Saturday (novel)

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The British hardcover edition, with the Post Office Tower in the background

Saturday (2005) is a novel by the British author Ian McEwan that charts the day of a 48 year old London neurosurgeon called Henry Perowne. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 2005. The novel is set on Saturday, 15th February 2003 against the backdrop of the huge demonstration against the invasion of Iraq. Perowne has planned a series of jobs and pleasures culminating in a family dinner in the evening; however, the day is disrupted by an encounter with violence.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel is entirely narrated in the third person from Perowne's point of view. Part of it is a description of the substantial pleasures that exist in life, especially family and work, but also the more minor ones such as competitive sport, food and drink, cooking, and music, though McEwan makes Perowne a philistine when it comes to literature. Perowne has been very lucky in life: he is competent and respected in a worthwhile job he loves; he has a long and happy marriage to a successful lawyer; his children are extremely pleasant and talented, his son (18) is a blues musician and his older daughter a poet living in Paris; his wife inherited their large home in Fitzrovia, central London; he is fit and active, interested and interesting. However, Perowne is aware of how lucky he is. He knows from his work and his mother's dementia how easily the brain can be damaged and life turned upside down. His own father died suddenly when he was a boy. He sees people lose the chance to experience the pleasures he has through genetics or a poor environment or a flaw in the character. He is aware how other people can disrupt a life from the possibility of personal violence from an unlooked for encounter with the mad or bad to poor personal choices by his family members. He fears violence from terrorists, and understands how many blameless individual lives are blighted by dictators or political actions.

Perowne understands that there are no simple moral decisions to be made in life, and fears those who think that there are. Even apparently straightforward moral decisions can have unfortunate consequences. He has mixed feelings about the Iraq Demonstration (an historical event) that forms a backdrop to the day. He has treated an Iraqi professor and understands the evil practised by Saddam Hussein's regime, but fears the simplistic, ideological motivations of those promoting the invasion, and the long-term damage that war would bring.

The novel's title is also a metaphor for the stage of life at which Perowne finds himself, a cumulation of pleasure and work before the quiet Sunday of retirement.

Perowne's day starts early at 3.40 a.m. as for some strange reason, he is unable to sleep although he has just had a very busy week. From the window of his bedroom he sees a Russian aeroplane with one of its engines on fire, which later lands safely at Heathrow airport. This event casts a shadow over the whole day as the reasons given for this incident heard by Perowne on the television change and shift: is it an accident or connected with terrorism? Are the pilots Islamist terrorists or unfortunate people who did their job well? Later, after having had sex with Rosalind, his wife, he falls back into a half sleep, vaguely hearing her prepare and leave for an important meeting at her work.

He puts on scruffy sports clothes and leaves the house to drive to a nearby squash court. On his way he has a minor car accident that transforms his day. The other car contains three young men whose leader is called Baxter. At first they try to extort money from him but then threaten to beat him up. However, from Baxter's behaviour, Perowne is able to diagnose the onset of Huntington's disease, and he uses that knowledge to delay the beating, taking advantage of the fact that Baxter does not want his companions to know about his illness. Perowne succeeds in further delaying Baxter by describing new treatments for his disease. Baxter's hesitations cause his companions to abandon him, allowing Perowne to escape and leaving Baxter humiliated.

Perowne feels himself becoming older and feebler, and that he may have to give up sports, running marathons as well as squash, by the age of 50. Despite such thoughts, Perowne takes his game of squash against his anaesthetist very seriously, and just loses in an unsatisfactory manner.

He goes on to buy seafood from a local fishmonger, and then in the afternoon visits his mother. She is living in an old people's home and suffers from vascular dementia. She no longer recognises him or anyone else, and no longer has a short term memory. Perowne contrasts her with her younger days as a champion swimmer and reflects on the degree to which his mother is no longer there.

The evening is to be devoted to family. He enjoys listening to a rehearsal by his son's band and then returns home to cook for a family reunion that evening. Daisy's maternal grandfather is a well established but disappointed poet, and there has been tension between them owing to her early success. The grandfather, John Grammaticus, is a heavy drinker who lives in a château in the South of France, is also due to arrive for dinner, and Perowne hopes for some reconciliation.

Rosalind is the last to arrive home, but as she enters Baxter and one of his mates force their way in and, armed with knives, threaten the family. Baxter hits Grammaticus and Perowne realises Baxter has come for revenge after the morning's humiliation. Baxter orders Daisy to take off all her clothes in order to rape her. When she does, she reveals that she is pregnant. Finding out she is a poet, Baxter makes her recite a poem. Rather than one of her own, she recites Dover Beach, which has the effect of disarming Baxter. Instead he becomes enthusiastic about Perowne's renewed lies about new treatment for Huntington's disease. His companion abandons him, and Baxter is overpowered and knocked unconscious falling down the stairs.

Some time later Perowne is summoned to the hospital for an emergency operation on Baxter. This Perowne conducts successfully and professionally. He reflects that though this is the 'right' course to take, its effect will be to expose Baxter to the future agonies of his disease. Perowne's Saturday ends at around 5:15 a.m. after he has returned from the hospital and made love to his wife again.