I took this book out of desperation. There seems to be so little good fiction out there at the moment. I wish I hadn’t. I began to hope that Saturday would become Sunday very quickly as I started to read.

I think McEwan gets by on his literary accolades alone. Apparently he won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam in 1998. He has also written 8 other novels. I would dare another publisher to take him on under a pseudonym – and to succeed.

McEwan, as always, dwells on the damage and darkness of life. Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon, awakes at dawn and sees a plane coming down trailing fire. It is also the morning of the antiwar march, the greatest ever massing of people on London’s streets. With 9/11 in the ether, McEwan couldn’t resist, could he?

We are thrust into this awful man’s mental anguish and delight about almost everything. I was bored to tears. I felt no empathy whatsoever with Perowne or his wife, Rosalind and their poetry writing daughter, Daisy. I couldn’t have cared less about his game of squash with an anaesthetist colleague. Or his battles with tumours and trauma.

I think that McEwan is laughing at the rest of the world when he writes. The pretentious changing of tenses and deliberate non-use of dialogue irritated me.

I have to confess I did not finish the book. As one of Perowne’s own patients, heaven help her, might decide, life is too short.

Reviewer: Amanda Patterson
Rating: 1/5

The hype surrounding this book claimed that the post 9/11 world is radically different, and the way our protagonist spends his day makes that difference unbearably clear. Don't know if that's true, but this is an excellent book. McEwan's protagonist (Dr. Henry Perowne) is so completely realized that the reader knows that every piece of music he selects to listen to in the operating room is exactly what he would choose. We are drawn into Dr. Perowne's day (including flashbacks) and everything feels true, even those things that are well outside the experience of most of us. I remember that when I finished reading the book, I sat still for quite a while, awed by the power of McEwan as a writer.

The best chewy fiction read for me this year. Taut, controlled writing; interesting and well-researched characters; real location and events used to springboard the plot. The timing was brilliant for me in that I was also re-reading Mrs Dalloway at this time and Saturday is like this and another ground-breaking work, Ulysses, in that its events occur over the span of one day (the idea being that all of life occurs or is present in each day of every life). Like Ulysses, McEwan's subject matter and location are contemporary/topical and the events centre around the London protests against the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s. McEwan manages to weave in and out of this plotline many thoughts, philosophical and mundane, about contemporary living, modern technology, rich vs poor, urban London living, inter-generational concerns and much more, without it being burdensome. You are also treated to some highly technical descriptions of brain surgery, but don't worry, he wears his learning lightly and it's all driving the story home. I personally loved the detail of Henry travelling around his local streets in Fitzrovia and enjoyed checking his exact path in my A-Z or online. I really miss living in London and this level of true detail was so enjoyable. Another fun thing I intend to try is his fish stew recipe (yes, you can find it in many literary cooking blogs!) which is cleverly alternated with monitoring news reports in the text. It's not the lightest read, but that is part of its attraction. Sometimes you get fed up with junk food and just need a good old nutritious roast dinner to work through. Highly recommended.

O ser feliz por entero.

Living the dream in modern urban London is our man, and protagonist, as a neurosurgeon, happily married, with grown up good kids, with great friends, living his fine and more or less contented satisfying upper middle class existence. Ian McEwan stretches this day out in mostly long descriptive paragraphs on the minutiae of the protagonist's life, of his existence, of his inner thoughts, maybe as a nod to how we in the so-called Developed World think and focus our lives on our selves, our family, friends and career? On this day there is the momentous anti-war march, in London like everywhere else, the newsfeeds are being watched and monitored like never before with the ongoing growth of digital media, and on this Saturday our neurosurgeon has interactions with a number of different people throughout his day, and each impacts on his behaviour, on his thoughts and sometimes on how he sees himself.

The book also kind of maps how modern over-arching political issues like the Iraq War debate and real issues like petty crime can so easily usurp the balance we have created in our modern lives. There is a pretty interesting and surprisingly intense story throughout the book, that truly tests the world our protagonist has built around himself and his family. It would be easy to dismiss this as elitist or narrow, but for me it has a wider scope, it could be about any of us, it's about all people, about how we all spend most of our lives trying to live the way we want, how we want as much as we can, and how the external environment is always out there, almost fighting us daily whether it be via aging, time, climate, politics, health or that thing that is the worse of all.... other people! 7 out of 12.

