Saturday

Last night I finished Saturday, by Ian McEwan. I have now read two books by this author, and am eager to read more. Previously I read Atonement, which was brilliant, and while Saturday wasn't as fulfilling, it was still an outstanding work.

Saturday is somewhat a Mrs. Dalloway for the 21st century. Like the Woolf book, Saturday depicts one day in the life of its protagonist. This time it's Henry Perowne, a middle-aged neurosurgeon living in London. The book bathes in the minutae of Perowne's day off: waking early, a game of squash, a fender-bender with some thugs, watching his son play in a blues band, shopping for dinner. All the while, though, there is a sense of menace. Perowne has witnessed a plane on fire landing at Heathrow, and follows the news of this event all day, and there is a protest against the Iraq war. This allows McEwan to introduce the precarious state of the modern world into Perowne's hum-drum daily life.

The book reaches a heart-pounding climax that though inevitable is also surprising. As with many of McEwan's books, it turns on a moral choice. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys literary fiction.