Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: Saturday, by Ian McEwan

The Story: It’s a pretty  normal Saturday in February 2003.  Henry is a doctor and he’s kind of enjoying the idea of a pretty relaxed day. He wakes up early feeling kind of off kilter and sees a plane fall out of the sky.  In this post-9/11 world (oh, of all the over-used phrases…), it really brings up a lot of thoughts of terrorism and Iraq and so on.  He gets back into bed and wakes up a few hours later feeling a little more with it.  He’s heading to a squash game and because of a protest, he gets turned down a different street than usual.  He gets into a really minor car accident that turns into a really major confrontation.  The rest of his day is kind of painted over by this growing sense of unease that has been building since his strange morning. Everything kind of comes to a head when his entire family gets together for what was meant to be a celebratory dinner.

What I Thought: Books that are written on this 24-hour time frame are always a little weird for me.  Maybe I’m boring, but that many things NEVER happen to me in just one day.  Same problem I have with the show 24.  That’s all in one day… really?!  Jack Bauer and Henry Perowne don’t need to pee or grab a snack!  I think that if this had taken place over the course of 2 days it would have been a little bit more believable… but “Weekend” just doesn’t have the same ring, huh?

Seriously though, with that exception, I thought that this book was pretty great.

I thought that the tone was so well done that I could overlook a few little annoyances.  From the very first line of the book, you can kind of feel that something is just wrong.  This is supposed to just be a normal Saturday, but it’s just not going to work out that way.  As the day goes on, the way that his feeling of unease kind of ebbs and flows but there is always this undercurrent of something bad coming up.  This was so well done that this pretty slow, kind of lyrical book really had me on the edge of my seat.  That is no small feat.

Henry and his family just seemed so relatable. I can just so relate to that feeling of waking up before the rest of the house, wondering around and thinking about stuff.  From that initial scene, I just had this connection to him and that made his bazillion thoughts much more interesting to read.  I could also relate to his daughter- after having been away for a long time, heading home for the first time as a true adult.  That need for affection and parenting but also adult camaraderie is well done here.  That is a feeling that is hard to explain but that everyone goes through.  Ian McEwan does a great job with this.

The pacing was weird for me, but I think that it was meant to be that way.  The whole book was in turns slow and thoughtful then quick and crazy.  There wasn’t much balance here, but I think that it had to do with the fact that that’s just how days are.  You rush around like crazy then come home and sit at the computer doing nothing for 30 minutes.  Ya know?  If this wasn’t intentional, then I guess I was just a forgiving reader in this case.

This is an “issue” book, for sure.  There are just about too many to list.  Wars, relationships, friendship, family, grown children, surgery, lies, aging, violence, sex, and hope…. it’s all here.  There’s a lot going on but it’s not overwhelming.  It really is just a well executed and wonderful read.

Conclusion: Good stuff.  Not a frothy, fun read but a really thoughtful, relaxing book.  I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who loves McEwan’s other books or just literary fiction in general.