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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In the predawn sky on a Saturday morning, London neurosurgeon Henry Perowne sees a plane with a wing afire streaking toward Heathrow. His first thought is terrorism--especially since this is the day of a public demonstration against the pending Iraq war. Eventually, danger to Perowne and his family will come from another source, but the plane, like the balloon in the first scene of Enduring Love, turns out to be a harbinger of a world forever changed. Meanwhile, the reader follows Perowne through his day, mainly via an interior monologue. His cerebral peregrination records, in turn, the meticulous details of brain surgery, a car accident followed by a confrontation with a hoodlum, a far-from-routine squash game, a visit to Perowne's mother in a nursing home and a family reunion. It is during the latter event, at the end of the day, that the ominous pall that has hovered over the narrative explodes into violence, and Perowne's sense that the world has become "a commuity of anxiety" plays out in suspense, delusion, heroism and reconciliation. The tension throughout the novel between science (Perowne's surgery) and art (his daughter is a poet; his son a musician) culminates in a synthesis of the two, and a grave, hopeful, meaningful, transcendent ending. If this novel is not as complex a work as McEwan's bestselling Atonement, it is nonetheless a wise and poignant portrait of the way we live now. (Mar. 22)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
McEwan's key strategy is to pit reason against chaos and art against arbitrariness as he orchestrates thorny moral dilemmas and menacing situations. This is the structure underlying his Booker Prize-winning Amsterdam (1998), his best-selling Atonement 2002), and this tightly focused, high-performance, stream-of-consciousness drama about one day in the life of a sanguine London neurosurgeon. Henry Perowne is a good man. He loves to perform delicate operations while listening to classical music, and he adores his smart lawyer wife, adventurous poet daughter, and gentle musician son. For him this particular Saturday in February 2003 is a day full of promise, even though he's had a strange night and London is gearing up for an immense protest march against the impending war in Iraq, and even though he gets into a frightening altercation with a twitchy thug named Baxter, a confrontation he escapes by diagnosing his attacker's degenerative condition. It's been said that what makes literature so enthralling is its devotion to detail and its digressions. McEwan is a master of both, and consequently the reader reads this embroiling tale with two minds: one luxuriating in Henry's piquant ruminations on everything from the dysfunctions of the brain to evolution, Iraq, and society's retreat from "big ideas"; the other cued to suspense: how will Baxter exact his revenge? McEwan is as provocative, transporting, and brilliant as ever as he considers both our vulnerability and our strength, particularly our ability to create sanctuary in a violent world. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lot more than just 24 hours, this one is great,
This review is from: Saturday (Hardcover)
SATURDAY is a remarkable novel. It grips you in its symbolism, and I did enjoy it as much as ATONEMENT. It gives us a story of great love, happiness and the misery that can be interjected into our lives. What we come to expect as just another day turns into an event that is quite unexpected with reverberating consequences. This novel follows 24 hours in the life of neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Perowne, as he wakes up very early one Saturday morning, not long after 9/11. Henry is a happily married family man, and we follow him along in his day as he plays squash with a physician friend, visits his elderly mother who is suffering from dementia, and gets involved in an incident of road rage which will come back to haunt him before the end of the day. I'll leave it there, for you need to read this wonderful book to find out what happens. Suffice it to say that SATURDAY "moves" along at a faster clip than ATONEMENT, but is every bit as good. Would also recommend the highly popular BARK OF THE DOGWOOD for another great read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unlikely and unlikeable,
By Symbianist (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Saturday (Hardcover)
Although well written, I found it hard to keep going with this book. There are numerous long descriptive sections (for example, pages and pages were taken up in describing a squash game) in which I lost interest. The high level of introspection was somewhat unconvincing. And the characters, apart from Baxter and Grammaticus, were dull and complacent. I found Perowne's children particularly unlikely and unlikeable.I was interested to read that the central character, Perowne, preferred William James to his "fussy brother" Henry, because the latter would "run round a thing a dozen different ways than call it by its name". This was much the way I found this book. Good editing could perhaps reduce it to a short story of some merit, but as a full length novel, it is weak.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bowled over.,
By
This review is from: Saturday (Paperback)
Having been disappointed by Atonement, I expected little from this book. I was surprised to find myself enthralled from the first word. Although the book is quiet, there hangs a foreshadowed threat from the opening pages. McEwan is masterful in building Henry Perowne's character by following him through one Saturday in his life. The writing style is extraordinary; McEwan is a true wordsmith.
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