Tampa Book Buzz

online book club review:saturday by ian mcewan

Ian McEwan’s Saturday examines one day in the life of Henry Perowne, a successful British neurosurgeon, husband and father. Henry contemplates everything — overthinking some things — and views the day’s events through his personal lenses of medical training, affection for his wife, worry for his two grown children, pride and embarrassment over his affluence and success in life, worry over terrorism and the effects of 9/11, and a growing awareness of getting older and how his life is changing because of it.

Henry’s plan for his Saturday is simple: get up early, see his wife off to work, play racquetball with a colleague, visit his mother at the nursing home, buy groceries, prepare a special celebration dinner and enjoy a visit from his children. A minor car accident on his way to racquetball upsets his carefully-laid plans and changes his life forever.

I was prepared to dislike Saturday because of the slowness of it. The book opens with Henry waking in the middle of the night, and by page 25, it’s only 3:55 a.m. Everything Henry experiences or remembers is recounted in great detail, as he applies the scientific objectivity and serious examination of neurosurgery to every event in his life. After I paused, took a deep breath, and slowed my reading pace a bit, McEwan’s contemplativeness washed over me. I was interested in everything Henry was seeing; I wanted to hear the backstory that Henry remembered. I can relate to his worry about his ailing mother and I understand his fears about getting older.

While sometimes paced maddeningly slow, Saturday is an enjoyable read. McEwan presents a character’s entire lifetime in only one day and reminds us that life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans.

What did you think?