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Ian McEwan
I searched his name on LW and got only this mention. He may be the foremost fiction-based popularizer of rationality alive today. I've never read someone who could so accurately describe the experience of succumbing to bias, or so effectively contrast a reason-based decision process against an unreasoned one, all while "showing, not telling."
Here's a New Yorker profile.
EDIT: I added a selection from a lengthy video interview.
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Comments (10)
Although I'm the one responsible for that quote, I haven't read anything by McEwan. Any particular recommendations?
His most recent one, Solar, isn't his most affecting work, but it successfully (I think) put me into the mind of a Nobel laureate disastrously prone to self-deception. Amsterdam tackles this too -- how little lies we tell ourselves can have terrible consequences. My favorite is The Child In Time, not so much for its rationality as its evocation of a feeling I'm particularly nostalgic for: how long and full of possibility each day felt when I was a kid. I identify strongly with the protagonist's friend, Charles Darke... but I won't spoil it.
Really, you can't go wrong. His early stuff is incredibly perverse, but still thoroughly enjoyable. Everything he writes is permeated with... I guess I'd call it inexorability. Humans being humans and paying for it dearly. Although the more rational characters do usually fare better.
The book you quoted, Enduring Love, is the only one of his I haven't read (besides his collection of children's stories). It's on my to-do list!
Escaping the character with \ works.
Like so: [Amsterdam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_(novel\)) -> Amsterdam
Fixed, thanks!
Some relevant articles:
Richard Dawkins published his groundbreaking book The Selfish Gene. Ian McEwan argues that it is part of a long history of literary science writing, in which the pursuit of truth and the excitement of new ideas is conveyed in luminous prose
McEwan On A Scientific Literary Tradition
Ah, I agree with this; I enjoy very few authors in his genre but I have enjoyed his books.
(For other "literary fiction" I also enjoy Richard Powers, whose research into the lives and professions of his characters seems to me to be very realistic and not shallow; he tries very hard to get the details of the reality correct so he can insert the interesting bit that makes it worth telling as a novel.)
The profile certainly sounds interesting; if I see one of his recent novels, I think I'll give him a try, although I wonder if Tim Powers* is not a better mainstream rationalist author?
* Double-checking, I see Powers is classified as a SF/F author, so I guess he's not a good comparison after all.
Also, I think he's pretty religious; a crypto-Catholic, if I remember correctly.
Interesting. I guess I didn't know about him because he doesn't write science fiction...
I almost included a joke about that in my post.