I suppose you know “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, a story where a salesman wakes up one morning transformed into a gigantic insect. Here we have the opposite, a cockroach that becomes a human being but not just any human being. This insect mutates into UK’s Prime Minister. He soon realises that the whole Cabinet is also composed of muted cockroaches. In an intense political period, the prime minister is trying to pass a bill on Reversalism, an economic theory where the flow of money is reversed. You pay to work and get paid to buy in shops. The Prime Minister uses Twitter to spread false news, discusses with the American President who is “one of them” and invents a tale of harassment to exclude a Cabinet member. The bill passes, and the cockroaches can go back to their life. No need to specify what McEwan is talking about, and good to laugh a little about all of it.
“How could a nation do this to itself ? It was tragic. It was laughable. Surely the Greeks had a word for it, choosing to act in one’s own very worst interests ? Yes, they did. It was “akrasia”. Perfect. The word began to circulate.”