The cockroach review 📔

I have to start this post by saying how excited I am since this is my first book review here in the blog 🎉. The book we're going to discuss is Ian McEwan's novella The Cockroach. The themes discussed are thought-provoking but the characters are not so interesting.

Jim Sams wakes up from troubled dreams and sees that his body is completely altered; his cockroach body has been replaced by a human one. He soon discovers that he resides in the body not of an ordinary human being but of the British Prime Minister. This transformation occurred so that he can enforce people's will by changing the way money flow.

Ian McEwan was inspired by the events of Brexit. He wanted to criticise the misleading facts and assumptions that were expressed as a way of manipulating public opinion during that time. Through his satirical fiction he shows how citizens can be led to vehemently support an absurd point of view. Also, as the title and the synopsis suggest, The Cockroach is a retelling of Franz Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis. It is a successful retelling as besides the idea of a tranformation from one species to another and starting the narration the moment the character realises the change, they are totally different and unique stories. So, having read The Metamorphosis isn't a prerequisite for reading The Cockroach.

Since we're talking about reading The Cockroach, let's discuss the writing style first. It is formal as this is how someone would expect the Prime Minister of any country to express himself or herself. Additionally, the narrative is highly descriptive and there is not much of figurative or poetic language mirroring again the logical and factual way that politicians think and speak.

The whole plot revolves around politics. Issues about international relationships and diplomacy, personal gains and conspiracies are at the core of the book. Cabinet meetings, press conferences and discussions between governors are presented in an intriguing way, especially since there is an ironic undertone at the whole narrative. The underlying purpose of all that is the process of manipulation of the public and the will of the masses. This is clear by the determination and the actions of the Prime Minister, Jim Sams. And although Jim reveals his incentive behind all his actions at his monologue at the end of the book, some questions still arise out of his speech. A plot hole is created as no explanation is given on how they started transforming in the first place, and based on what criteria the cockroach that is going to be turned into a human is chosen. 

An interesting sub-theme is the solidarity among humans, or more correctly the lack of it. What intrigued me the most was a scene where Jim knew that he was in a room with people that used to be vermins themselves as well and he felt that they were all a "band of brothers and sisters". But later on, the same people were hesitant to express their feelings freely as that might provoke feelings of discontent and revenge to the most powerful person in the room towards them. This goes hand in hand with the realisation Jim had a bit after his transformation that he "lacked the broad and instant union with the entirety of his kind" which entails that vermins were bound to each other, a bond alien to humans.

And since I've mentioned Jim Sams, let me talk about him a little bit more. Jim is the protagonist and we see him interacting with his ministers and with foreign governors. Although we follow him around, I needed more descriptions concerning his feelings and thoughts in order to care for him as a character. Especially due to his transformation from a cockroach to a human, I expected to read much more about the novel human urges and emotions that he experiences in combination with meeting his responsibilites as a politician. So, you keep reading not because you care and worry for his fate but because you are interested to see what happens next.

To conclude, The Cockroach is an easy and fun read thanks to the original plot that makes the reader curious to see what happens at the end. Although it is surrealistic, everything is described in a way that totally reminds us of our world today. However, the action-driven plot doesn't leave room for character development and identification.

Rating: 🌻🌻🌻/🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