I became aware of What We Can Know by Ian McEwan from it being on President Obama’s annual reading list. A number of times, as I was listening to it, I went back to check the book’s description, as it seemed hard to understand the point of it. The bulk of the book takes place about one hundred years in the future, where the seas have risen, and Great Britain is now a series of islands.

Tom Metcalfe is a literary historian at the University of South Downs. He is fascinated by the work of a 20th-21st century poet, Francis Blundy. There is talk of a beautiful poem he read once, on his wife Vivien’s birthday, that was never seen or heard again. Tom is somewhat obsessed with trying to find the lost poem. In this regard, he is missing some of the things that are right in front of him. His partner, Rose, chides him that she’s the second fiddle to Vivien Blundy. There’s some pain hidden in what’s supposed to be a joke, but Tom doesn’t see it.

The first part of the book is told from Tom’s perspective. It paints an interesting portrait of a dystopian future where the seas have risen, and what’s left of society is trying to survive. Tom laments that the arts are treated poorly by the university structure, with more emphasis on engineering and the like. You would think it would be pretty obvious to him why, when the planet is changing so much, but he is clueless. The only thing that piques his interest is finding “The Lost Corona,” as that poem is known.

The second part of the book is told from Vivien Blundy’s perspective. It’s a reading of her journal, which tells her life story. Francis Blundy was not Vivien’s first husband. We know that from Tom’s research in the first part of the book. However, her story is heartbreaking as she admits that her first husband, a violin crafter, is the love of her life. What happened to the two of them is a tragic but very common story in our day and age, although most of us would not go to the lengths Vivien does to make peace with it.

There are so many different layers to What We Can Know that it’s impossible to say exactly what the book is about. On one hand, it is a bit of dystopian fiction as Tom laments again and again why everyone ignored the signs of what was going to happen when the seas rose. He is looking at the past from the future, a place where you can Monday-morning quarterback. It seems like a lot of the history of our time has been lost. Tom is trying to piece together a narrative from papers kept in the Blundy archive, as well as other sources. It becomes pretty obvious that when we try to study the past through the lens of the present, we miss a lot of what was actually happening at the time.

What We Can Know is also a book about relationships. Tom takes Rose for granted and suffers for it. What he doesn’t know at the time is that in some ways, she is more like the ghost he pines for. He is clueless in many ways as he buries himself in his obsession with finding “A Corona for Vivien.” The seas are rising, his relationship with his wife is falling apart, he is being marginalized at the university, and all he thinks about is a lost poem. There is also the story of Vivien and her relationships with various men. She longs for the intimate connection she had with her first husband when they were first married, yet again and again, she chooses situations that are impossible in many ways. I have little doubt that Francis Blundy loved his wife, but I don’t think she loved him back the same way. I can’t really say any more without spoiling the book. However, this does serve to blow a lot of the research Tom has done out of the water. You can’t really know what happened in the past from the present seems to be the main message.

Ian McEwan’s prose is really beautiful, and the narration that accompanies the audiobook really captures it. The first half, from Tom’s perspective, is narrated by David Rintoul. Rachel Bavidge narrates Vivien’s portion of the book. They both really immersed me in the story. I felt like I was right there with them, particularly during Vivien’s part. After listening to the first half, it felt like Vivien’s journal should have had more gravity to it, yet it contains the same mundane events that take up everyday life for all of us, interspersed with a tragic life. Some may see Vivien as a villain; I did not. She is simply responding to the situation she is caught up in and unleashing a power she doesn’t know she has. It’s all quite thought-provoking in a number of ways.

What We Can Know did drag in a few spots, and I walked away from the audio a number of times before coming back to it. In the end, though, I was glad I didn’t give up. It’s a remarkably thoughtful book that raises so many different questions, especially when we find ourselves in times that are unusually challenging for many of us.