Chapter summaries What We Can Know Ian McEwan

Chapter 13 (Chapter 12) Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator confirming that Francis Blundy destroyed all copies of “A Corona for Vivien” except the one given to his wife. No drafts survive. Harry Kitchener’s papers eventually end up at the University of Ardnamurchan in northwest Scotland, but a hazardous journey of 600 miles prevents the narrator from visiting. The narrator then reflects on a powerful sense of nostalgia for a lost world — the Lake District, Swindon, the pre-flood era — a feeling he compares to Richard Holmes’s experience in Footsteps, where Holmes waited on a bridge for the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson. The narrator admits he might have loved Vivien.

The chapter returns to the poem’s fate. In January 2015, Harry writes to the Times Literary Supplement praising Blundy’s reading, comparing it to Haydon’s “immortal dinner.” After Harry’s death, a blog post coins the term “Second Immortal Dinner.” Harriet Gage, now the mother of three, gives an interview and later writes a full-length piece for the Guardian. Her account, shaped by her exhaustion and environmental activism, portrays the Corona as a passionate plea for the natural world. Her article concludes by asking why the poem has never been published — a question that ignites public interest.

Key Events

  • Blundy destroys all copies of the Corona except the one given to Vivien.
  • Harry Kitchener’s archive moves to the University of Ardnamurchan in the Highlands.
  • The narrator considers travelling 600 miles to the archive but deems the journey too dangerous because of sea-level rise and bandit attacks.
  • The narrator reads Richard Holmes’s Footsteps and identifies with Holmes’s longing for Stevenson.
  • Harry Kitchener writes a letter to the TLS (January 2015) comparing Blundy’s reading to Haydon’s “immortal dinner.”
  • After Harry’s death, an anonymous blog post refers to the event as the “Second Immortal Dinner.”
  • Vivien and Francis ignore four enquiries about the poem.
  • A young Times journalist investigates, but the Blundys refuse to reply.
  • Harriet Gage gives an interview and is later commissioned by the Guardian.
  • Harriet writes the article in a sleep-deprived state, infusing it with her environmental convictions.
  • The article ends with unanswered questions about the poem’s whereabouts and possible suppression.

Character Development

  • The Narrator: Reveals a deeply sentimental, even romantic attachment to the pre-catastrophe world and to Vivien Blundy. His longing for a past he never experienced becomes a defining emotional trait.
  • Harriet Gage: Transforms from a fading freelance journalist, drained by motherhood, into a reinvigorated writer. Her personal circumstances and environmental anger reshape her memory of the Corona, turning it into a protest poem.
  • Harry Kitchener: Though dead by the chapter’s midpoint, his TLS letter sets in motion the poem’s public myth. His love for the Corona and his isolation in Scotland shape the early legend.
  • Francis and Vivien Blundy: Remain largely offstage, but their refusal to respond to enquiries creates the central mystery.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

  • Nostalgia for a lost world: The narrator’s pain for places he never saw (the Lake District, Swindon) echoes throughout. The ruined bridge in Holmes’s story becomes a symbol of the unreachable past.
  • Memory as a sponge: Harriet’s memory of the poem absorbs her exhaustion and environmental fears. The chapter explicitly discusses the unreliability of memory and how conviction can reshape recollection.
  • The gap between art and reputation: The Corona begins as a private gift, but public fascination transforms it into a legend, divorced from what it actually was.
  • Isolation and hazard: The journey to the archive represents the physical and social fragmentation of the post-flood world.
  • The “pleasure-pain” of longing: The narrator’s emotion defies simple nostalgia; it is a complex ache for something never known.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is pivotal because it charts the Corona’s transition from a private work to a public phenomenon. The narrator’s personal reflections deepen the emotional stakes of the mystery, while Harriet’s article crystallizes the poem’s environmental interpretation and forces the question of its whereabouts. The chapter also establishes the narrator’s vulnerability, hinting that his obsession with the past may cloud his judgment.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator compare himself to the young Richard Holmes waiting on the bridge for Stevenson?
The narrator feels the same longing for a figure from the past he can never meet. Holmes hoped Stevenson would appear; the narrator wishes he could have known Vivien Blundy and the lost world she inhabited. The ruined bridge symbolizes the temporal gap that cannot be crossed.

2. How do Harriet Gage’s personal circumstances alter her memory of the Corona reading?
Harriet is exhausted from caring for three young children and deeply angry about environmental destruction. Her memory of the poem becomes “porous,” absorbing her convictions. In her article, the Corona becomes an environmental polemic, emphasizing love’s victory over destructive forces — a reading that may not match the original.

3. What effect does Harry Kitchener’s TLS letter have on the poem’s later fame?
Harry’s letter introduces the idea that the reading was a momentous literary event, comparable to Haydon’s “immortal dinner.” Though it initially fails to generate much interest, the letter is later quoted in a blog that coins the “Second Immortal Dinner” phrase, providing a catchy label that journalists and the public can latch onto.

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