Saturday

This 2005 Ian McEwan novel got me so hooked that I read it all in one fell swoop; I just couldn't put it down. And then I was sorry to have it end. Reading this author means stepping into the world of a true wordsmith, one who uses words so well that the reader experiences a worldview of countless nuances and subtleties blending seamlessly with an intriguing story. The whole book takes place on one cold winter day in 2003, a few weeks before the Iraq invasion. Henry Perowne is a successful neurosurgeon with mixed feelings about the coming war. He loves his wife and grown children and lives a privileged life. He has planned on spending his Saturday playing a game of squash and preparing a special family dinner, and, indeed, he does these things. But an Ian McEwan story is never as simple as that. There is a tone of impending disaster right from the beginning and that tone escalates and includes a disturbing confrontation over a minor traffic accident. The writer brings this character's keen sense of observation to the reader, and I found myself smiling or shuddering or analyzing everything right along with him. The British use of words enhanced the experience and I occasionally had to translate a word or two into American English. The crafting of the book is exquisite. I give it my highest praise. Along the way I learned more than I ever wanted to know about neurosurgery as some of the scenes take place right in the operating room. Along with the main character, I started to think about the brain, and not just about the usual stuff that is written about emotions. I learned about the complexity of that particular part of our bodies we never see, but yet is responsible for the essence of who we are. My eyes were opened about this in a whole new way. Bravo to the author of this. The plot starts out slowly and then picks up momentum and the last quarter of the book is absolutely impossible to put down. Every character is exposed with his or her strengths and weaknesses and all the little nuances in between. And so is the impending war and the international events providing the setting for their experiences. I give this book my highest recommendation. It's only 289 pages long. But its impact is sure to last a long time.

The protagonist of this very literate novel, a neurosurgeon named Perowne, awakens early one Saturday morning, gets up, and looks out the window. Somewhat later he gets dressed, and goes downstairs to leave for his Saturday squash game with another doctor. We are now 62 pages into the book. The story proceeds at this slow, Proustian pace, and like reading Proust we are privy to the thoughts of Dr. Perowne as he makes his leisurely entrance into a usually quiet weekend. There is a sudden blip to this relaxed routine when the doctor is involved in a fender bender accident with another car. It disturbs his squash game, but then he is off preparing for the evening reunion of his wife, son and daughter, and father-in-law. His daughter is a poet; his son a musician. Daughter Daisy frequently criticizes her father for his lack of interest in reading. Perowne thinks about that. Is he too busy saving lives to have a life of his own. London is busy on this day as it hosts a large march protesting the approaching war in Iraq. When his daughter arrives at the family home they begin a somewhat heated argument on this issue, and Perowne seems to be for it, although exhibiting some ambivalence. Our slowly moving story suddenly turns into a thriller. A home invasion takes place, terrorizing the family. During this episode the daughter reads a poem, Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach to one of the thuggish intruders, who finds the poem beautiful and exhilarating. This is in pointed contrast to the doctor's almost total lack of reaction. How interesting. The uneducated, street person sees beauty; the intelligent, educated doctor feels nothing. If you decide to read this novel, and have never read this poem or you have forgotten the words to it, please do read it. It is vitally connected to the novel. It captures many of the doctor's thoughts and the moods of the book. You learn a lot about Dr. Perowne in this book as the reader is privy to most of his thoughts. He likes to look out windows and observe and think, complying with the command in the Arnold poem: "Come to the window, sweet is the night air." I have read all of Mr. McEwan's novels, and this is one of his finest. He is a brilliant writer. Although a significant portion of the book involves the doctor's thoughts, these thoughts are always clear and accessible to the reader. You are not forced to follow some confusing stream of consciousness. This is the best novel I have read this year.

Ian McEwan's prose style can be difficult to pin down, primarily, I think, because although it's elegant, erudite, and, at times, brilliant, it's usually often very readable, and this particularly true in "Saturday." Updike's prose, for example, is beautiful and well crafted, with exceptionally long paragraphs and sentences that wind their way labyrinthine-like from page to page. One could easily feel compelled to re-read each page, since one would need exceptional powers of concentration (or at least much higher than mine) to truly grasp and appreciate the poetry Updike creates for nearly an entire novel. It can be overwhelming for many readers. Someone like John Irving, on the other hand, is more of an entertainer and, while still considered a literary novelist and certainly a fine stylist (despite mixed receptions to his last two novels) usually doesn't make a reader stop in the middle of a page and digest what he or she has just been read. McEwan tends to sneak up on you. It didn't quite hit me until almost the end of the novel how priceless his command of dialogue is. Whether it be the thuggish, youthful Baxter or the elderly, sophisticated Grammaticus, McEwan has a wonderful ear and is pitch perfect. McEwan is not the kind of novelist to fill up pages with dialogue, but he can easily do so when he chooses: "And I suppose they wanted us to destroy their training camps and drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan, and force Bin Laden on the run, and have their financial networks disrupted and hundreds of their key guys locked up ..." She cuts in and her voice is loud. "Stop twisting my words. No one's against going after al-Qaeda. We're talking about Iraq. ... What is it about getting old? Can't get close to death soon enough?" But perhaps the most unique quality of "Saturday" is its general air of contentment, and even happiness. Yes, the Perowne family experiences terror, but all of them, except perhaps for the abrasive poet Grammaticus, are all fine, decent, respectable and admirable people. They love and care for each other, and, most important, accept each other. In McEwan's hands, this doesn't mean these characters are bland or uninteresting at all. Like Updike, McEwan makes their relative ordinariness fascinating, their lack of dysfunction appealing, because he unveils the very kinds of thoughts like you or I may have, but gently bores in on their themes and examines them to the point of revelation, whereas you or I quickly pass on to next one.

This day in the life of a moral, conscientious man serves as a metaphor for the quality of a man's life, how unexpected violence may disrupt and injure, but not destroy. London neurosurgeon Henry Perowne sets out on his Saturday with a full schedule and a brimming mind, much of his internal musing triggered by the events of 9/11, the incipient war with Iraq and a massive anti-war demonstration taking place that day to protest Bush's potential attack on Iraq: "Saturday's he's accustomed to being thoughtlessly content..." Perowne carries on an inner dialog made more complex by current events, though always engaged in thoughts of his patients and family, perhaps recently with a sharper edge, a poignancy, a nod to the random destruction that has become part of the new world landscape. A minor accident triggers a chain of events, so unexpected that Perowne is blindsided by his own lack of foresight. This one day becomes a metaphor for what has so recently stunned the world and left it shaken. Like a country attacked on a bright New York day, Perowne, and by extension his family, are briefly assaulted, then left to deal with the repercussions of violence. The well-trained, educated brain screams danger, but the acculturated man is still in shock, unable to adapt to quickly changing circumstances: "Questions of misinterpretations are not often resolved." Facing imminent danger to himself and to his family, Perowne cannot make his precise mind plan, his mental calculations serving instead as stumbling blocks for extricating the family from a volatile situation. I find it fascinating that the author's protagonist is a neurosurgeon, for McEwan writes with the precision of a surgeon, his novel as brilliantly structured as Perowne's mind. In a world gone mad with terror and the quest for a semblance of its former identity, Perowne creates an island of objectivity, the thinking, civilized man recreating a sane world, albeit one forever altered by circumstances. The real test is in the aftermath of such an event, how one moves on the key to the quality of life desired, whether left helpless and raging or refusing to concede those small fragments of integrity that must be repaired, though imperfect, forever scarred with a hairline crack. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

In the middle of the night, Henry Perowne, a 48-year-old neurosurgeon, awakens for no apparent reason and sees what he thinks, at first, is a meteor, but the object brightens, moves faster, and blazes through the skies at low altitude--a plane on fire, approaching Heathrow. In intensely realized descriptions, Henry thinks about this dramatic event and reacts and shares the most intimate aspects of his existence, drawing the reader into his life. Every action, thought, and question about life, fate, and destiny is articulated as Henry struggles to make sense of this one day in his life and see it in a philosophical context. Happily married to Rosalind, a lawyer for a newspaper, Henry has two remarkably creative children--one a blues musician and the other a poet. Through their lives, he recognizes that his own preoccupation with science and reality has left him incomplete. He has come to believe that "there [is] more to life than merely saving lives," and he yearns to find a complete, "coherent world, everything fitting at last." As the day progresses, Henry fixates on the plane accident, possible terrorism, the imminent war with Iraq, and a traffic accident resulting in an altercation with a thug. But throughout this "action," Henry is contemplating his relationships with the world at large, trying to understand his place within it. Having rejected organized religion, he finds some comfort in the conclusions of Darwin, who connects all life in a continuum in which he sees himself a part. As he thinks of his own parents and children, he also observes contrasts in the world around him, people whose lives are different, not because of any inherent difference but simply because of chance--"the currents that alter fates." When the Perowne home is invaded during a family gathering at the end of the day, Henry faces a decisive moment in the battle between his emotions and his intellect. The climax is loaded with menace and executed with high drama, but the events themselves are less significant than Henry's reactions to them. Intensely introspective and beautifully integrated, this is McEwan's most thoughtful--and least plot-based--novel to date, with every detail adding to the complex characterizations and themes--a wonderful meditation on individuals and culture, connection and disconnection, and the arbitrariness of fate. Mary Whipple Atonement On Chesil Beach Enduring Love Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide