

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Saturday (2005)by Ian McEwan
![]()
Booker Prize (46) » 15 more No current Talk conversations about this book. ![]() Right, I'm aware this makes me sound like a bit of a philistine, but I really enjoy reading about when someone's ordinary life is just going along nicely. If this whole novel was just about a man who played a heated game of squash, did a spot of surgery while listening to the Goldberg Variations, and came home and made a fish stew and thought about the specific ways in which he loved his family, I think I would have liked it the same amount. Fleishman Isn't In Trouble, if you like. Baxter as antagonist is compelling, but I do feel that he is the character that McEwan has the loosest grasp of. The rest of the main cast are fully themselves as soon as they walk in, which owes a lot to how much time Henry, the protagonist, spends thinking about them while we're knocking around in his head, and less to their actual actions on the page. We also get three entries into the "fictional media I wish was real list" with Theo's song and the poems by Daisy and John. Probably unwise of the audiobook narrator to have a crack at singing Theo's song though; it came out very bland. Reason read: TBR takedown, Reading 1001, ROOT This is a story set in London on Saturday, 15 February 2003, as a large demonstration is taking place against the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is also the story of a family; neurosurgeon, lawyer wife, adult children. The novel examines how we connect with the world, what makes up our world view, and our existence. I enjoyed the book tho it is not his finest. It is contemplative even though the world around it is increasingly violent and dangerous. This has been on my shelf since 2012.
L’acuité du regard et le sens du détail dévastateur. La profondeur de la réflexion politique autant que philosophique. Why review a work of fiction for The Indexer? Chiefly because of the author’s use of several very different taxonomies covering neurosurgery, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s chorea, blues music, squash and fish. The cumulative effect of this detail is to emphasize that, despite much knowledge, training, experience and wide interests, Perowne is powerless to control unexpected horrors. He uses his brain to heal other brains, but he cannot fathom the workings of the mind. The complex taxonomy of neurosurgery is used twice: at the opening of the book and again near the end. The author could have maintained the reader’s interest and suspense with more simple language, but his careful research has produced a precision that gives a far stronger sense of authenticity, not only to medical indexers who will have little trouble following the procedures. Again with Alzheimer’s disease: the detail contrasts with the lively mother and swimming champion whom Perowne remembers when he visits her in a nursing home. As for Huntington’s chorea, the taxonomy is essential to explain the unusual behaviour of the man who threatens him; he is not the average street thug. The squash game is, again, described moment by moment and gives insight to Perowne’s character: he is desperately keen to win, coming close to an acrimonious dispute with his anaesthetist with whom he has an ideal professional relationship. Even the fishmonger’s slab is described in taxonomic detail which leads to Perowne’s contemplation of moral matters such as whether fish feel pain. 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. Belongs to Publisher SeriesOtavan kirjasto (174) Panorama de Narrativas (615) Rainbow pocketboeken (950) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
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. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |