Saturday (novel)
Saturday (2005) is a novel by Ian McEwan about one day in the life of a London neurosurgeon. Set on Saturday, February 15, 2003 against the backdrop of the mass demonstration against the invasion of Iraq, Saturday chronicles both the routine and the unusual events of that day while the third person narrator delves into the doctor's thoughts, beliefs and emotions especially concerning his own future, that of his family, and that of the world at large. What the reader encounters is a middle-aged man who has no reason to be unhappy but who just cannot stop worrying.
48 year-old Henry Perowne is a successful neurosurgeon living in a beautiful and spacious house in Fitzrovia, only a few minutes' walk from the hospital where he works. Perowne is healthy, fit, rich, married to an attractive woman he is still in love with, and the proud father of two grown-up children, a son and a daughter. His Saturday starts as early as 3:40 a.m. because, for some strange reason, he is unable to sleep although he has just finished a very busy work week. Later, after having had sex with Rosalind, his wife, he does fall asleep again and wakes up when Rosalind, a successful lawyer, has already gone to work.
He puts on casual clothes and leaves the house, first buying seafood—he is going to cook dinner tonight—and then steering his Mercedes in the direction of a nearby squash court. On his way there he has a minor car accident, but one of the people in the other car, a young man called Baxter, turns violent, corners Perowne and hits him in the stomach. Seeing Baxter so close by enables Perowne to diagnose the onset of Huntington's disease, and he uses that knowledge to verbally intimidate, and possibly humiliate, his opponent so that he can finally escape.
Worrying about getting older and feebler himself, and deciding to give up sports, in particular running marathons, by the age of 50, Perowne nevertheless takes his game of squash very seriously, believing it would spoil his day if he lost. He wins, and on his way home he visits his mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and does not recognize him anymore.
Driving back home, he is looking forward to the evening, which has been planned as a family reunion. While his son Theo, a happy blues musician with hardly any formal education, still lives at home, Daisy, his daughter, has gone to Paris, France to study. Like her maternal grandfather, she writes poetry, her first collection of verse awaiting publication. That grandfather, John Grammaticus, a heavy drinker who lives in a château in the South of France, is also due to arrive for dinner.
Rosalind is the last to arrive home, but when she unlocks the front door Baxter and one of his mates, who have followed Perowne all the way back to his house, force their way in and, armed with knives, start threatening the family gathered in the drawing room. Perowne soon finds out that Baxter has come with a very vague idea of taking revenge but without a concrete plan of what to do. On a whim, he orders Daisy to take off all her clothes. Only when she does so do the family notice that she is pregnant—a realization which prompts Perowne to embark on yet another course of worries. In the end, after the other intruder has already deserted Baxter and just run off, Perowne and Theo can overwhelm Baxter by pushing him down a flight of steps. He is unconscious, they call an ambulance, and he is carried away.
Some time later, while the family are finally having dinner, the phone rings, and Perowne is summoned to the hospital for an emergency operation. Already while listening to the details over the phone it becomes clear to him that he is going to operate on Baxter.
He considers his Saturday over at around 5:15 a.m. after returning from the hospital and making love to his wife again.
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Categories: Books by title | 2005 books | British novels | English novels