Saturday

Written by Ian McEwan

Narrated by James Wilby

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House UK Audio
• Release date: Nov 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781473513877

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan (Aldershot, Reino Unido, 1948) se licenció en Literatura Inglesa en la Universidad de Sussex y es uno de los miembros más destacados de su muy brillante generación. En Anagrama se han publicado sus dos libros de relatos, Primer amor, últimos ritos (Premio Somerset Maugham) y Entre las sábanas, las novelas El placer del viajero, Niños en el tiempo (Premio Whitbread y Premio Fémina), El inocente, Los perros negros, Amor perdurable, Amsterdam (Premio Booker), Expiación (que ha obtenido, entre otros premios, el WH Smith Literary Award, el People’s Booker y el Commonwealth Eurasia), Sábado (Premio James Tait Black), En las nubes, Chesil Beach (National Book Award), Solar (Premio Wodehouse), Operación Dulce, La ley del menor, Cáscara de nuez, Máquinas como yo, La cucaracha y Lecciones y el breve ensayo El espacio de la imaginación. McEwan ha sido galardonado con el Premio Shakespeare. Foto © Maria Teresa Slanzi.

Reviews for Saturday

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book that tries to describe a day in the life of its main character without being boring. It succeeds.

[varwenea · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Oh my gawd, I finally suffered through this ‘best book of the year’. What am I not understanding???The books summary speaks of what would have been an ordinary day for Henry Perowne, doing some errands and spending time with family. But a minor traffic incident leads to an unsettling confrontation that turns his day nightmarish. This incident is highlighted to be the crux of the story. The traffic incident itself is 20 pages, while the climax, i.e. the ‘nightmare’, is 25 pages. The books is 289 pages long. The rest are long drawn out babbling of his inner thoughts, his identity and his happiness, pandering of his surgical skills, the physicality of a racquetball game, his wife’s family and her alluring self, Daisy’s poetic talents, Theo’s natural blues nature, and an argument over being involved in the Iraq War or not. The best parts of the book are, per usual McEwan style, the relationships. In this case, my favorite is that of Henry’s mother, who is now lost in the “mental death” of dementia. His visit to her is poignant and painfully realistic.I feel cheated by all the review quotes from book cover/back:“Dazzling… Powerful…McEwan has shown how we… live today.” - New York TimesSeriously? How many families has a dad (Henry) who is a neurosurgeon, a mom (Rosalind) who is a lawyer, a daughter (Daisy) who is publishing a book of poems at age 22, a son (Theo) who is moving to NYC to headline a blues club at age 18, all of whom living in a seven thousand square feet Roman villa, east of London? The cranky, drunken father-in-law l lives in a French chateau, too. I am willing to concede that some issues transcend all social classes regardless of wealth and talent – cranky, drunken in-law, a mom with dementia. “Finely wrought and shimmering with intelligence” – The New York Times Book ReviewThere’s a fine line between verbose vs. intelligence. McEwan goes into excessive descriptions of the aforementioned professions’ skill sets and racquetball, almost as though to show-off his ability to do research. It almost reads like he phoned-a-friend and wrote down everything he was told. He exhibited the same problem with “The Innocent”, rambling on about technical details.“McEwan is a supremely gifted… Saturday is a tightly wound tour de force.” – Washington Post Book World Tightly wound? I was so bored that I read three other books between the pages of this book.“This extraordinary book is not a political novel. It is a novel about consciousness that illuminates the sources of politics.” – The NationThis is a two-part irrelevant comment. First, despite McEwan choosing the “Saturday” being February 15 2003, the day of the demonstration against the 2003 Iraq invasion of Iraq in London, not even the book summary on the back cover suggest anything political. Second, several consciousness sources were identified – familial, professional, moral values, even sexual; to summarize and artificially push these towards politics is twisting the points. More accurately, there is a valid statement towards political engagement, to do so or not, but not necessarily politics itself.“Saturday is an exemplary novel, engrossing and sustained. It is undoubtedly McEwan’s best.” – The SpectatorSee above about being bored and read three other books. Engrossing? I think not.“Read the last 100 pages at one sitting – the pace and the thrill allow it… Exhilarating.” – Los Angeles TimesI put up with this book awaiting the thrilling last 100 pages. Then I was deep within 100 pages, and still put it down for long stretches. Even the climax lasted only 25 pages within the 100. The resolution occurred amazingly quickly as though it’s time to call-it-a-day, quite literally! Saturday is done, over, finito!

