Saturday

It has recently come to my attention that I have quite the (international) goodreads following, so I thought I’d write a little review.

Wow — I think Saturday has earned a spot among my favorite books ever. To be perfectly honest, I am stunned by McEwan’s masterful construction of this novel. Saturday is a meditation on the role of Western/well-resourced nations in the politics of less resourced nations and the growing anxiety of society as technology threatens to change the world as we know it. This is all explored through the eyes of an extremely unreliable (or at least extremely partial, despite convincing himself that he is examining the world around him through a medical-type sterile lens) narrator. Of course, McEwan offers no answers, because as much as we’d like to break everything down to the atoms that make it up to find the “right” solution, some things are impossible to solve in an impartial way. Brilliant. McEwan’s Saturday will keep me thinking for a very long time.

Plus a nice reference to “Dover Beach” which I have been lucky enough to have heard read aloud at the White Cliffs of Dover themselves :)

Carino, come tutti gli altri libri di McEwan che ho letto finora; risulta sempre gradevole la scrittura dell'autore.
Esattamente come gli altri romanzi anche questo però mi ha lasciato l'impressione sia scritto senza sforzo, come se il nostro Ian stesse facendo il compitino, come se gli riuscisse facile scrivere così a prescindere.
Fa quasi rabbia che McEwan non metta il proprio talento a servizio di qualcosa che potrebbe forse essere magnifico.
Fa anche rabbia che pur definendolo un compitino mi renda conto che il romanzo non sia affatto brutto, anzi; ho apprezzato la scelta della giornata unica così come la scelta di inserire alcune digressioni in campo medico.
In conclusione è una apprezzabile analisi di vita di famiglia.
Lo consiglierò a qualche amico che studia medicina.

For me, one-star ratings are extremely rare.

& this is, without a doubt, one of the worst books... Ever! The titular day is a bland array of stupid events that fill up a stupid life. The neurosurgeon atop his manse contemplates the plague of humanity living right below him (commoners, proletarians, drug addicts) all the while believing that his own existence is worthwhile as he parades around all the perks of being rich in a modern-day luxurious London. I detested this neo-bourgeoisie panorama too too much to continue about what a drag it was for a midlife twit to tell me how fabulous his house and wife are, how complete and neat and great he has it, how his over-pampered kids are both prodigies, how there's a fear super far away from this narrative in the form of a potential post-911 mass annihilation. Everything in P.O.V. of Perowne has a sense of simplicity and he tackles the main problems of the narrative with a sense of superior knowledge & worse, literary entitlement. Asshole! (It is also very clear that this is a Mrs. Dalloway prototype, but unlike Woolf's single day in the life of... , this one is all pretension) I would hate to meet this man and I am sorry to say that this does not dispel the notion that all medical professionals are lame. I am also sorry to admit that for somebody who wrote arguably one of the best love epics ever, "Atonement" the phenomenal, Mr. McEwan should be ashamed of himself for this piece of utter trash.

~Из дневника читања велечасног Осора Мизантропа~

Симптоматично и амблематично да мој први потхват неурофикције бива праћен крвавим изливима из мрака лобање, неоригиналним перформансима, најблаже речено…

Ијан (беше Сабласни) Макјуан, дипломирао енглеску књижевност, заразио се белим мантилом, оболео од дарвинитиса и неуроманије. Типски лик, неурохирург оперисан од књижевности, и његов антипод, ћерка песникиња – судар двеју култура: природе и друштва, науке и уметности, атеизма и спиритуализма…испушена муштикла, под ђоном микроскопског реализма, асфиксираног приповедачког презента у вртоглавици 24h/360-камере, са акцентом на зев, а подсмехом на спев, тамо где амбигвитетно, амбивалентно и опалесцентно – не бива; само оштрина, висока резолуција и дугометражност – лоше развлачење жваке биологизма: биолошког детерминизма и редукционизма, а под руку са дарвинизмом. Атеизам, анти-теизам, анти-креационизам, анти-спиритуализам – да!, али не и сцијентизам, вапи читалац-научењак! Ми нисмо стерилни ако су таква наша оруђа; ми, људи од науке – епрувете, пипете, бирете – можда, можда су неки од нас и од пера! А оптимизам?! Тај кужни задах од Hominem optimi, како би рекао мој побратим Ниче, слаб је ветар за наше низине, наше ширине и дубине. Ризничар и пећинар најбоље зна. А зелено, пита природољубац. “Колико суза да однегујеш ружу?” Вратите ми моје зеленило, наратив ми озелените, и реците оној критичарки Џејн да му је хомеостаза нарушена.

