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![Saturday by Ian McEwan 4th (fourth) Edition [Paperback(2006)] by Ian McEwan](https://assets.thestorygraph.com/assets/placeholder-cover-a3ae92250eb3301e32dc3eabf8d50576c2f047dda89f6ee7cfa9a859cb1fd746.jpg)
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Every time I'd restart this audiobook, I thought I was listening to a completely new story. I'd zone out a little to concentrate on driving, and it would feel like I'd lost chapters at a time. McEwan's prose was lush with detail, but short on emotional connections for me. In the end I didn't really care what happened to Henry Perowne or his family. Still, he's such a good author, that I stuck with it.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I also truly liked the characters. I wanted to be invited into their little family and participate.
I do wonder what the author was trying to say. I believe he wrote in such a way that depending on the perspective you already have, you can take it either way. The main character has a very scientific mind (he's a neureosurgeon) therefore he argues science, but in a loving manner; he's full of gratitude and love. His family are all very much of the thought that everything is connected; the daughter is a poet and the son a musician.
I think mostly it's a post 9/11 book and will go down in history as to how many think after the attacks. Also a couple of times in the novel the character thought: "There is grandeur in this view of life."
It is written well. I also read a lot of beauty from it no matter what his point was, I think there was a lot about love and connection.
I do wonder what the author was trying to say. I believe he wrote in such a way that depending on the perspective you already have, you can take it either way. The main character has a very scientific mind (he's a neureosurgeon) therefore he argues science, but in a loving manner; he's full of gratitude and love. His family are all very much of the thought that everything is connected; the daughter is a poet and the son a musician.
I think mostly it's a post 9/11 book and will go down in history as to how many think after the attacks. Also a couple of times in the novel the character thought: "There is grandeur in this view of life."
It is written well. I also read a lot of beauty from it no matter what his point was, I think there was a lot about love and connection.
Tremendously moving--and morally useful in these times. More McEwan for me...
I must open with a disclaimer; this is not usually the kind of book that I would choose to read. I did not choose to read this book. I am in a book club and it was and this book when described sounded interesting. That being said, I did not like this book at all! Don’t worry there will be no spoilers in this review because there is nothing of interest to spoil! I found Mr. McEwan’s writing “style” to be verbose and pretentious. He starts the book with a lot of doctor jargon for the sake of sounding smart and you don’t really buy that McEwan knows anything about what he’s writing and your not really sure why you should care. His constant description of the most minute details is exhausting and painful to read. Often the item or idea, which he is explaining to the nth degree, is not pertinent to anything that’s happening in the “story” and is a waste of your time to read and his to write. In essence there is a lot of wasted time describing nothing. The chapters of this book are long and since they are devoid of anything interesting it is hard to find a moments respite. There are 278 pages of this book and it only starts to get remotely interesting on page 220, but that’s only for about ten pages. This book could easily have been fifty pages and would have been much better or at least it would have tortured me infinitely less. McEwan talks about this uselessness of fiction in here and I’m not sure, but ironically he could have been commenting on his own book. He attempts to weave the beginnings of the Iraq war into the book but doesn’t succeed in making this at all relevant to what’s going on in the “story”. This part of the “story” is weak and seems a bit forced and is not insightful at all. He’s not saying anything new and in fact most of his insight is due to hindsight. I’m by no means for the war in Iraq and I’m not very nationalist at all but Mr. McEwan places a lot of the blame on America and doesn’t really see the UK’s culpability in the mess that is Iraq. He makes constant comments about America and Americans that is clearly the worst kind stereotyping. For instance there is a character who is an American ex-pat who is hawkish, but some how is pro socialized medicine (something not really in line with the thinking of conservatives), likes country music over classical and is divorced After the fifteen page squash match the American drinks a coke and McEwan says, “ you have to be an American to want, as an adult, something so sweet”. This comment is pompous and shows that he is operating purely on stereotypes He goes on to send the main characters English son to New York to play the blues and he makes the assertion that the Americans probably won’t like it... I wonder if he knows that the blues are an American art form? Another really bad part of the book is the grandfather’s name, he is a famous poet and his last name is Grammaticus! Yeah, I know, lame. Anyway, I digress… Wow, this review is starting to be as long winded as Mr. McEwan, he must be rubbing off on me. Lastly, the end of the story is really unbelievable and quite trite and like the Iraq war content, a bit forced. As you can tell I would not recommend this book to anyone, EVER!
It was entertaining and kept me reading more; but, the literary devices seemed too in-your-face. I have to say, the squash game was a pretty hilarious and accurate depiction of men competing.
As the title implies, this book is the story of one man's Saturday, which is about as boring as it sounds. Henry Perowne is a neurosurgeon who, on his day off, has a minor traffic accident. This spurs a train of events that gets Perowne's entire family involved. Now I can't give away too many plot details because of the nature of the story, but I found it to be a bit slow. McEwan's writing, while beautiful, is often dragging. The high points of the novel were exciting, but otherwise not so good.
If you decide to read it, stick with it. Most of the book takes place in the doctor's head and the whole thing is over in a day with all of the action crammed into the last 100 pages. I do think McEwan is pretty genius.
Good god. If I ever have the need to be even more exposed to a smug entitled hetero sexist white male perspective, I can always pick up this highly gratuitous novel. Where was the editor? This book is an absurd exercise by someone who can obviously write, but who nobody had the guts to tell that the final product is masturbatory. At best.