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel follows Henry Perowne, neurosurgeon, through an eventful Saturday. It starts off normal enough--he plays squash with a friend, visits his mom with Alzheimers, buys ingredients for the night's dinner. He is eager to see his daughter, who is currently in Parus, and hoping she will make up with her grandfather over dinner.The day starts off strange, as he watches what he thinks is a plane crash or terrorist attack. He has a minor car accident in the confusion of road closures around a protest march. And that accident comes back to haunt his entire family.I found this novel to start off very very slowly. The last hundred or so pages were more lively, but I was already tired of the book by then. This reminded me of Mrs Dalloway in the way it covers one day in a life.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book of McEwan's that I have read and unfortunately I have to admit to being rather disappointed in it over all.Don't get me wrong McEwan writes beautifully crafted and well researched, perhaps overly so, prose and initially this captivated me and made me forgive the sloth-like pace of the story but in the end this began to rather grate on me.The Perowne family were just too perfect, too successful they ended up seeming smug and patronising and I had great difficulty caring too much what happened to any of them. The idea that a madman, even a mentally sick one, could be dissuaded from committing a heinous crime by reciting poetry to him was frankly laughable. In the end I felt that the story went nowhere and was just too contrived. You could just imagine the author placing his own wishes and desires onto his imaginary children as if somehow his own dissatisfied him and had not lived up to his ideals

[laurensx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ian McEwan is masterful at stretching out time. I am in awe of his ability to construct a 300 page novel from the events of one day. Within the confines of "Saturda", McEwan was able to develop rich, well-developed characters, meaningful and believable connections and create a sense of intrigue with unexpected twists and turns. Dr. Henry Perowne, suffering from mild insomnia, is drawn to the bedroom window of his home. He witnesses a plane, in flames, heading across the London sky. This is the reader's introduction to this intriguing novel, with the post 9/11 world, as its backdrop. We are witnesses to neurosurgery, a game of squash, a blues practice session and reconciliation. Truly a well-crafted novel.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ian McEwan has created a rich story built around the events of a single day in the life of Henry Perowne and his family. Henry is a neurosurgeon, married to a lawyer with two grown children. All of them are very successful in their chosen careers, they have a lovely old home in London and a interesting, but ordinary, life. In this novel, the events of one day, including a minor fender bender, spiral into something terrifying.I found the book a bit slow -- only mildly intersting -- as I wondered if I would be able to identify with Henry and his family enough to really get into the story. But it didn't take long until I was completey drawn in by the strong writing and character development. This is a very good book.

[othemts · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

MacEwan's novel follows a seemingly ordinary day in the life of a London neurosurgeon as he goes about his tasks and ruminates analytically on his life and work. It's interesting how seemingly major things (like a car crash) are detailed with less intensity than the the seemingly mundane (a game of squash). Towards the end of the novel things come together too neatly with a dramatic twist that I think undercuts the more interesting stream-of-conciousness aspects of the early part of the novel. Still an interesting read with a good focus on developing character and internal monologue.Favorite Passages:"What a stroke of luck, that the woman he loves is also his wife."

