I'm rather conflicted about Saturday. On the one hand, it's beautifully written, the neurosurgery is extraordinarily detailed and well-researched, and the application of large-scale conflicts to daily life is skillful. On the other hand, it's just boring.

McEwan can write, and he knows it. Saturday almost seems like an excuse for McEwan to show off his writing ability: "I bet I can write a 300-page novel that takes place in a single day." Accordingly, to fill the aforementioned 300 pages, every little thought and action are drawn out to an absurd degree, to the point where crossing a room to look out a window turns into an epic philosophical introspection concerning the meaning of life. It's slow-moving and contemplative, and that is only sometimes a good thing.

The villain of the novel isn't the most compelling, and to be entirely honest, the way McEwan communicates through Perowne's consciousness is entirely unrealistic - no one is that cerebral and emotionless while narrating their own lives.

Would not recommend unless you're looking for a writing exercise.

Một ngày thứ 7 từ lức m��� cửa sổ ra mặt trời chưa mọc đến lúc kéo rèm lại thì trời đã khuya Henry Perowne đã thấy cuộc đời mình bình lặng khi nghĩ về những chuyện đã qua nhưng rồi chao đảo bởi những sự kiện hiện tại, Ian McEwan là một nhà văn rất chi tiết và khác thường khi mỗi cảnh vật cái nháy mắt hay rùng mình đều được được ông miêu tả kỹ lưỡng và có dụng ý rất riêng.

My star rating of "Saturday" is a reminder of the days when I still liked his writing style enough to give him the benefit of my suppressed doubt.

I will let those stars remain shining here to remember what kind of strange magnetic power this author has to make me try, again and again, to discover the evasive genius that seems to be hiding just around the next sentence...

I do hold a personal grudge against one of the last scenes in "Saturday" though. I have never been able to fully forget the terrible "shame-by-proxy" that I felt when I was forced by my own imagination to identify with the vulnerable exposure of the naked pregnant young woman. And of course the shame is not towards the psychopath, but towards those with whom one should be feeling comfortable, caring and loving - the family, that is. Life is truly a strange mix of ordinary and extraordinary occurrences, and these Ian McEwan condensed nicely into one Saturday.

Happy Saturday out there, my dear fellow readers. I hope you had more of the ordinary stuff today, and lots of coffee and chocolate! And possibly an Ian McEwan book at hand as well, as he is for lazy days...

Warning: also contains major spoilers for Night Train

Many of the other reviewers say they're annoyed with Saturday on the grounds that the main character's life is too implausibly perfect - a successful neurosurgeon with a beautiful wife, two talented children, a lovely home, etc etc. He's even a pretty decent squash player. So how can Henry possibly fill the Everyman role he's apparently meant to inhabit?

Well, it seems to me that McEwan is making a sensible point here. Compared to most people in human history, and indeed to most people in the world today, your average educated Westerner (e.g. your average person who posts on Goodreads) is unbelievably privileged. Of course, most of us aren't quite as privileged as Henry, but, when you compare against the great mass of humanity, the difference is so small that it's close to technical. So, the natural question that arises is: how are we making use of our incredible good fortune?

It occurred to me that Saturday is in some ways a mirror-image of Martin Amis's Night Train, another novel that people often slam. In the Amis book, we also have an extraordinarily fortunate character. Jennifier is young, beautiful, greatly loved and, on top of everything else, a cutting-edge research astrophysicist. (Amis is a big fan of astrophysics). And what does she do with all of this amazing luck? At the end, it turns out that she's killed herself for no reason at all! Given Amis's general preoccupation with our society's self-destructive trajectory, I think the intended message is clear. We are Jennifer: we could have a paradise if we were just the tiniest bit sensible, but instead we're destroying ourselves and the whole world for no reason.

In Saturday, I felt that the set-up was basically the same, but the final message was positive. Some parts of the story are indeed implausible (you are unlikely to deter a psychotic rapist by reciting Dover Beach). All the same, I liked the ending, where, almost without thinking, Henry uses his surgeon's skills to save the life of the man who, a few hours ago, was trying to kill him. This is right; this is how one should show appreciation for the gifts that fortune has showered on us.

I know, I know. Moral parables are unfashionable at the moment, and elegant despair is the cool choice. I still thought McEwan was saying something worthwhile here.

I found this book: Saturday by Ian McEwan.

