Reviews round-up
What We Can Know
by Ian McEwan
4 of 5 critics positive
5 reviews: 2 raves, 2 positives, 1 mixed
What the critics said
Rave
Read the review ↗“deeply intelligent and endlessly supple latest from McEwan”
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Rave
Read the review ↗“Is the Best Novel He’s Written in Ages”
Ian McEwan’s Latest Is the Best Novel He’s Written in Ages (Published 2025)
Positive
Read the review ↗“a sprawling, surprising novel set in a time of climate catastrophe”
Ian McEwan’s new novel explores resentment and vengeance in a fractured world
Positive
Read the review ↗“quietly compels us to consider the moral consequences of global catastrophe”
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan review – the limits of liberalism
Mixed
Read the review ↗“fiction’s problem with climate change”
Ian McEwan and fiction’s problem with climate change
Verdicts are read from each outlet's own headline and summary; quotes are their words, credited and linked. Where a paywalled summary does not give the critic's view, we say so rather than guess. How it works.