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Neurosurgeon Henry Perowne has a rare treat - a Saturday off and a family dinner to look forward to later in the evening. But a seemingly meaningless event in the afternoon comes back to haunt him and his family with life-threatening ramifications.With this book, McEwan presents an interesting concept in its style ... everything takes place on one day, which seems a little gimmicky but I was intrigued by the idea and thought McEwan could pull it off (I recalled that the bulk of Atonement took place over just a handful days, even though the entire timeframe of the book spanned many years.). Most of what takes place in Perowne's day is mundane ... He wakes up, watches the news, eats breakfast with son, plays a game of squash with a co-worker, visits his aged mother in a nursing home, picks up food to prepare for dinner, etc. In reading it, I was reminded of Mrs. Dalloway, another book in which it seems that much of what happens is inconsequential. But beneath the surface, McEwan touches on so many deeper concepts, including xenophobia, dementia, neuroscience, paternity, love, the power of art/music/literature, and so on and so on.Understandably then, Saturday is also like Mrs. Dalloway in that everything is pretty much just the internal thoughts of the main character flitting from thing to thing, whether that's recalling how he first met his wife years ago or anticipating an upcoming visit from his daughter. The Iraq war is about to begin as the book takes place, so the fear of terrorism, concerns about the politics of the war, and etc. are always just bubbling beneath the surface. Much of this makes for a slow, contemplative read, but it does provide various tidbits of food for thought.And then there's the character of Baxter who enters the page with a crackle, showing up in a scene charged with violence and fear only to be dispatched quickly. Or so it seems ... until he reappears again, with even more malice and deadly power. These parts of the book seem so out of place with the rest that it almost seems like the reader walked into the wrong set all of sudden. But it seems that was part of McEwan's point ... to show us the randomness of life, to let us know that the terror we fear may be closer to home than the nightly news lets on, to allow for an exploration of how ordinary people react in impossible situations, and so forth.This is a difficult book to summarize easily and it's likely to haunt the reader for sometime afterward. But that's not to say it's a book for everyone. It is very slow for the majority of it (indeed, it sometimes gets too bogged down in the little details), but it also gets very uncomfortable in its sudden outbursts of threats and violence. I'm not sure that I would recommend this particular title as a person's first try with McEwan, but rather would suggest it for those already familiar with his works and therefore aware of what they might be getting into with Saturday.On a side note, I listened to the audiobook version of this book as read by Steven Crossley. I thought this reading was just okay. Crossley wasn't a bad reader, but he didn't stand out an amazing one either. It probably didn't help that much of this book is muted, just focusing on Perowne's internal thoughts, so there's not a great deal of active voice reading to do.

[laine4cunningham · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read a book this well written in a long time. Subtle yet with an emotional resonance that sticks with you long after you put it down. Clearly I'm going to seek out other books by this author.

[stef7sa-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great writing, this author is as a close to a character as is possible and succeeds in putting into words experiences of this character that are hardly possible to define, but reckognizable once you read them. I especially like the descriptions of the neurosurgeon at work, completely happy in a fully controlled world. It is difficult to pinpoint the theme or subject of the novel, definitely multifaceted. The title e.g. refers to a situation in between of work and leasure, you are not supposed to work that day, but it's not completely free time either, that would be Sunday. The main character is happiest at work, but is aging and likely to have to let go as he ages. He is moving towards middle age, towards Sunday.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Saturday, February 15, 2003 doesn't seem that long ago but when McEwan talks about the political situation I realized how much has happened since then. mrsgaskell has alread talked about the huge anti-war demonstration that took place in London that day while Dr. Henry Perowne was filling his Saturday with other events. Despite that outpouring of sentiment, Britain joined the war in Iraq (while Canada, France and other nations stayed away) which was declared on March 19. The provocations for entering Iraq were mostly bogus but it did result in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government. Of course, it can be debated if the replacement leaves the people of Iraq any better off. Nevertheless, Britain withdrew all combat troops earlier this year and the US troops are supposed to be out by 2011. Henry Perowne, like many other people at the time, has mixed feelings about the war but, probably because of an encounter with an Iraqi patient who filled him in on the situation in Iraq, tends to support the necessity for ousting Saddam Hussein. His children, on the other hand, are anti-war and this causes some conflict between father and his daughter, Daisy. Mostly, though, Henry Perowne is blessed and recognizes this. He has a fulfilling job, a satisfying relationship with his wife and is very pleased with how his children turned out. There are some flies in the ointment, of course. He's getting older and the rigours of a squash game are starting to get to him. His mother has Alzheimer Disease and no longer recognizes him. His father-in-law drinks to excess and every encounter with him is problematic because of this. All of this pales when his home is invaded by a young tough that he encountered in a car accident earlier in the day. When the situation ends, the whole family is shaken and has to deal with the fallout. When Dr. Perowne is called in to operate on this same individual you can't help but wonder how you would react in the same situation. McEwan is wonderful in his details. The descriptions of surgeries, the squash game, the visit to the nursing home and even the meal preparations are filled with vivid detail so that it felt like I was looking over Perowne's shoulder. Interestingly, McEwan works in a discussion about exactly this style of writing (at p. 67) in discussing Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary which Henry read at his daughter's insistence: At the cost of slowing his mental processes and many hours of his valuable time, he committed himself to the shifting intricacies of these sophisticated fairy stories. What did he grasp, after all? That adultery is understandable but wrong, that nineteenth-century women had a hard time of it, that Moscow and the Russian countryside and provincial France were once just so. If, as Daisy said, the genius was in the detail, then he was unmoved. The details were apt and convincing enough, but surely not so very difficult to marshal if you were halfway observant and had the patience to write them all down. These books were the products of steady, workmanlike accumulation. I don't think I agree with that assessment but if that's McEwan's feeling about his own work then long live steady, workmanlike accumulation! Later on that same page he discusses the magical realism genre that his daughter also made him read. I laughed out loud when I read this comment: 'No more magic midget drummers,' he pleaded with her by post, after setting out his tirade. 'Please, no more ghosts, angels, satans or metamorphoses. When anything can happen, nothing much matters. It's all kitsch to me.' Bravo!

