Saturday

I enjoyed the latest of Ian McEwan's novels, although not as much as Atonement, which I consider to be a masterpiece. Saturday is the detailed and very intimate description of an unusual Saturday in the life of a brain surgeon. It's an intelligent book, with interesting considerations and vivid descriptions. Overall, though, I felt there was too much noise in the form of unnecessary medical detail (the detailed description of the symptoms and physiology of Huntington's disease and of some of the procedures in the operating theater, etc.).

Synopsis

Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. What troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the world - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat. Later, Perowne makes his way to his weekly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. Towards the end of a day rich in incident and filled with Perowne's celebrations of life's pleasures, his family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appearance of Baxter, Perowne's earlier fears seem about to be realised.