Imagine being one of Britain's most celebrated novelists, winner of the Booker Prize, and having your own literary interpretation rejected by a high school teacher. That's exactly what happened to Ian McEwan when he tried to help his youngest son Greg with an A-level English assignment.

The assignment? Analyzing McEwan's 1997 psychological thriller Enduring Love. You know, the book he wrote himself.

When the Author's Opinion Doesn't Matter

McEwan later admitted, "I confess I did give him a tutorial and told him what he should consider." He essentially gave his son a private masterclass on the themes, symbolism, and narrative techniques of a novel he'd spent years crafting. Sounds like an unfair advantage, right?

Wrong. The teacher "disagreed fundamentally" with what they said, and Greg walked away with a C+—the academic equivalent of "nice try, but no."

The Death of the Author (Literally)

This delicious irony perfectly illustrates a concept that English teachers love and authors sometimes hate: the death of the author. Once a work is published, the writer's intended meaning becomes just one interpretation among many. What matters in academic analysis is textual evidence, critical frameworks, and—apparently—what your teacher thinks.

McEwan's experience highlights a fundamental tension in literary education. English departments teach students to analyze texts through specific lenses: feminist readings, post-colonial perspectives, psychoanalytic approaches. An author saying "actually, I just thought the curtains were blue" doesn't override a well-argued essay about color symbolism representing emotional depression.

After the incident, McEwan confessed he felt "a little dubious" about having his books taught in schools. Can you blame him? The man writes the book, explains the book, and still gets marked wrong about the book.

Not the First Time

McEwan isn't alone in this authorial humiliation. Writers throughout history have been told they don't understand their own work:

Vladimir Nabokov once graded student essays about his own novels and gave them poor marks for missing his intended meaning
William Golding reportedly disagreed with many academic interpretations of Lord of the Flies
Multiple authors have failed quizzes about their own books on literary websites

The real lesson here isn't about right or wrong interpretations—it's about the peculiar nature of literary analysis itself. Once you release words into the world, they belong to readers as much as to you. Teachers, critics, and even well-meaning students can find meanings you never intended, and in academic settings, their interpretation might actually be more "correct" than yours.

Greg McEwan learned a valuable lesson that day: having the author's phone number doesn't guarantee an A. And Ian McEwan? He learned that even Booker Prize winners can't beat the red pen of a determined English teacher.

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