What We Can Know: Questions and Answers

This companion tackles the central puzzles of Ian McEwan’s novel through 15 grounded questions. Each answer draws on the book’s own evidence—from the epigraph to the Author’s Note—to clarify character decisions, thematic contradictions, and the fragile relationship between fact and invention. References to chapters follow the novel’s numbering.

Questions and Answers

1. Why does Francis Blundy write his birthday poem on vellum?

Francis chooses vellum for permanence and sensuality. He buys a single sheet from the only producer in the country, writes a fair copy of the corona in minuscule black ink, and plans to roll it with green silk ribbon. He believes the dead animal skin gives his words “novel sensuality.” The material choice is partly a Renaissance gesture, linking the poem to ancient documents like the Magna Carta, and partly a guarantee of uniqueness—he destroys all drafts so the vellum copy is the sole original.
Evidence context: Chapter 2 describes his purchase of “a large rectangle of vellum” from William Cowley and his notebook promise to destroy notes. The gesture reinforces the theme of ephemeral legacy: the poem exists in only one copy, which later vanishes.

2. What makes Harry Kitchener abandon his biography of Francis?

Harry decides to withdraw because Francis is too controlling. During the dinner, after Harry’s speech praising the corona, Francis interrupts him. Harry reflects in the moment that the poet would want to see every chapter and sanitise the past. Any hint of criticism would enrage him. Harry dislikes confrontation and wants to avoid years of family trouble. He still sends a letter full of exaggerated praise to ease the break.
Evidence context: Chapter 8 includes Harry’s inner monologue during the reading: “He was pulling out” and his letter five days later that overstates praise. The letter survives in the archive, showing his diplomatic retreat.

3. How does Vivien Blundy feel about the dedication of the Corona?

Vivien finds the dedication painful. She never destroys the poem, but her journal entries reveal that the idealised rural vision of the corona clashes with the reality of her marriage. She writes a draft statement: “I came into your life… You never entered mine.” The poem reminds her to ask whether things will change, but nothing does. She continues to serve Francis and eventually moves to a separate bedroom.
Evidence context: In Chapter 13, her journal contains the draft and notes that the poem is “beautiful but hard to think about.” She loves Blundy’s poetry but cannot separate the art from her own erasure.

4. Why does the narrator’s wife Rose object to biographical invention?

Rose argues that the narrator has no right to invent the inner lives of historical figures. When he plans to use Francis Blundy as a vehicle to tell the story of the era, she insists it is not his business to make things up. The narrator agrees that the price of invention is guilt, and her scepticism amplifies his own unease. Their conflict reflects the novel’s central tension between history and literature.
Evidence context: Chapter 9 recounts her direct statement: “It was not my business, she insisted, to invent.” This comes during the narrator’s reflection on the “90-30” programme and his struggle to reconcile factual rigour with imaginative sympathy.

5. What role does the Inundation of 2042 play in the Corona’s later fame?

The Inundation—a nuclear-triggered tsunami that kills over 200 million and halves Britain’s population—creates a world that longs for the lost nature described in the Corona. After the event, the poem becomes a symbol of biophilia, inspiring competitions to recreate it. The narrator observes that the imagined poem is more powerful than any actual text, serving as a talisman for survivors in a diminished world.
Evidence context: Chapter 15 details the Inundation’s aftermath: global cooling, renewed interest in the Corona as “a hymn to the glories of nature,” and the phenomenon of “sweet nostalgia” for what cannot be had.

6. How does Mary Sheldrake’s public account shape the poem’s reputation?

Mary Sheldrake is the only guest willing to speak to the media after Harriet Gage’s article triggers a frenzy. She describes the evening as “transfiguring” and calls the Corona a “climate-change poem,” though she notes that Blundy himself had strong opinions on the issue. Her testimony, given while her own career is struggling, adds a layer of public legitimacy and reinforces the poem’s environmental interpretation.
Evidence context: Chapter 13 reports her interviews: “she remembered every minute … and she had been ‘transfigured’ by it.” She carefully avoids claiming she heard Blundy speak directly about climate change, showing her tact.

7. What is the “90-30” programme, and why did it face opposition?

“90-30” is a postgraduate programme that studies the period 1990 to 2030. The narrator and his colleagues fought older professors who thought the forty-year window was too narrow. The elders argued that the Inundation, the internet, and the best literature came after 2030. In truth, the younger academics were drawn to the period’s brilliant greed, environmental destruction, and creative energy. The programme later becomes oversubscribed and is imitated elsewhere.
Evidence context: Chapter 9 describes the battle against “deans and professors” who rejected the proposal, and Chapter 11 explains how the programme uses detailed digital records to build historical empathy among students.