Научно информисан, а поетски текст, допадљив – има га код Миријане Стефановић. Суботу треба уштројити (и претворити у cli-fi). Филтрат факата у фикцији не мора да буде дослован – он извире, орбитира, асоцира и евоцира, провоцира – ако му приђе врли читалац. Где? Рецимо 2012. година, час књижевности код Сање Каљевић у Земунској гимназији, а пред нама Попин Списак који се отвара биолошким сазнањима о датим бићима (било је то питање професорке, јер се о књижевности говори и разговара, а не бубачи и одговара). Дакле, не треба много мозга да се учита, спочита и рашчита књижевно-уметнички текст – ако је зналачки написан. Ијан Макјуан је (суботом нарочито) штребер без трунке спонтаности и флексибилности, толико занет новонаученим, да губи такт и птичју перспективу. Имплицитно, Малармеових прећутних три четврт, то се тражи! А ја одох са ових шина на вечито кратак викенд…

Епиграф заварава: “(…) [П]ритисак људских милиона (…) [д]ок мегатоне воде ваљају организме на дну океана. Док плиме и осеке глачају стене. Док ветрови дубе камен. А велелепна супермашина отвара нов живот за непребројиво човечанство. Па зар би им ти ускратио право на постојање?” Сол Белоу: Херцог

Бљак. “Херни помишља како је град пун погодак, сјајан изум, биолошко ремек-дело – сви ти милиони што врве око наталожених слојева прошлих векова, као око некаквог коралног спруда[.]”

“Примитивно размишљање поклоника натприродног своди се на оно што његове колеге психијатри називају проблемом, или идејом, референције. Вишак субјективног, устројавање света према властитим потребама, неспособност да појмиш колико си безначајан.” Indeed.

“[T]ежња за утопијом на крају увек доводи до аминовања сваког могућег ексцеса, сваког беспоштедног средства за њено остварење.”

“Секс је (…) биолошки хиперпростор[.]” Whatever.

“[К]раткотрајно хемијско блаженство које ће је привезати за њен јад исто тако чврсто као што се опијат везује за своје mu-рецепторе.”

•tTallis, R. (2008). The neuroscience delusion
•tKelleter, F. (2009). A Tale of Two Natures: Worried Reflections on the Study of Literature and Culture in an Age of Neuroscience and Neo-Darwinism. JLT Articles, 1(1).
•tHogan, P. C. (2014). Literary brains: Neuroscience, criticism, and theory. Literature Compass, 11(4), 293-304.
•tOwen, M. (2017). Neuroscience, consciousness and neurofiction (Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia).
•tRoth, M. (2009). The rise of the neuronovel

