The Daydreamer - Ian McEwan

Well, I honestly didn’t think I would have finished it this quickly! Ok, it was only 144 pages, but I read it in less than two days! Where was this speed for the entirety of this year? Evidently, my reading material has not reached the perfection that was The Daydreamer.



Seriously, I LOVED this book. It’s definitely going on my list of favourite books. McEwan wrote in the Introduction to the book that, although the target audience was really adults, he wanted to write it so that children would enjoy it too. What resulted was a piece of writing that I can only dream of writing like. It balanced the playfulness and innocence of childhood against more serious themes, like death and growing up: not patronising the children, and yet engaging them with his imaginative narrative.

I love children’s books. Which is probably why I enjoyed this so much. But McEwan asked in his introduction whether we actually like reading them now, or if we just like our memories of reading them. He said:

Do adults really like children’s literature? I’ve always thought the enthusiasm was a little overstated, even desperate. ‘Swallows and Amazons? Beatrix Potter? Marvellous books!’ Do we really mean it, do we really enjoy them, or are we speaking up for, and keeping the lines open to, our lost, nearly forgotten selves? When was the last time you curled up alone with The Swiss Family Robinson?

And he does have a point. Few of the books I loved as a child I have read recently. He goes on to say it’s what we remember about our experiences reading them that makes us think we still love them.
However, if you’ve been following this blog in any way, shape or form, you will probably have become aware that I have just a tiny little thing for Harry Potter. That is generally acknowledged as children’s literature (whether or not this is justified is for another time), and I don’t just love the memory of that. I read Philosopher’s Stone over Christmas, and I was just as enchanted as I was when I was six. Does this make me a lesser reader because I enjoy simple things? Well, I’m sure SOME idiots – those who still think that writing for children is for incompetent authors (see my furious blog post detailing a similar situation, in which I screeched like a Banshee) – do think this. But I think it just show’s we’re more in tune with our inner child: the child that never leaves us, and the child which, I think, is vital for writers of any kind.

Anyway. Back to The Daydreamer.

The book is compiled of a series of short stories all centering around one young boy, Peter, who likes to daydream. Each story is fairly unrelated, except they all have the same characters, and they’re seemingly quite simple. I think this is partly why they could appeal to children, because they’re like short bursts of energy, and you don’t need to dwell long on them. But for an adult, it’s interesting to map the subtle themes that flow through them all, noticing the character development, and revelling in the boundless imagination of the young boy.

Indeed, his imagination is truly admirable, and McEwan writes it in a way that the transition from reality into the dreamworld is so beautifully subtle, that you don’t always notice it straight away. You don’t always know what’s real and what’s not until the end of that particular story, and that’s what makes it so intriguing. Especially when he leaves the endings ambiguous, and lets you decide what happens.

I just wish I;d read this when I was writing my children’s story for my Creative Writing assignment. It dealt with dream and reality, and I worked for so long trying to capture the passage between the two. In the end, I was inspired by Alice Through the Looking-Glass, and had my main character pass through a mirror. Actually, in my Critical Commentary, I said that whilst writing this I was bearing in mind Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory, in which a baby sees themself in a mirror, and for the first time identifies itself. In this transition, they are coming in contact with their true self, an invisible part that only they can see. In reality, I only thought of that afterwards, but it made me sound clever…

I just want to write quickly about the end of this book. It was so poignant and at the same time optimistic (if that’s possible). Peter realises that he can’t always be a child, and that one day he will have to join the adults’ table, and be concerned with work and money and news. He’s standing on a beach, halfway between a group of children playing in the sea, and a group of adults talking. I’m just going to quote it, because nothing I can say could possibly do it justice. I’ll just say that I thought it was utter perfection:

He turned an faced the ocean. It was sparkling, right to the wide horizon. It stretched before him, vast and unknown. One after the other the endless waves came tumbling and tinkling against the shore, and they seemed to Peter like all the ideas and fantasies he would have in his life…

Toby and Charlie and the little ones were jostling to take turns leaping off a rock into a salt-water puddle. And behind all this human movement, the ocean bobbed and folded and slid, for nothing could keep still, not people, not water, not time.

‘Treasure!’ Kate called.

‘I’m coming!’ Peter shouted. ‘I’m coming!’ and he began to sprint towards the water’s edge. He felt nimble and weightless as he skimmed across the sand. I’m about to take off, he thought. Was he daydreaming, or was he flying?