[robertg69_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

quickly read

[deldevries · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One day. That's right. One day. Now imagine what can happen in one day! Ian McEwan is a master story teller and this was a very enjoyable book.

[robinmichel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hard going, but worthwhile.

[carissa.green · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Take the bones of Mrs. Dalloway and hang the flesh of a McEwan tale of the darkness in even the most "normal" of people in our contemporary world and you have an awesome, awesome book.

[dickon.edwards · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Read this because it's a set text on my English Lit course.

Not as enjoyable as Enduring Love or as deviant and weird as his earlier books (eg The Cement Garden). Very conservative and trying perhaps a bit too hard to apply the Woolf/Proust/Joyce style of literary modernism to 2003. I got the impression that this was a novel by someone who knows full well it will automatically by published and scrutinised by literary journals.

I could have done without all the details of the squash match & brain surgery, and what story there is felt a bit unlikely: violent gangsters being defeated first by a diagnosis of a brain condition, then later by the reciting of 19th century poetry. I think pepper spray might be better in real life.

I can only really recommend it for squash-loving brain surgeons.

[nicola26 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I actually really liked this one at the start and thought I'd be giving it at least 4 stars. It quickly got old and boring, though. The writing is nice to read for about fifty pages but after that it feels stiff and is quite a chore get through. Henry is and all right character but far too perfect, just like his family and relationship and career. It was just a bit bland and unlikable. Would I be interested in reading more of McEwan's work? Definitely; he can certainly write, this story just did nothing for me.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Like my (upcoming) review of Perdido Street Station, this was written as I went along. My mum told me to read this book just so that I've read something of McEwan's work, to get an idea of the East Anglia style -- I was once planning to do the same writing course.

The first ten pages bored me. Blah, blah, blah, mostly medical procedure, a doctor's life is so busy, blahblahblah -- a scenario I know well as a doctor's daughter, that doesn't really seem to merit ten pages to me. It got old fast in real life; in print, it's even worse. The prose is quite ordinary, and lingers on topics I don't find particularly interesting: pages on pages about medical techniques, a couple of pages about the main character's son's music, a paragraph about the advances in kettles, pages in which the main character denounces the value of stories, half a chapter devoted to a squash game I couldn't care less about...

Despite that, there's something about it that kept me reading. Something vaguely hypnotic. I didn't find it "dazzling... profound and urgent" as the cover promised. I found it dry, plodding, boring, stolid. By seventy-eight pages in, the guy hasn't left his home yet and the most exciting thing is the plane in flames, which is dismissed in about two pages, near the beginning.

Strangely enough, I thought it did pick up near the end. Most of the drama was anti-climatic and sandwiched between pages and pages of irrelevant detail, but I tried to read it with the view that the book is meant to be about an ordinary guy going about his ordinary life. The prose mimics that, and the pages and pages of description enforce it. It took me ages to decide how many stars to give it. I'm not sure there was much to really like or dislike. The idea could have been interesting, but I'm not sure there's realistically a way to write about an ordinary man going through his mostly ordinary day in a way that keeps someone genuinely interested throughout. The build up was needed so you could care enough about the characters, but all the build up made me bored with them. I definitely don't think this is a "modern classic" or whatever. I don't think it has the strength to last.

I might try something else of this guy's, to see if I like him better when he's not restricting himself to one day of an ordinary guy's life. Any recommendations?

