breakthroughs, failed marriages, and a disastrous career as a public advocate for renewable energy. The novel is a sharp critique of human vanity, environmental policy, and the scientific community.
Plot Breakdown
The novel begins in 2000, with Michael Beard at a low point in his career. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist, his glory days are long behind him. He is now the head of a government-funded renewable energy center, a position he despises, and his personal life is a mess. His fifth marriage is on the brink of collapse due to his serial infidelity. His wife, Patrice, is having an affair with a builder, Rodney. In a moment of rage and panic, Beard inadvertently causes Rodney’s death. He then buries the body under a pile of rubble, an act that sets off a chain of events that will follow him for the rest of his life.
Beard's career takes an unexpected turn. He stumbles upon a revolutionary idea for harnessing solar power—an artificial photosynthesis process. He decides to steal the idea from a young, brilliant scientist in his lab and claim it as his own. This plan, however, is a classic McEwan setup for a series of escalating blunders.
The plot jumps forward in time. In 2005, Beard has become a celebrity, a public figurehead for the fight against climate change. He gives speeches, attends conferences, and enjoys the perks of his newfound fame, all while suffering from the guilt and paranoia of his past crime. He is an unlikely hero, a man who knows little about the practical application of his work and is more interested in his own comfort than in saving the planet.
The final part of the novel, set in 2009, finds Beard in a desperate state in a remote part of New Mexico, trying to escape from a series of legal and personal crises. The body of the builder is on the verge of being discovered, and his former colleagues are closing in on him. He is still living a life of excess, even as his world crumbles around him. The book culminates in a moment of personal and professional reckoning.
Themes and Significance
Solar is a biting satire on the hypocrisy of those who claim to be saving the world. McEwan masterfully uses Michael Beard as a vehicle to explore themes of environmental decay, scientific ethics, and the human capacity for self-deception. The novel contrasts the grand, world-saving ideas with the small, petty flaws of the man who promotes them. It’s a funny, cynical, and ultimately cautionary tale about a man who is brilliant in theory but catastrophic in practice. The novel raises important questions about the motivations behind our actions and whether true redemption is ever possible.
ANALYTICAL SUMMARY
Part One: London, 2000
Scene 1: Introducing Michael Beard
The novel opens in the year 2000. Michael Beard, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, is described as once brilliant but now largely coasting on his reputation. He holds a cushy post as the figurehead of a government research institute on renewable energy, though he knows little about the subject.
Beard is immediately shown as vain and gluttonous, addicted to food, drink, and women. His fifth marriage, to the much younger Patrice, is crumbling due to his serial infidelities. Patrice has taken revenge by having affairs of her own, one with their neighbor, which humiliates Beard.
McEwan satirizes the modern “great man of science” whose private flaws undermine public credibility. Beard’s failings foreshadow the novel’s larger theme: how personal appetites sabotage collective responsibility, even on an existential scale like climate change.
“He had a Nobel Prize. What could she possibly have against him?”
This line captures Beard’s blindness to his own selfishness.
Scene 2: The Institute and Beard’s Indifference
At his research institute, Beard attends meetings with younger, idealistic scientists devoted to renewable energy. Beard, however, is detached and cynical. He thinks most alternative energy schemes are hopelessly impractical and views climate change as a political fad rather than an urgent problem.
This indifference exemplifies one of McEwan’s satirical strokes: the people most capable of addressing climate change are too corrupt or apathetic to do so.
Scene 3: The Theft of an Idea
One of the young researchers, Tom Aldous, presents Beard with an ambitious idea about artificial photosynthesis—using sunlight to split water and generate clean hydrogen fuel. Beard is dismissive, treating Tom’s idealism with condescension. Yet the novel carefully plants this seed: Beard will later steal this idea as his own.
Scene 4: The Fatal Accident
McEwan’s comic plotting turns dark when Tom Aldous begins an affair with Patrice. One day, Beard comes home to discover Tom waiting to speak with him. Their confrontation escalates. In a slapstick accident, Tom slips on a bearskin rug, strikes his head, and dies instantly.
Beard panics. Knowing that Patrice’s lover is dead in their house, he stages the scene to frame her handyman lover, Rodney Tarpin. Beard’s cowardice leads him to exploit the situation rather than admit the truth.
This event is pivotal: Beard not only ruins Patrice’s lover but also steals Tom’s research notebooks, planting the foundation for his future scientific “breakthrough.”
“Accident, chance, fate—these were forces with more sway over his life than his own choices.”
This reflects Beard’s self-deceptive worldview: he evades responsibility by blaming fate.