8. Why does Vivien Blundy refuse to publish the Corona after Francis’s death?

Vivien suppresses the poem partly out of pain—the dedication reminds her of a marriage in which she lost her identity—and partly because she respects the poetry too much to destroy it. She also refuses to engage with the media frenzy, especially after an anonymous blog alleges that a $100,000 oil bribe was paid to silence the poem. She lets the “drawbridge up,” ignores all academic inquiries, and moves to Scotland to live with Jane Kitchener.
Evidence context: Chapter 13 details her decision: she emails her sister that the poem’s green ribbon brings “a peculiar form of turmoil.” She does not speak out in defence of her husband, but she also never burns the scroll.

9. How does the epigraph from Richard Holmes frame the novel?

The epigraph defines biography as a pursuit of human truth “poised between fact and fiction.” It says the biographer’s account becomes both a personal friendship and a public betrayal. It ends with three questions: what we can know, believe, and love. McEwan places this quotation as Chapter 1, making it an integral part of the narrative rather than a decorative motto. It explicitly announces the novel’s themes of knowledge, narrative truth, and ethical complexity.
Evidence context: Chapter 1 consists solely of the epigraph. No narrative events occur; the text functions as a philosophical overture.

10. What causes the narrator and Rose to separate temporarily?

The narrator returns home early from a research trip to the Bodleian and finds Rose in bed with Kevin Howard, the student activist who led a walkout against their course. He lies on the sofa, shattered. The betrayal is connected to the narrator’s obsessive pursuit of the Corona poem and his admission to Rose that he could imagine marrying Vivien Blundy. The affair breaks the trust between them.
Evidence context: Chapter 18 describes the discovery: “he finds his wife Rose in bed with student Kevin Howard.” Chapter 16 shows the earlier argument about his daydream of marrying Vivien, which already created tension.

11. Why does the narrator believe the imagined Corona is more powerful than the real poem?

The narrator concludes that the Corona is “more beautiful for not being known.” Like shadows on Plato’s cave, the poem represents the pure ideal of poetry. Any discovered version would be weighed down by “compressed diction, challenging imagery” and demands of serious poetry. The imagined poem serves as a collective projection for a world grieving lost nature. He states that “the imagined lords it over the actual—no paradox or mystery there.”
Evidence context: Chapter 15 argues this explicitly. He also notes that even Mabel Fisk’s attempt to recreate the Corona was dismissed by critics.

12. How does the discovery of Percy’s violin change the narrator’s quest?

Instead of finding the Corona, the narrator and Rose unearth a steel container holding a violin (Percy’s) and a folder of prose. The discovery reconfigures the narrator’s understanding: the poem is not the only treasure. The violin represents Percy’s gentle, creative life—a contrast to Francis’s domineering genius. Rose then reveals her pregnancy, shifting focus from the past to their future. The scene reorients the narrative from literary obsession to personal reconciliation.
Evidence context: Chapter 21 describes the excavation: “a violin (Percy’s violin) and a folder of prose, not the expected poem.” Rose’s pregnancy announcement provides a hopeful resolution.

13. What is the significance of the “shifting baseline effect” in Tom’s reflections?

Tom notices butterflies and learns many species are extinct. He reflects on the shifting baseline effect, where each generation accepts a diminished natural world as normal. This psychological phenomenon explains why the twenty‑first century failed to act on climate change. Tom feels a yearning for the past that Rose calls unproductive, but his awareness of the baseline effect fuels his determination to recover traces of what was lost, including the Corona poem.
Evidence context: Chapter 16 opens with Tom observing butterflies and learning of extinctions. The concept is explicitly named: “shifting baseline effect.”

14. Why does Harry Kitchener’s letter describe the Corona as a “monument to a threatened biological civilisation”?

In his letter to Francis five days after the dinner, Harry calls the Corona a monument to a threatened biological civilisation. He recalls lines evoking a swim through a gorge, a church marriage, and a face formed from torn petals. The poem combines love for the natural world with awareness of ruin, much like Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” or MacCaig’s songs. Harry identifies the poem’s power as ecological elegy, prefiguring its later appropriation by environmental activists.
Evidence context: Chapter 8 includes the full letter. Harry writes that the poem is “a monument to a threatened biological civilisation” and praises its “hallucinatory splendour of lush nature observed in miniature.”

15. How does the Author’s Note challenge the reader’s search for hidden meaning?

The Author’s Note consists of a single sentence: nothing related to the novel is buried anywhere. This extra-diegetic statement asserts that all necessary material for understanding is plainly presented. It denies hidden puzzles or secret codes, precisely at the moment when readers might expect a buried treasure—the lost poem. McEwan reframes the reading experience, inviting interpretation based on explicit content rather than speculation about hidden meaning.
Evidence context: Chapter 24 is the note. It directly addresses the reader: “nothing related to the novel is buried anywhere.” The brevity makes the claim striking in a work that otherwise questions what can be known.