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story covers a single Saturday in the life of Henry Perowne, a London neurosurgeon. Most of the book covers pretty mundane activities as Perowne goes through his normal weekend routine and planning for a dinner party with his family. At first, I kept on thinking that this was a male version of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway - a single day, planning for a dinner party, and lots of wandering thoughts. But the book has a definite twist when Perowne gets into a minor traffic accident with a punk which later leads to a serious confrontation. Although the first 2/3 of the book is a bit introspective and meandering, it definitely picks up and becomes more of a story about what we value in life. If you liked McEwan's Atonement, you'll enjoy this one.

[kidsisyphus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"...it interests him less to have the world reinvented; he wants it explained."

Literature still has something to say to science.

Against the backdrop of the pending invasion of Iraq, a very rational and orderly neurosurgeon is menaced by a very irrational hooligan. Poetry comes to the rescue.

[maryreinert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In spite of the fact that Henry Perowne's world is vastly different from the one in which which most of us live, we share the same emotions. On any day we can be fearful of the world's future; we can be content in a loving yet sometimes touchy family relationships; we can be comfortable in careers, and we can be forced to react to situations that seem unfair, random, or meaningless. As different as Henry's world is to mine, I could relate. I suppose that's a sign of a good author.On the other hand, I can't say that "Saturday" will be a novel I'll never forget. The situations and Henry's reaction to them are at times just too contrived. I really can't envision a street thug such as Baxter so easily softened by the recitation of a poem. I can't believe a neurosurgeon would allow himself to perform surgery after the events of his day on that particular patient. I can't believe the almost surgerical analysis of Theo's blues "three times rounds the twelve bars" and such could have such an emotional effect. Henry seems to be an expert at many things (cooking, wine, music, squash), and totally oblivious to others. The family is a bit too perfect, too artificial.Furthermore, I don't understand this novel as a reaction to 9/11. Terror and fear of a world out of control is not new (remember the atom bomb).The writing at times is beautiful although at times tedious (that squash game!). However, in spite of shortcomings, I'm glad I read "Saturday" and would recommend it to others for its ability to connect each of us in some very vague and almost unexplanable way.

[spikesix · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not my usual choice of reading but I found this Ian McEwan forced me to really care about the people on the pages, even though they were not my type at all. Later I found myself so afraid for them that I had to put the book down and return later. Never happened before.A masterclass read.

[sonyau_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite books. The whole of a man's life and all his major relationships and all his hopes and fears, as well as the hopes and fears of the the Western world are captured in a twenty-four hour period. Neurology is the core of this novel, how the brain can call forth memory and sensation in times of crisis, and how it can fail as easily from disease, age, and injury. How precious the ability to think, how incredibly precious our ability to love.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite liked "Saturday" which is very well-written and true in some way that "Atonement" did not feel true to me. A much better novel, imho.

[karenajeff · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Alright but a very slow read.

[vnovak_12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this book. The individual sentences and paragraphs often express interesting ideas in a beautiful way. The premise of setting the whole book on one day in the life of a neurosurgeon sounds intriguing. However, taken as a whole, it has the feeling of a technical exercise or a character study. Neither the story nor the characters grabbed me in a way that would make me want to get back to reading the book. Certain elements seemed unnecessary. The war protests seemed to be a side story that is never fully integrated into the storyline. I also found it unbelievable that the main character would operate (or would be allowed to operate) on the individual towards the end of the book. Overall? Meh.

[elizabrown_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One day of a likeable neurosurgeon. His ponderings about his kids, one a successful jazz musician and the other a published poet (aint that fiction!) and his legal-eagle wife were endearing and lovely to read. His passion and satisfaction for his work was enviable, and the unlikely event that rocked the day made for fabulous reading with a sensational suspenseful conclusion... make sure you have enough time to read the last 50 pages without disturbance. Although I enjoyed this book, I found myself tempted to skip a paragraph here and there during some passages not associated with the day's action.

[milti_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My introduction to this author, and now I definitely want to explore more of his work. The beauty lies in the details. He leaves nothing out, but it doesn't get tedious at all like I feared it would.

[paeonia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There was point while I was reading "Saturday" when I wondered if a book that takes place over 24 hours should take 24 hours to read, because it began so excruciatingly slowly. Then the story took finally took hold, and I read the whole thing (in something less than 24 hours).

[gary10_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One day in the life of a surgeon in London. Brings together the fear and paranoia of the post 9/11 world with descriptions of everyday life. Well written and engaging.