Then I read it.

Things happened, some exciting and some less so, nothing of super consequence.

I finished the book. I put it away and forgot about it.

I then went on to another book.

That's my reading experience and that's the arc of Saturday. It's a "day in the life of" short story dragged out into novel length. Granted there's plenty packed into that day and it's admirably juggled by McEwan.

The main character is accosted. He happens to be a doctor and that coincidentally is very helpful. His family is under siege. Oh what to do?! Whatever does happen, I assure you, it happens all within one day. Thus the title.

At first I couldn't pinpoint what about this that left me flat, but now I can. It feels pointless, like an exercise. I never felt engaged. So you had a rough day and things are weighing on your mind. Meh. I suppose it would make a good party story, but reading a full-length novel's worth of this anecdote dragged me down.

I read this book in 2005 and revisited it for the 2019 Mookse Madness as Ian McEwen is one of the featured authors.

My 2005 review

Story about a neurosurgeon Henry Perowne and one day in his life - the day of the anti-war protests in February 2003 which form both a background to the story and an undercurrent to his thoughts.

The day starts with Henry unable to sleep and spotting a plane on fire - he assumes (wrongly) it is some form of terrorist attack and his mind is troubled all day. On his way to a squash match he collides with a car containing Baxter (a street fighter) and two associates. Henry realises Baxter is suffering from the early stages of Huntingdon's and manages to distract him enough to avoid a beating.

Later Henry goes home to his wife (a libel lawyer for a newspaper) and son (an upcoming blues musician) for the homecoming and hoped reconciliation of his daughter (an about to be published poet) and his father-in-law (a famous poet). Baxter enters the house threatening them with a knife but eventually they overcome him (rather bizarrely with the help of some poetry which dramatically changes his mood) and he suffers brain damage. Henry then operates to save Baxter’s life. During the drama he realises that his daughter is pregnant.

Clearly the work of a literary author but not as striking or impressive as "Atonement".

Some lovely similes - e.g. when London is described as a coral reef.

I also enjoyed the part at the end when Henry reflects on the future and things he inevitably knows he will have to face – e.g. the death of his mother, growing distant from his kids.

Bravely McEwan made Henry either ambivalent or pro the attack on Iraq unlike almost all the other characters and ready to articulate the moral dilemmas but relieved not to have to decide them.

Another interesting feature is that Henry is fundamentally happy with a good marriage, a challenging and enjoyable job, a fantastic house and two talented kids.

Extensive descriptions of a squash game, of neurosurgery, of cooking fish, of literature debates with his daughter and of blues. I found these unsatisfactory - in areas I knew little about I found them almost impossible to follow and not at all designed to induce either understanding or sympathy/interest. Sometimes this felt like padding to make a whole day last a book.

Atonement was a great novel, a pretty good movie as well. But Saturday is tighter, a more personal novel, more focused and perhaps more human. I originally got interested in this book as it was compared to Proust and I wanted to get the gist without slogging through thousands of pages to get that done. The action is almost entirely in Perowne's head, which really gave me a glimpse into McEwan himself. I suppose I think it's impossible to get outside one's own thoughts, I think that might be part of what Kant is trying to say in terms of ontology. But yeah, the way we follow his thoughts is amazing, illustrative of the way an English neurosurgeon's mind works. I read this novel in just over a day and will seek out more by McEwan, who reminds me most of a British T.C. Boyle, or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, two terrific authors. This is definitely one to pass on to parents, with great images of middle age and watching their children step into adulthood with all its challenges and rewards. A phenomenal novel, one of the best I've read all year.

3, 5*.

În mare, autorul povestește minuțios o zi din viața unui neurochirurg, Henry Perowne, o zi de sîmbătă, 15 februarie 2003. Nu contează ce face Henry și, oricum, mai mult vorbește cu sine decît face, ca Leopold Bloom din Ulysses. Perowne este un ins rațional, practic, și cu o profesională neîncredere față de imaginație, de ficțiune, de reverii. Toate sînt fleacuri. El e om serios.

Romanele nu-i spun mare lucru. A citit Doamna Bovary și Anna Karenina și a înțeles că adulterul era o practică obișnuită și cu un secol și jumătate în urmă. Poezia nu-l atrage. Arta îl lasă mai degrabă nedumirit. A fost odată la o expoziție de pictură (îndemnat de soția lui, Rosalind) și a conversat cu primul ministru din vremea aia, Tony Blair. Firește, primul ministru l-a confundat cu un pictor, i-a lăudat opera cu pricepere de expert și a urmat un dialog absurd, de un umor total.