*******Note : SPOILERS ALL OVER THE PLACE!! This review is for people who have read Saturday or people who will never read Saturday!********

Reading Saturday is like running a weird obstacle race. At first it’s all manicured lawns and rhododendrons, and then it’s hideous piles of donkey droppings, and that’s how it goes – daffodils, donkey droppings, vistas of beauty, donkey droppings. And I’m not sure that was the intended effect. What a weird novel – here we have one of the stupidest plot devices for many years, followed immediately by one of the soapiest; and we also have an excruciatingly badly written cardboard villain; we have some fantastically overwritten passages which could make you lose your lunch if you’re sensitive to pretension; and yet, I liked it. I thought it couldn’t have tried more to do something which is worth doing, which is, to pick up the chaotic bundles of stuff left around by the journalists* and try to connect them together, and in the middle of the madness of the early 21st century, our madness, to make some kind of sense of some of the lives that can be lived in its midst.

THE TWO RIDICULOUS PLOT DEVICES

1)tOkay, there’s a home invasion, like in Clockwork Orange or Death Wish or Funny Games. McEwan’s villain is called Baxter and he’s the standard twitching psycho. He has Huntingdon’s Chorea, the thing that killed Woody Guthrie. He’s got SYMBOL stamped all over his cardboard simian features. He represents THE LOWER ORDERS who in turn represent ANARCHY AND VIOLENCE. The beautiful upper middle class Perowne family represent ORDER, KNOWLEDGE and THE ARTS. So Baxter has ordered the pretty 23 year old daughter to disrobe. But then he notices a book on the coffee table. What’s that? It’s a poetry book I wrote, she says. So the psycho villain then asks her to read something out of it. She then quotes Dover Beach from memory and he has an epiphany, he howls “Oh that’s so beautiful!”, all thoughts of rape flee from his mind. Now really

a)tEither Ian McEwan thinks that could actually happen in which case he’s very silly, or

b)tHe thinks US READERS would think that could really happen, in which case he thinks WE’RE really silly

2)tThen, the father and the son overwhelm the intruder and hurl him down the antique stairs, so he receives a brain injury. In true medical soap tradition (British readers will be thinking of HOLBY CITY here), the father who hurled becomes the doctor who will save; yes, he dashes to the operating room to perform the delicate operation only he could do to save this wretch’s life. How morally superior can you possibly get? Well, this second slice of soapy pie was finessed pretty well in the end by our author, because, as he explains, “By saving his life in the operating theatre, Henry also committed Baxter to his torture” (from his terrible degenerative disease). That may be so, but it don't make this situation any less sudsy.


SOME THINGS I REALLY LIKED

Readers have been repulsed by McEwan’s fulsome descriptions of the totally perfect Perowne family, the lovely lawyer wife, the lovely poet daughter, the lovely guitar prodigy son, the lovely brain surgeon dad, and the lovely family donkey (I made the last one up, there is no Perowne family donkey, but if there was, you may be sure it would be the only donkey with a PhD in Egyptology from Balliol College, Oxford). But I don’t think all this gush is to be taken at face value at all. I think it’s a kind of loathe letter to the British upper middle class, the people who have got it all, and whose lives are really quite like this. (For an American equivalent, see The Privileges by Jonathan Dee). This is a book about class (and other things), and about the difficult, inconvenient truth (in McEwan’s eyes, maybe) that the upper classes are necessary, however revolting their ineffable perfectness may be. As an instance of how I think we’re supposed to read this stuff, the son Theo has a guitar talent & so because of some string-pulling and connections, he gets to “jam” with some “blues greats” like Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton. Yes, I reached for the sick bag during this passage too, but I believe McEwan wants us to.

I loved all the neurosurgery stuff, which some readers found boring. Au contraire, I thought it was Ballardian, beautiful and convincing.
I liked McEwan’s efforts in trying to make us see the macro in the micro – the greater political event of the looming invasion of Iraq is set off with the personal event of the home invasion; the determinism which Perowne sees will cause the Iraq invasion can be also seen in the descriptions of Baxter’s inevitable fate. I liked the 18 page description of a game of squash and thought this was a crafty homage to Don DeLillo’s Underworld. I liked that McEwan is almost the exact British equivalent of Jonathan Franzen – yes, McEwan’s novels are short affairs and a re produced regularly, but both writers are writing about NOW, THIS VERY MINUTE, and all of our compromised, mortgaged squishy-squashy middleclass lives.

In three words : a heroic failure.