Atonement is my favourite book. I am therefore astonished by how much I disliked Saturday. I found it pretentious, pompous, and far-fetched.
I understand the metaphore McEwan is using here, what he's trying to say, but it comes across clunky and forced.
The book dragged on and on and I had to force myself to finish it. I felt no sympathy for Perowne's family, who are all priviliged, super-talented and self-absorbed people.
In fact, the whole story had a very condescending vibe to it.
McEwan failed to open his subject up to a broad audience: when he writes about squash, it's only interesting to read about if you play squash ( and are very competitive about it), when he writes about living in a posh neighbourhood in London, it's so specific it's somehow only relevant if you happen to live in such a neighbourhood yourself, the scenes about neurosurgery are so detailed only a real neurosurgeon will know what's going on, blues music is described for the sole sake of people who play it themselves (masterfullly, of course) and poetry for people who write it (and win prizes doing so).
So unless you're a blues-loving, squash enthused poet/ brain surgeon from the posh part of London, you'll find yourself skimming through quite a number of pages.
The only scene that touched me was the "event" itself. The imagery there had something very delicate and I could just see it in my mind's eye like a canvas unfolding. Unfortunately, this feeling was later undone by the discovery the poem Daisy read wasn't one of her own.
Also, I was completely disheartened by the discovery the book didn't end there, but there was another, final section with more brain-surgery, classical music, and meandering thoughts about the lofty moral high ground.
For me, the whole section 5 could've been omitted. I struggled to get through it even more than the other chapters, even though I was almost at the finish line.
Solely for the quality of McEwan's writing itself, I give 2 stars instead of 1.
A major disappointment.

[Edited 10/10/23]

A day in the life of a London neurosurgeon in the mid-1990s. It starts out as a commonplace Saturday but it turns out far from that - drama and trauma invade the day. It begins with the good doctor spotting a plane with an engine on fire and this serves to introduce the theme of post-9-11 terrorism fears in London.



This particular Saturday is also the day when hundreds of thousands marched in London to protest the Iraq war. It's also a special day because the doctor's Mercedes is side-swiped and he ends up in a street altercation with thugs.

The doctor's son is a blues guitarist and his daughter a poet, so the two serve as foils for the author's speculations about the roles of arts and literature in modern life.

The neurosurgeon gives us a lot of his speculation on the neural operations of the brain, which is, in effect, genetic determinism. We read these speculations in the descriptions of the thug with body tics and during the doctor's visits to his senile mother.

It's a good book, well-written and well-thought-out - after all it's Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and recognized master of the English language. That said, it's tedious in parts. Since you are expanding a single day into prose, a squash game or an auto accident occupy pages and it drags a bit.

To be honest, as I revised this review, and since I've read many more novels by this author since I first wrote this review, this is probably my least-favorite McEwan. I dropped my rating from a 4 to a 3.



Top photo of London from the cloister.co.uk
The author (b. 1948) from theguardian.com

[Revised 10/22/22. Pictures and shelves added, rating changed]

A day in the life of a neurosurgeon? Sounds interesting enough. A day in the life of a neurosurgeon, which just happens to be the day when a curious chain of events culminates in the aforementioned neurosurgeon performing an emergency operation upon the man who threatened to slit the throat of his wife and rape his daughter? Does that sound better, or just trashier?

This book works thanks to the detail. I'm not sure if it's McEwan (I must reread Atonement and read some of his other books; Enduring Love is on the pile) or just the persona he took on for this novel, but the protagonist Henry Perowne hyperanalyses every single instant in his life. And endlessly self-justifies. It may just be my unreasonable but deep-rooted hatred for neurosurgeons speaking here, but do I really want to be reading three pages about some rich guy explaining why he doesn't feel bad about spending a lot of money on a fancy car? It sounds to me like he's trying to convince someone here.

When On Chesil Beach was published, I read a review that criticised, in passing, the implausibility of Saturday's ending. Since then I haven't been able to forget that. Not only does the ending now seem totally ludicrous, but a lot of what seemed like magic when I first read the book now looks suspiciously like dross. The characters, for example, do not possess a realism that would withstand more than a passing glance; most of them, in fact, possess a rather nauseating aura of Mary-Sueness. The rich, handsome neuroscientist, who has got everything he has through sheer hard work. The budding poet daughter, the up-and-coming guitarist son, the intelligent, beautiful wife snatched from the jaws of blindness, the massive house, the French chateau, the squash, the irritable father-in-law. Everything is bathed in an almost soap-operatic glow of perfect-but-slightly-damaged-so-that-it-has-character upper-class Englishness. And it's not at all realistic. In fact, I found myself sympathising with the greasy sleazy criminal guy with the brain disorder.