În chip neașteptat și în pofida părerilor doctorului Perowne, tocmai poezia - forța ei de îmblînzire a sufletului și minților - îi va salva familia. În cartea lui Ian McEwan, un rol decisiv îl joacă poemul Dover Beach de Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888). Ca să aflați în ce chip, citiți romanul...

Un fragment din numitul poem:

„Doar dinspre franjul spumei unde marea
Atinge malul argintat de lună
Se-aude hîrşîitul ce îl face
Pietrişul smuls de valuri şi din nou
Zvîrlit pe ţărm, un veşnic du-te-vino
În ritm încet şi larg ce sugerează
Pe ţărmul egean, Sofocle
– Sînt mii de ani de-atunci – l-a ascultat
Şi s-a gîndit la fluxul şi refluxul
Mizeriei umane...”
(traducere de Leon Levițchi sub titlul Faleza Dover-ului).

Bref: romanul lui Ian McEwan mi-a plăcut. Nu veți greși dacă o să-l cumpărați. Face toți banii și nici nu costă prea mult. Cineva m-a sfătuit să nu-l citesc: romanul ar fi lipsit de acțiune și, în ultima parte, de-a dreptul neverosimil. Nu-i deloc așa. Și, în plus, mie tocmai partea neverosimilă mi-a plăcut...

P. S. Într-o vreme de epidemie, romanul lui McEwan trebuie așezat în categoria cărților despre doctori. Aș face adaos faptul că acțiunea romanului se petrece de-a lungul unei (singure) zile, precum în Ulysses de James Joyce sau Doamna Dalloway de Virginia Woolf. Pentru a nu mai aminti O zi mai lungă decît veacul de Cinghiz Aitmatov.

Sinir bilim cerrahı olan Henry'nin bir gününü yaşıyoruz kitap boyunca.
Anlatılan konuya hiç değinmeden sadece dili hakkındaki gözlemim; eylemden fazla düşünce cümlesi okumak benim çok hoşuma gitti. Koşturmacalı bir gününü görüyoruz. Ama benim daha çok sevdiğim, bu koşturma esnasında aklından geçenleri okumak oldu. Olay ağırlıklı dil seviyorsanız belki okuması zor gelebilir. Ben özellikle böyle olayın daha az dile getirildiği kitapları sevdiğim için çok hızlı aktı.

TWENTY YEARS ago today it all happened, folks...

Some books just hit you with the full blunt anarchical force of a powerful nightmare.

Or like 9/11 itself!

This out-of-the-way novel by the incredible British writer Ian McEwan represented what was for me - in the years following upon the annihilation of all my delicate presuppositions on that cataclysmic but classically Indian-Summer day in 2001 - a savage indictment of my standard middle-class mores.

For 9/11 was exactly the same thing for Dr. Henry Perowne.

And four years after that landmark day, I was rather grimly trying to pick up the pieces of my burnt-out life...

That springtime following my long-ago retirement had been seared with sciatic pain. What’s a guy to do? Well, it was textbook elementary: I had to exercise!

So one promisingly benign April day in 2005 I toted a large cloth shopping bag the mile or so it took to get me to our neighbourhood library. When I got there, I saw recent literary bestsellers that had been donated by readers, lined up in a prominent eye-level rack - going for pennies.

That day I forgot about using my library card.

Why bother?

I was flush with cash from my retirement severance pay, so I stuffed my bulging bag with some pretty big books.

This was, very prominently to my eye, one of the best of ‘em.

You see, 9/11 took a large slice out of my well-being, as I’m sure it did for many of you. And this book was about its aftermath for a London doctor.

I opened the book immediately, and was at once transfixed by its atmospheric tale of brooding insomnia in this wealthy surgeon’s soon-to-be-transmogrified ordinary life. The suspense is so well transmitted by McEwan you can cut it with a knife.

And yes, Dr. Henry Perowne is threatened by the same imminent, outrageous and horrifically total collapse as those two Manhattan towers suffered that seemingly insouciant far-away day.

Alas, dear Henry, your entire ethereal House of Card will collapse in rubble this Saturday, dragging behind you all your most cherished dreams of ethical demeanour.