Part Two: The Arctic, 2005
Scene 5: Beard in Decline
Five years later, Beard is invited on a government-sponsored trip to the Arctic to witness climate change firsthand. He is now overweight, depressed, and still indulging in food and alcohol.
McEwan uses Beard’s physical decline as a metaphor for the decadence of Western civilization in the face of environmental crisis.
On the Arctic expedition, Beard experiences an epiphany of sorts when confronted with the vast ice landscapes. But the novel undermines any suggestion of moral reform: Beard’s moment of awe is fleeting, quickly overtaken by thoughts of food and sexual opportunities.
Scene 6: The Theft Becomes Ambition
During this period, Beard revisits Tom Aldous’s old research notes. Realizing their commercial potential, he begins to pass off the idea of artificial photosynthesis as his own. He imagines a grand project to revolutionize clean energy.
This theft becomes the core of Beard’s new career. But McEwan makes it clear: his motivation is not saving the planet but reviving his reputation and wealth.
Scene 7: Beard and Women
Back in London, Beard continues his serial womanizing. He begins a relationship with Melissa, who wants a child. Beard reluctantly agrees, only to drift back into selfish detachment.
McEwan interweaves the personal and planetary here: Beard’s inability to commit mirrors humanity’s inability to commit to climate solutions.
Part Three: New Mexico, 2009
Scene 8: The Solar Energy Project
The novel’s final act unfolds in New Mexico, where Beard oversees a massive solar energy project based on Tom Aldous’s stolen research. The desert landscape provides a symbolic backdrop: harsh, sun-drenched, and unforgiving.
Beard is at the height of his career revival. He presents himself as the savior of renewable energy, basking in media attention. Yet beneath the surface, his personal and professional deceptions begin to unravel.
Scene 9: The Reckoning with Women
Melissa has borne his child, but Beard avoids responsibility, splitting his time between the U.S. and U.K. He also juggles other affairs, each of which threatens to expose him.
At the project site, old acquaintances and rivals begin to circle. Beard’s theft of Aldous’s research is in danger of exposure. Meanwhile, Patrice reappears, rekindling old humiliations.
Scene 10: Health Decline and Overindulgence
Beard’s health worsens dramatically. He suffers from diabetes, obesity, and excessive drinking. McEwan details his compulsive eating in grotesque terms, emphasizing his inability to control his appetites.
“He had thought of hunger as one of life’s reliable pleasures. Now it pursued him like a hound.”
Beard’s failing body becomes the perfect metaphor for humanity’s inability to restrain consumption.
Scene 11: Collapse and Irony
In the climactic scenes, Beard prepares for a triumphant unveiling of his solar project. Yet everything converges against him: his plagiarism is uncovered, his lovers confront him, and his health catastrophically fails.
The novel ends ambiguously but with strong implication: Beard collapses, perhaps dying of a heart attack, just as his great project reaches fruition.
This ironic close underscores McEwan’s theme: even when human ingenuity finds solutions, personal corruption can undo everything.
Thematic Analysis
1. Climate Change as Human Failure
While marketed as a “climate change novel,” Solar is less about the science of global warming and more about the psychology of denial and selfishness. Beard epitomizes humanity’s failure to rise above greed, appetite, and short-term gratification.
2. Satire of Science and Celebrity
McEwan skewers the culture of science as a personality cult. Beard’s Nobel Prize shields him from scrutiny even as he coasts on past glories and exploits younger talent.
3. Appetite as Metaphor
Beard’s insatiable appetite for food, women, and comfort becomes an allegory for overconsumption in Western society. His obesity is not merely comic but symbolic of planetary gluttony.
4. Comedy and Tragedy
McEwan blends slapstick (Tom Aldous’s death on the bearskin rug) with tragedy (the collapse of Beard’s career and health). The novel’s power lies in this fusion: environmental catastrophe is presented not as epic tragedy but as tragicomedy of human weakness.
Key Quotes from Solar
-
“He belonged to that class of men—venerable, shabby, learned—who found in the great questions of the universe a diversion from the loss of their hair and teeth.”
-
“The planet was heating, but he could not summon the feeling to care.”
-
“Appetite had always ruled him; it was his genius and his curse.”
Conclusion: Why Solar Matters Today
Solar is not a blueprint for climate solutions but a satire of climate inaction. By focusing on Michael Beard, McEwan shows that the greatest obstacle to solving global warming is not lack of technology but lack of will, corrupted by vanity, greed, and apathy.
The novel remains one of the most incisive pieces of climate change fiction, illustrating through comedy the most tragic truth: human beings may know how to save themselves, yet still fail to do so.
