Minor resemblances between this novel by Ian McEwan and Henry James's What Maisie Knew have already been noticed and are of some interest. James left a quite full record of the development of his story, which described modern divorce and adultery from the point of view of a young girl. It had its roots in Solomon's offer to satisfy rival maternal claimants by cutting the disputed child in half, but it grew far more complicated in the years between the first notebook entry on this topic and the completion of the novel about 'the partagé child'. First there was a plan for a 10,000-word story, which, in prospect, set delightful technical problems: about 'the question of time' - 'the little secrets in regard to the expression of duration' - and about the need to use the 'scenic method'. In the notebooks James prays that he not be tempted to 'slacken my deep observance of this strong and beneficent method - this intensely structural, intensely hinged and jointed preliminary frame'. Only when the frame was built was he ready to start what he called the 'doing'.

LRB 4 October 2001 | PDF Download