For this Saturday you have an appointment with your destiny.

And your destiny is le Néant - Nothingness - the salaciously leering Face of your own Death and Destruction!

Sure, you will stitch together the crumbled pieces with your practical surgical skill.

You will ride out the tsunami, perched upon your Surfboard of Sheer, Expert Resilience.

But your little piece of polymer stands no chance again the Titanic Aftershock of this weekend upon your soul.

And, so yes, Mr. McEwan, you who at the end have pasted Humpty’s (Perowne’s) cracked shell back together...

It won’t solve the problem.

For the Yolk of Humpty’s Soul has all spilled out upon the drab grey London pavement and you can’t do a THING about it.

Unless Perowne has built up far greater reserves of self-possession than the rest of us mortals manage to do. And if that’s the case, he is superhuman. Or NONhuman.

A neat device, but unfortunately this novel is the portrayal of a personal cataclysm that ONLY HAPPENS ON THE OUTSIDE OF A MAN’S INNER SELF.

Highly unlikely.

Your novel is beautifully contrived, but ingenuity has never saved a soul.

No. If Dr. Henry Perowne were REAL, he would never be perfectly HIMSELF again.

Life is good for Henry, a successful surgeon who loves his wife and grown children and still plays a wicked game of squash. Then, in the midst of a routine day off, a random act of violence rocks his comfortable world. McEwan creates lots of tension in this novel and also gives us a fine portrait of a true nurturer and healer.

No spoilers here.

This book explores the events of Henry Perowne's Saturday, which I can kind of see as a metaphor for a person's life. You start out with nothing but potential, events happen, and each day ends with its own sort of oblivion - sleep.

As with Atonement, McEwan's prose in this book was simply delicious. At the end of this review are some of my favorite passages that I just needed to type out for my own memory's sake.

But I also think that reading Atonement first spoiled me. I was expecting this book to wallop me just like that novel had, but it didn't pack quite the same punch. While the narration of the everyday stuff was engrossing, the narration of the actual plot points was unbelievable. And, btw, the plot points are few and far between. Also, another reviewer of this book made a point that the character of Henry Perowne had a little too much going for him. His wife was beautiful, his daughter was beautiful, his son was talented, and he was a great surgeon. It gets a little boring. And don't get me started on how annoying it gets to constantly hear that female characters are "beautiful." This has become a pet peeve of mine, but should probably be the subject of a livejournal entry or something.

Forgetting that, the book was still good. It's amazing how well McEwan can explore the themes he picks. And after reading this and Atonement, it's hard to miss what a staunch materialist McEwan is (the scientific, deterministic sort of materialist - not the kind that likes to buy stuff). Events and catalysts are all causes and effects of other things. Moods, interactions, fights from decades past, car accidents - they are all the cause of hormones, or neurons, or world leaders' actions thousands of miles away. It's impossible to chronicle every action and re-action, but McEwan artfully shows us how deterministic this world is and what we can attempt to do in our slide toward oblivion.

A couple favorite passages below demonstrate this materialism.

1.) [at a fish market] "Henry liked to put to himself when he was a schoolboy: what are the chances of this particular fish, from that shoal, off that continental shelf, ending up in the pages, no, on this page of this copy of the Daily Mirror? Something just short of infinity to one. Similarly, the grains of sand on a beach, arranged just so. The random ordering of the world, the unimaginable odds against any particular condition still please him. Even as a child, and especially after Aberfan, he never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom from the scheming of a gloomy god" (pages 128-129).

2. [while pondering the workings of the human brain] "For all the recent advances, it's still not known how this well-protected one kilogram or so of cells 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... But even when it [is], 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?" (page 262)

3. There are a few interesting thoughts developed from his trip to the nursing home to visit his mother, who is suffering from dementia. She is fixated fondly on her deceased mother: "How strange it would have been for Lily's mother, an aloof, unmaternal woman, to have known that the little girl at her skirts would one day, in a remote future, a science fiction date in the next century, talk of her all the time and long to be home with her. Would that have softened her? (page 168) There was also an amusing observation by the main character that the mundane happenings of his day would be considered extremely exciting to his nursing home-bound mother.

Okay, that's enough for now, but it's a beautiful and quick read, and I can see how this could spark a lot of discussion, so I'd recommend it. I'd especially recommend it to stone cold naturalists, of which I am one!