Saturday

By: Ian McEwan

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Ian McEwan's novels have inspired sweeping critical acclaim and won such prestigious awards as the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his modern masterpiece, Atonement. With Saturday, McEwan has crafted perhaps his most unique achievement to date.

Neurosurgeon Henry Perowne enjoys life immensely and considers himself fortunate to love the woman he's married to. As he makes his way through an immense London crowd of Iraq protestors, he has a minor automobile accident. His trained eye immediately senses something neurologically wrong with Baxter, the other driver. So when the confrontational Baxter visits the Perowne home later that evening and events take a tragic turn, it is Henry who must employ his skills to save Baxter.

McEwan has been hailed as "one of the most gifted literary storytellers alive" by The New Republic, and Saturday is further proof of that claim.

Listen to an interview with Ian McEwan on Charlie Rose.

©2005 Ian McEwan (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Dazzling." (The New York Times)
"A wise and poignant portrait of the way we live now." (Publishers Weekly)
"McEwan is as provocative, transporting, and brilliant as ever as he considers both our vulnerability and our strength, particularly our ability to create sanctuary in a violent world." (Booklist)

first class writing - character driven brilliance

One day in the life of a fascinating man and his family - the drama emerges without contrivance or phony cliff hanging suspense. A brain surgeon in the prime of life, successful, loved, respected, experiences a Saturday where he gains understanding about his world, his place in it, and his family, and discovers, unexpectedly, his better angels. The whole book takes place inside the protagonist's head, and it is a fascinating place to spend time. Bonus: intriguing details about high tech neurosurgery (amazing!) and a bit of scary violence that emerges naturally from the situation

Ian McEwan can write!

Though I'm not male, not a neurosurgeon, not British, not wealthy.....I felt a real kinship with Henry P. The impact of 9/11 and his assessment of the general condition of the world provides a dark backdrop to what action there is. This is a literary book in which I sort immersed myself; you can't be in a hurry for the next thing to happen.

Dame Edna would have been.....

...a better narrator. She is at least more articulate and and has a much better trained falsetto! The novel however is shere genius and I think that fact is missed by the other commentators here because of the insipid mulings of the narrrator. This novel is clever, poignant and sinks deeply into the post-modern angst where genuine love in a family can still exist. The humor is delightful. I have read few scenes with a more contained wit than when Daisy reads "her" poem to Baxter- the bad guy but also the sick guy. And with genuine human compassion in the midst of thier own crisis Henry sees beyond the immediate danger into the uncontrollable suffering of Baxter's source of pain and crisis. Then with a deft mixing of this carefully crafted matrix McEwen draws the story line and the lives of these real people into a sharp focus about where we as a society are today both out there in the crowd and in the privacy of our homes and loved ones.

Good Book - Well Read

This book works especially well as an audiobook because it is a first person rendering - the thoughts of a happy, successful doctor as he lives through a series of very unsettling events. Literary fiction can be tough to follow in audio, but in this case the insights and descriptive passages came clearly through the voice of the key character.

Saturday

Turned up for me when I needed it . I found it a tale of morality and mortality . Just life in plainer words. I enjoyed the thought provoking aspects of the story .

Amazing writer!

I was mesmerized by the way Mr. McEwan explores our inner lives. Would listen again!

Neurosurgery and Poetry

McEwan is one of my favorite writers, but this one did not catch me. The story revolves around a neurosurgeon who wakes up on his day off, only to see a plane coming in over the Thames, apparently on fire. It is a day filled with events and, at the end, a new respect for and understanding of his family, particularly his two young adult children and his father-in-law.

It gets better towards the end, as he comes to a new understanding of poetry and its importance to his daughter, and music, for his son.

In addition, there was an ethically jarring situation ....

[SPOILER] where the narrator actually goes in and offers to operate on a man who had attacked him and who was injured because the narrator and his son had thrown him down the stairs, causing a head injury. It might be justified because supposedly he was the best person to take care of the man, but even this was not totally clear. At the very least, he should have told the other members of the team. Also, it would be a nightmare for the prosecutors to deal with this situation. When a story conflicts with reality, it takes one out of the world of the story. [END OF SPOILER]

There are, of course, the inevitable comparisons with Joyce's Ulysses, but the comparison does not hold up well. There is definitely less excitement than in the TV show "24", though there are fewer cheap thrills also.

The subject involves reactions to 9/11 and our perceptions on this evolve as time goes on. The novel is inevitably somewhat limited by the perspective of the time in which it as written.

Perhaps my problem is that I work in the medical field and so a lot of the medical description, while realistic, was boring to me. Maybe this is interesting to those outside the medical field who get to see some of the inside, but to me, it was too much like a day at work.

There is honesty in this writing but, unfortunately, the subject matter was less interesting than his other novels.

fabulous

i have read (listened) to several hundred books on audible and i am always looking for a new author. i first started with his reading of on chesil beach and was blown away and immediatly downloaded saturday, which was just extraordinary. how fortunate we are to have someone of his talent. he's in a class by himself.

Enjoyable.....but?

After listening to 'Solar' (my first Audible book) and being completely 'rapt', I found 'Saturday' not quite up to the high benchmark previously set. The scene between Henry and daughter Daisy was long, tedious and unconvincing in their dialogue, and the fact that Henry is allowed back to the hospital after a fairly heavy drinking session isn't up to McEwan's usual standards of getting the details just right. It also lacked the dry, wry,black humour in both the writing and the narration found in 'Solar' that I enjoyed so immensely. However all that said, 'Saturday' is still a well written and an enjoyable listening experience.

Good, not Great

I thought this novel was strong were it should have been understated while it was understated where it should have been strong.

The central story of the bad man who comes into the life of the protagonist sometimes seems a little thin, whereas the smallest detail of this day in the life story can be laid on a little thick.

The subplot of the Iraq War protests are very interesting seen from our current point of view.