Meeting Ian McEwan - Page 4

My new companion had gotten himself under the misapprehension that the mother character, as well as McEwan's own mother, had suffered from Huntington's disease.

He added that the offspring of people afflicted with Huntington's have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease, but that since McEwan appeared to be in his 50's and the disease was usually manifest before that, McEwan was probably safe.

"No no no no," I corrected him. "The mother merely has Alzheimer's. It's a totally different character, the bad guy, who has Huntington's."

The fellow hadn't yet read Saturday ... but, no, he begged to differ, he was rather persuaded from McEwan's talk that the mother character had Huntington's. Moreover, he'd read that in an article about McEwan.

(Was this focussing of my attention on the two mothers another cosmic McEwan connection? A month earlier I'd written about Two Trailer Park Moms, another real/fictional mother duo.)

"I assure you," I told the fellow. "Look — I just read the book about a week ago. I remember quite distinctly -- it's a totally different character who has Huntington's."

"Well, he did say the mother character was based on his own mother. And McEwan's mother died of Huntington's. I read it in Eye magazine" (a free Toronto weekly). "Here, maybe there's an Eye newsbox around here...."

What a preposterous delusion the fellow was under!

Do you remember Woody Allen's 1977 film, Annie Hall? Alvy, the character played by Allen, is waiting in line to see an art film. Some pretentious know-it-all in the queue, a few positions ahead of Alvy, is self-importantly expounding to his date about the writings of deep thinker and enigmatic celebrity scholar Marshall McLuhan. Alvy gets more and more fed up until, having had enough, he interrupts the fathead to tell him he's completely wrong about McLuhan. The man heatedly defends his views. Then comes the classic moment: Alvy takes a few steps ... the camera rests on what had been an unnoticed post ... and from behind it, Marshall McLuhan himself emerges. (McLuhan acted the bit part himself.) McLuhan goes up to the man together with Alvy and backs Alvy up, telling the man: "You know nothing of my work."

I was shortly to have a slightly similar moment.

The fellow with the Huntington's delusion was looking up and down Bay St. for an Eye box. He'd intended to turn east at Gerrard St. but walked a bit further along my route, wanting to prove his point. Then he spotted a box across Bay St., on the west side.

Article Author: Uriel Wittenberg

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