* First come the journalists with their long lenses and rough drafts – they’re fast, they often work in packs and they don’t look back. They leave the crossing of the t’s and the dotting of the I’s to others. Then walking behind the journalists come lonelier figures, the historians and the novelists.

Broken down into elements of plot, there is not a lot going on in "Saturday" until the end. There are twists and turns, but maybe not enough to entertain a mystery novel enthusiast. This is a bit of art more for art's sake. Ian McEwan invents a perfectly believable life, a perfectly believable day.

In the spirit of John Updike he describes the mundane--making it seem extraordinary.

My favorite novels are often those which chronicle the everyday, but make the reader feel the magic of reality. Those little moments in real life that are transcendent: sort of Chekhovian.

When describing action, the author can lace his lines with just enough suspense. He keeps us wondering about things. McEwan is one of the world's best living authors.

Noch nie habe ich soooo lange für einen Ian McEwan Roman gebraucht, dieser hat mich sogar in einen extremen "reading slump" gestürzt, aus dem ich nur schwer wieder rauskomme. Schlussendlich war das Buch ganz ok, gegen Ende ist dann sogar was passiert, aber da hatte ich mit Personen und Geschichte schon völlig abgeschlossen.
Die Idee, dass man abseits der generellen Terrorangst mal Terror im Kleinen, im Privaten erlebt, fand ich interessant, aber an mir ist diese Geschichte völlig emotionslos vorbeigezogen und am Ende musste ich feststellen, dass mir einfach zu oft die moralische Keule um die Ohren geflogen ist, um den Roman doch noch gut zu finden.

I loved this book! This is not a book for you if you’re looking for entertainment only, or light reading. This is a book full of layers, metaphors, parallels, & issues to think about. The thing that most reached out & grabbed me was the idea of a man going about his daily life (whether you find his daily life mundane or overly privileged or whatever), when unexpected events occur & change everything. That’s always sort of a scary theme for me! On the surface it’s the story of Henry, a successful London neurosurgeon; his wife Rosalind, a lawyer; their daughter, a soon to be published poet living in Paris; & their son, a blues musician, also on the brink of success. It’s a story that takes place over the course of one day – Feb 15, 2003, a day just before the start of the Iraq war, when there were huge anti-war demonstrations in London & around the world. That morning, Henry wakes up in the early morning hours & goes to look out the window. He sees an airplane headed toward Heathrow airport, & it appears to be in trouble. This encounter with disaster & possible terrorism informs & affects the rest of Henry’s Saturday. On this day, he’s planned a series of ordinary activities – a game of squash with a coworker; groceries; dinner, etc. Unfortunately, a minor traffic accident interrupts his plans, & brings his life into collision with Baxter, a – what? – small-time crook? – McEwan never specifically tells us – but we know Baxter has some sidekicks who don’t hesitate to use violence. Henry sees that Baxter has neurological symptoms that he’s able to instantly diagnose as a debilitating & fatal genetic disease.
All of that is the surface story. Along the way, you get to learn about neurosurgery – fascinating! I thought the detail about this was really interesting, tho have seen a lot of criticism about its inclusion. Really? Roll with it, you might learn something! You get to learn about the game of squash, literature, poetry, genetic diseases, the aging process, music, & cooking – all parts of Henry’s day or his thinking about his day. You get to think about war & peace & terrorism & fear & politics - & how these huge issues affect all of us even as we cope with the details of our lives. (Maybe you don’t want to think about these things – in which case, don’t read this book!)
Themes to find: The need for control in our lives, what things we have control over, what we don’t, & what happens when unexpected events make us doubt our control. The fear of lack of control or losing control. Work – competitiveness – how it affects our relationships. Biological determinism – to what extent is our destiny controlled by our genes? Violence, war, & what forces are available to us to counteract violence. Seems like a lot of people were disturbed by Henry’s family being “too perfect.” Legitimate – but here’s a theme to look for – the four disciplines of medicine, law, literature & music - & how they stack up against forces of chaos & violence. There’s a whole idea to think about that has to do with Henry & how the different parts of his personality work for or against him in the particular struggle he faces on this Saturday – or do his children represent different parts of him? Or parts of a greater whole that he needs to integrate? And who is Baxter, really? Maybe he’s part of Henry too – in a sense (read the end!) – or part of that greater whole. What does his reaction to the poem that Daisy recites, mean to the story? Another theme – creativity - & what would it mean to a dying man, to have the ability to create something like a poem, that has a life of its own, & an ability to inspire particular feelings & longings in others? I could go on but this is much too long! I thought “Saturday” was FASCINATING.

