Ian McEwan - Saturday (2005)
Reviewed by Fiona Walker
McEwan has a legitimate claim to being the greatest writer alive in Britain today. Many might award him that accolade based on Atonement alone. After suffering somewhat of a disinterest in fiction after September 11th (“fiction was outstripped by reality,” he says), he’s back, and Saturday is, among other things, an answer to the question, What use is fiction?
One of the answers is this: the potential, in literature, for detail, can show us things we wouldn’t normally see, notice, or realize in life. Through immersion in this sweeping Roth-esque monologue, there’s a time for study, for reflection, as we surf on Henry Perowne’s thoughts, his observation of his own life and the lives of those around him. Perowne’s a neurosurgeon, and this book is his Saturday, his day off work. As such, it is rife with the concept of a Saturday, of a resting time, a time when you are free from work, from material care, and able to consider your own self, your own context, free from the thing which defines you during the rest of the monotonous week, and get to grips with the rest of the world. Henry does a lot of this. From when he wakes prematurely in the morning, gazes out of the window and watches something bright pass by in the sky -- a falling star, a comet? -- to when he returns to his bed the next night (birth, life, death), what clearly concerns Henry most is the state of the world.
Otherwise, he’s a pretty happy chap. At times, it’s tempting to want to scorn his almost distressingly comfortable life and McEwan’s conception of it, with its games of squash, its monkfish and its sash windows. It is, unfailingly, a middle-class existence far removed from certain of life’s “realities” -- it could almost be pretentious, but that is missing the point. For this novel to work, this is just the sort life its main character must have -- it’s very comfortable-ness is at the heart of the novel’s purpose, which is both to present a novel concerning a character who is actually very happy, who is perfectly comfortable, and to present a scenario in which the malevolence which threatens existence -- always present in McEwan’s work -- comes from the far outside, from the outer ring of the circle. The black dogs may not be obsessing over you, about to leap on your back, they may not be luring you to a twisted foreign fate, but they are nonetheless padding intently in the distance and looming large. Perowne actually has a distance that many of McEwan’s characters don’t, which allows for a far more detailed, and subtle, analysis of this outer threat. Saturday certainly constitutes the most thoughtful and, yes, subtle analysis of the current situation that I’ve read. It doesn’t necessarily proffer views that many people will be comfortable with, either. The conversations Perowne has with his colleagues, family, and himself, are fascinating. It’s a thinker, this one.
Now, to happiness. This is a bold novel in that respect. Who’d have thought it: to write a novel where the characters are very happy with their lives, successful and contented with their lot (in the microcosm of family, if not the chaotic macrocosm of wider society). Perowne enjoys his work, loves his wife -- “How lucky, that the woman he loves is also his wife.” -- has a successful poet for a daughter, and a son who’s forsaken education to play the blues. (Brief mention: the pervading sense of a world, of a life, that is relying on its children for growth is a beautiful and important one.) As the world threatens to split apart into its different factions, Perowne’s family are coming together, for a meal. The scenes with his family are wonderful to read, full of warmth. Indeed, the whole novel is warm, has an attractive glow to it. Happiness is far trickier to plumb than sadness (“misery is more amenable to analysis”), but McEwan’s pulls it off with great success.
Saturday is, in some ways, a remarkable novel. There are sections of sustained brilliance that forced me to stop reading, to briefly revel in the pleasures of it. (The part which ends “It is, after all, the blues” is a case in point, as is the opening scene as Perowne gazes out of his window.) Then, McEwan has always been superb at creating moments, moments that suddenly, garnished with a sentence or even a single word, expand into something hugely significant, almost awe-inspiring. To think, that Henry is such a philistine. He can appreciate his son’s music, but sees no point in literature, fails entirely to appreciate works of fiction (one he has a particular gripe with is McEwan’s own The Child in Time -- a nice sly gambit). McEwan’s thus involved, covertly, in a constant battle against his narrator (and thoroughly trounces him). Perowne’s exposition that: “…the idea that people can’t “live” without stories is simply not true. He is living proof.” is almost oppressively ironic, and made me laugh with wild delight.
This set-up, of writer against character, could be quite important: it is a warning not to take Perowne’s thoughts, opinions as, necessarily, McEwan’s own. If they are dissonant in this, then also be suspicious of dissonance elsewhere. In the end, McEwan’s views are indeed similar to Perowne’s, though the grain of opposition, the willingness to push against and test ideas rather than simply receive them, that the book encourages is a vital one in today’s world where soundbites become truth when repeated frequently enough. Consider for yourself, is the thrust. The symbolism, the duality of meaning, within the final 30 pages is bold and cutting: though the possibility exists that consequences of action may be dire, you must help if you can. (The fact that this final, possibly bitter message would fail to answer many of the criticisms of the current situation is almost irrelevant.)
It’s not a perfect book (obviously) but that doesn’t stop it being a great one. At times it feels too stringent, too structured (You can almost hear McEwan plotting: “and then Perowne can do this…”), and Perowne’s reality is never quite ours (though it doesn’t have to be – it is always, without a doubt, his own). I still love it, though, and as a finely oiled machine it works superbly. In the end, at the apex of his day, Perowne is saved by literature. If only we all could be.
(As I write, Saturday stands at number 1 on the UK bestseller lists for the 2nd week in a row, selling more than the latest Grisham, and with its total sales exceeding the latest James Patterson. It’s a fine day for good books: a fine day indeed.)
Posted by Fiona Walker in Book Reviews | Permalink