I can't help wondering, though, if McEwan does this deliberately (though all his books seem flawed to some degree; maybe he just doesn't see what he's doing wrong). Possibly this perfect family represents some sort of dream stereotype/archetype in the human psyche - the genteel, urbane, well-offness of upper-class British lifestyle for which we all strive to some degree. Maybe it was sort of an attempt to dispel the stereotype by showing that these presumably perfect people have problems in their lives too? But no, that doesn't work. Because their problems are so melodramatic and unrealistic that they would clearly never happen to any of us plebs. Evidently only the 'beautiful people' can stop bad things happening in their lives by reciting poetry.

Whatever its faults, though, everything is saved by McEwan's beautiful prose, and this makes me give a much higher rating than seems justified by what I just said. Because despite everything that may or may not be wrong with this book, I really enjoyed it and this was primarily because of the way he writes. I swear he could write a novel about a bootlace and make it un-putdownable. Meticulous, erudite, elegant, flawless. Such talent is unbelievable. Reading through it again, it's interesting that there doesn't seem to be any particular stylistic features to his work that stand out. He seems just to write normally, but really really really well. And he writes about interesting things: the Iraq war, evolution, Islam and Alzheimer's disease, among other topics. There are some really great bits about literature and poetry, too.

I've just spent about forty minutes looking through all the pages I dog-eared as being particularly outstanding examples of his prose, and there are so many to choose from. This particular one doesn't sparkle as much as some, but I think it is a good illustration of his ability to combine beautiful writing with concepts that make interesting reading.

"For all the recent advances, it's still not known how this well-protected one kilogram or so of cells [the brain:] actually encodes information, how it holds experiences, memories, dreams and intentions. He doesn't doubt that in years to come, the coding mechanism will be known, though it might not be in his lifetime. Just like the digital codes of replicating life held within DNA, the brain's fundamental secret will be laid open one day. But even when it has, the wonder will remain, that mere wet stuff can make this bright inward cinema of thought, of sight and sound and touch bound into a vivid illusion of an instantaneous present, with a self, another brightly wrought illusion, hovering like a ghost at its centre. Could it ever be explained, how matter becomes conscious? He can't begin to imagine as satisfactory account, but he knows it will come, the secret will be revealed - over decades, as long as the scientists and the institutions remain in place, the explanations will refine themselves into an irrefutable truth about consciousness. It's already happening... and the journey will be completed, Henry's certain of it. That's the only kind of faith he has. There's grandeur in this view of life."

Now here is a book that would have failed miserably in hands of most authors. The book is just about a doctor in States going through his Saturday - something like McEwan was trying to write a modern version of Joyce's Ulysses; story of a man going through a normal day in his life. Except the problem is as with Bloom, Henry's day is full of too many coincidences. In here, Henry, a doctor, starts his day with a disturbance that provokes all kind of post-9/11 fears, gets in trouble with a ganster - twice, being saved first by having a Gregory House MD kind of Eureka moment and then by his daughter reciting a poem before finally going to treat the very same gangster as his patient. Those are only some of incidences that happen during his day.

I probably won't have enjoyed such a book but I think any McEwan book is bound to get three stars from me. He is an excellent observer of human behaviour but what I most love about reading his books is that he can make anything read like poems. He writes of such things as music and being raised by a mentally disturbed parent brilliantly (and also it seems repeatively) - better than most writers but those are subjects that most writers are always writing about. McEwan's genuis as a novelist is that not only can he teach himself to write about philosphise, politics and, also such dull things like medical surgeries; he can also write about them in a manner that those details didn't bore me for a moment.

(Actually the only thing that he has problems writing about, in my opinion, is two people having sex. He can describe the characters looking forward to it and thinking of it in retrospect but as for the actual action he seems to be struggle, might be him self-censoring so as to be sure not to seem vulgar but still)

In the end, the theme of the big picture seems to be struggles of an everyman trying hard to hold on to his tiny niche of happiness. The big picture is not very clear though which may explain the low average rating on Goodreads.