(Quasi) sempre alti e bassi con McEwan.

C’è poco da fare: il suo stile elegante è uno dei punti di forza.
Solo che ci mette davvero poco a diventare lezioso e indolente.

Me lo immagino, il buon Ian, lì nella sua villetta di Oxford coi gomiti appoggiati sulla scrivania di legno pregiato e un bicchiere di scotch a portata di mano - le Variazioni Goldberg in sottofondo - mentre immagina storie di professionisti dallo status sociale invidiabile e dalle abitudini costose che si muovono in vestaglia nella casetta a tre piani da 250 mq dalle parti della British Library.

Secondo me gli va meglio quando ambienta le sue storie a metà ‘900 (Espiazione, Chesil Beach) che quando fa l’ultra-contemporaneo.
Ne esce fuori una scrittura che ha pochi punti di contatto con quello che racconta.

Qui ci si dilunga un po’ a parlare di squash, poesia, chirurgia, famiglia, guerra, manifestazioni, violenza.

Buona, per quanto chiaramente non nuova, l’idea di svolgere l’azione in un’unica giornata.
L’architettura non è male con tutte le singole parti che confluiscono in quella finale.
Anche se proprio questo finale, ecco, poteva essere meno didascalico.

Disquisizioni post 11 settembre su occidente e medio oriente purtroppo molto attuali.

A conti fatti un'onesta via di mezzo. [69/100]

2.5* (lowered from 3* on previous read)

I was a lot more underwhelmed than on my first reading of this six years ago, and my re-reading of it now was partially due to my having had more than a bit of a soft spot for ol' Ian, having journeyed along with him from back in the days of The Cement Garden and First Love, Last Rites up to and including Amsterdam, where either he or I lost our theretofore consanguineous plot. Back when, though, I raved over (and tried to get everyone I knew to read) Black Dogs, and The Child In Time seemed to affect me as strongly as another current re-read, Sophie's Choice, though with perhaps a fair bit less staying power, as it turns out.

With Saturday some of the old magic did return at times, for sure—such as when the topic of poetry came up in the novel (the materialist protagonist's foil of a daughter being, appropriately enough, a promising poet, like her maternal grandfather). Then did I feel the Ian McEwan of yesteryear turning up and dazzling me for turn or two around the dance floor, transporting me somewhere, somewhere...other, just like he usedta do.

Mostly, though, this reading was just little wallflower me a-sitting there on the sidelines watching as aging, cranky (OK, true: who isn't?) social paleontologist Mr. McEwan did his taxonomic best to lecture me while dissecting the heart of Saturday morning, noon and night: and it's hard not to admire his dogged persistence, as he sure can pin a butterfly to a bulletin board and describe the hell out of what he sees there, and il y avait beaucoup beaucoup of that manner of such and suchness to admire here—after all these years of stepping out together, though, I just wasn't gazing into his eyes admiringly any more, alas, catching myself saying 'Meh' out loud far too many times and actually getting angry at the author twice—the first time over an umpteen page description of the neurosurgeon protagonist in the OR and elsewhere around the hospital (OK, I get it, you did your research—just stop with the scientificity already), and the second time over a 16 page description of a squash game (really, WTF was that for? I am still asking even now).

So, then: even a minor Joycean 24 hour Odyssey this ain't, in other words: the details just didn't amount to anything to think about for me (I have forgotten them again already), and the topical political 'debate' in the novel, over Islamophobia/Terrorism/Iraq feels so naive and old hat in 2019, after this three-year-long white nationalist debutantes' ball we've all been enjoying.

Why did I re-read it and finish it, then? Largely because I couldn't remember how it ended, to be honest, and also because there have been so many good reviews for On Chesil Beach on GR of late (a 1* bore for me) that I figured that I must be the problem, not the book, and admittedly that may very well still be true. Maybe I just need to go back to Black Dogs and try to remember why I loved this author so much back in the 90s. Can we recapture the old magic, or have we simply grown apart?

Spoiler: there's an absolutely insane deus ex machina in this book too, and it's a poem, Matthew Arnold's (brilliant) "Dover Beach"!

Ian McEwan can write. Who else could write a several page description of a squash game and have me fully engaged? [I don't like sports.]
This is a layered work that has given me a lot to think about-- what we can and cannot control in our lives, the place of the arts in modern day life, the whole topic of war, how our collective psyche has changed since 9/11, how we take our lives for granted when things are going well, ....