10 Questions for Ian McEwan

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TIME's interview with the British novelist continues on Time.com. Read these extra questions with Ian McEwan.

I was reading a New York Times article that said no one has written a successful novel about 9/11. As a macabre writer, would you consider writing a novel based on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq? —David Shaka Barnwell, Kingston, Jamaica
Well I guess Saturday touched on those things. I wouldn't rule it out that is all I can say. I mean it has changed so much of how we think about the world. It is bound to influence something I do in the future, but whether it would be specifically about the Bush Administration, I couldn't say.

On account of the disappearance of the little girl in Portugal, I have been thinking a lot about one of your books lately, A Child in Time. Did you base the book on a real story or was it all just a creation of your very sensitive mind? —Verónica Meersohn, Puerto Montt, Chile
It was something I invented. Although stories like this are occasionally in the newspapers—so I must have read a couple of stories in newspapers about such things. It struck me as peculiarly painful and retched experience for a parent to go through, especially if it is not resolved quickly. One could say bleakly that with the tragedy of a death there is some chance of making some kind of adaptation, but with this the wound is always opened and I really feel for those parents.

The strength of your novels is, over and above the storylines, the psychological examination of the principal characters. But that is perhaps the most difficult aspect of a novel to transfer to film successfully. Was that something that you struggled with in any of the film or TV versions of your works and do you ever write your novels with screen adaptability in mind? —Dan Montgomery, McLean, Virginia
No I never do. It doesn't really arise. I generally sat back and let other writers do the screenplays of my novels. The process is often long, repetitive and frustrating. I feel it would be the expense of novel writing for me. It is also a little dull for the novelist to turn his or her own work into screenplays. There is a lot of going back over the same thing and making it slightly worse or simplified. I did it once with John Schlesinger for The Innocent. It took up three years of my time and I could have written anther novel in that period, and the result wasn't all that good. So I decided that in the future I would remain slightly involved as an executive producer, which means I would at least be consulted on casting and the various drafts of the screenplays. And that has been the case with Atonement, that was the case with Enduring Love and that will be the case with Saturday. But all that said, finally it is the director's medium and the director will call the shots and make his own decisions and he will take your notes on board and thank you for them, but he is isn't obliged to follow them. It is a difficult process. There is always a problem that cinema has that it can't represent consciousness, the flow of thought or the interior quality of mind that the novel can do so well.

Can you describe the relationship between your reading and your writing? —What kinds of books do you read? —Eamon Murphy, New Haven, Conn.
I real a lot of nonfiction. I have just been reading a book about Arab culture. Another book about a young man who got drawn into Islamist groups in his late teens. I am reading a book about the peculiarly English nature of evolutionary theory. I just read a long story by Edgar Allen Poe. A novel by a friend of mine called John Preston called, The Dig, which I think is very fine. I am fairly omnivorous I guess. Hmm… what is by the bedside? I am re-reading Christopher Hitchen's book on God, because I am going to be on stage talking to him about it. I have been reading some history too. I think all reading eventually it does have an effect, but not a direct effect on what I eventually do. Something I think I am reading haphazardly and then realize what I was doing was researching and sometimes the material does grow out of the reading or the reading is an expression of what is on my mind, but it is certainly not very programmatic.

What are the qualities that a good writer must have? —Ruma Ghosh, Muscat
Staying power. Physical fitness. Patience. Luck. Fierce ambition. Self-criticism. Watchfulness. Humility.

Do you enjoy more dealing with your imaginary characters or dealing with people in reality? Do you ever feel imprisoned by your own imagination? —Ju Huang, Stamford, Conn.
I prefer the real. The representation of characters in novel is but a thin a slice of what a real person is. It is a kind of trick with smoke and mirrors I can leave my imagination behind when I stand up from my desk.

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