“Saturday”
by Ian McEwan
Published: March 2005
ISBN: 0375435328

(Updated: November 19 2005.)

From the Publisher…

From the pen of a master — the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement — comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Saturday is a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before.

On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne’s day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne’s professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him — with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive.

Well… I finished this book about a week ago. Although I can indeed conjure up some images of the mood of the book and although I can indeed remember the essences of the main characters, I cannot recall enough about it other than to write that it is, indeed, about one (not very aware) man’s Saturday.

An unabrasive read (at most) but not one that I would really recommend. I give this book a 2 out of 5 hearts on my “couldn’t-wait-to-get-back-to-it” scale.