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Loading... Saturday (2005)by Ian McEwan
A delightful and revealing novel set in February 2003 on the day of the London march against the proposed invasion of Iraq. McEwan’s novel contrasts the relationships within a family, with the differing range of opinions nationwide about the invasion. This threat of invasion is mirrored in Henry Perowne’s life as a result of a chance incident, partially brought about by the march. In the course of a long and unsettling day, Perowne learns a great deal about himself and his family, aspects that he had not previously realised.  camharlow | May 7, 2013 |  Like my (upcoming) review of Perdido Street Station, this was written as I went along. My mum told me to read this book just so that I've read something of McEwan's work, to get an idea of the East Anglia style -- I was once planning to do the same writing course. The first ten pages bored me. Blah, blah, blah, mostly medical procedure, a doctor's life is so busy, blahblahblah -- a scenario I know well as a doctor's daughter, that doesn't really seem to merit ten pages to me. It got old fast in real life; in print, it's even worse. The prose is quite ordinary, and lingers on topics I don't find particularly interesting: pages on pages about medical techniques, a couple of pages about the main character's son's music, a paragraph about the advances in kettles, pages in which the main character denounces the value of stories, half a chapter devoted to a squash game I couldn't care less about... Despite that, there's something about it that kept me reading. Something vaguely hypnotic. I didn't find it "dazzling... profound and urgent" as the cover promised. I found it dry, plodding, boring, stolid. By seventy-eight pages in, the guy hasn't left his home yet and the most exciting thing is the plane in flames, which is dismissed in about two pages, near the beginning. Strangely enough, I thought it did pick up near the end. Most of the drama was anti-climatic and sandwiched between pages and pages of irrelevant detail, but I tried to read it with the view that the book is meant to be about an ordinary guy going about his ordinary life. The prose mimics that, and the pages and pages of description enforce it. It took me ages to decide how many stars to give it. I'm not sure there was much to really like or dislike. The idea could have been interesting, but I'm not sure there's realistically a way to write about an ordinary man going through his mostly ordinary day in a way that keeps someone genuinely interested throughout. The build up was needed so you could care enough about the characters, but all the build up made me bored with them. I definitely don't think this is a "modern classic" or whatever. I don't think it has the strength to last. I might try something else of this guy's, to see if I like him better when he's not restricting himself to one day of an ordinary guy's life. Any recommendations? (  ) shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 | I quite liked "Saturday" which is very well-written and true in some way that "Atonement" did not feel true to me. A much better novel, imho. (  ) nmele | Apr 6, 2013 | "...it interests him less to have the world reinvented; he wants it explained." Literature still has something to say to science. Against the backdrop of the pending invasion of Iraq, a very rational and orderly neurosurgeon is menaced by a very irrational hooligan. Poetry comes to the rescue. (  ) KidSisyphus | Apr 5, 2013 | Didn't like it nearly as much as I liked Atonement. ( ) cat-ballou | Apr 2, 2013 |
 Overall, however, Saturday has the feel of a neoliberal polemic gone badly wrong; if Tony Blair—who makes a fleeting personal appearance in the book, oozing insincerity—were to appoint a committee to produce a "novel for our time," the result would surely be something like this.  [T]he lambent, stream-of-consciousness narrative that Mr. McEwan uses so adroitly in these pages. In fact, "Saturday" reads like an up-to-the-moment, post-9/11 variation on Woolf's classic 1925 novel "Mrs. Dalloway."  We have learned to expect the worst from Ian McEwan. Since his debut collection of stories, First Love, Last Rites, his fiction has always dwelt at the heart of places we hope never to find ourselves in: the vacancies left in lives by the kidnapped child or the lost lover; the mined no-man's-land that follows extreme violence or sexual obsession. His subject has always been damage and the way the darkest events in a life will drain the rest of love. For McEwan, happiness has rarely gone unpunished.
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0385511809, Hardcover)From the pen of a master — the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement — comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.Saturday is a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before. On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne’s day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne’s professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him — with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive. (retrieved from Amazon Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:34:26 -0500) From the pen of a master-the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Atonement-comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Saturday is a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man-a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before. On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne's day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne's professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him-with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive.… (more) |
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