Saturday door Ian McEwan

Expectation in advance

When I wanted to get a book from the library to read, I went there with my list of books we discussed with literature-classes. There were two books I really wanted to read: American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis and The French Lieuftenant’s Woman. Unfortunately, they didn’t have them, so I went on looking at my list. I found Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden, but they didn’t have that one either. They did have other books by him, like Amsterdam and Saturday. I read both their backs (or insides- that’s where the summary was), Saturday appealed to me most, I think because it said that it was about a neurosurgeon and a man suffering from Huntington’s. Since I watch quite some medical TV-shows, I thought this was an interesting read. The inside flap read that it also was about the war in Iraq, I didn’t really care about that, but I hoped that wouldn’t be the main theme.

Summary

Saturday, February 13th. Neurosurgeon Henry Perowne is awake one night and walks to his window. There he sees a burning plane in the sky. He wants to know more, and goes downstairs, where his son, Theo, is. They watch the news together, but ‘his’ plane isn’t in it yet. Later, Henry goes to bed and waits for sleep to come. His wife, Rosalind, has to get to work early. Every Saturday, Henry and his anaesthetist go squashing together. He wakes up and goes to his car. He drives away, but because of a demonstration against the war between the USA and Iraq, he has to go the other way. Then a car crashes into his from behind. The three men in it, Baxter and his sidekicks, want to beat Henry up. They take him to the pavement and pin him against the wall. Baxter’s arms and legs quiver a bit, and together with some other symptoms, Henry’s worked out Baxter has Huntington’s disease. He tells him, but in front of his sidekicks, Baxter’s embarrassed. Then Henry escapes and goes squashing. After the game, he calls his wife, goes home, then to his demented mother, to Theo’s concert and eventually home. He prepares the meal. Published poet Daisy (his daughter), and John Grammaticus, his father-in-law, come from France to visit them. When they’re home, Rosalind comes home, but Baxter and his sidekick are there too, with a knife. He hijacks them in their own house. Daisy has to undress, they find out she is pregnant, then she has to read a poem from her own book. That triggers a mood change in Baxter, he is also willing to believe there’s a cure for his disease (Henry told him he had a paper on it upstairs, a lie.) They go up, and Henry has to improvise. Then Theo comes running up the stairs, he’s hit Nigel knock-out. Together, they throw Baxter off the stairs, call the ambulance. Henry gets paged, he has to operate Baxter’s brain. The operation succeeds, and Henry goes home again. The two people from the plane turn out to be Russians. He somewhat forgives Baxter for what he did, and decides to drop charges. He talks a long time in bed with his wife about the day, but then, eventually, falls asleep.

Five impressive parts
The first thing that really impressed me was more about the writer than the book. Ian McEwan must have done a lot of research for this book- or have known a lot of things. In this book only, a lot of jargon is used, and a lot of methods are described. Because Henry is a neurosurgeon, he describes several operations, and uses a lot of diseases and medical terms, and those terms start at the first pages of the book. There was a part of an operation where there were those terms in every sentence, and I must admit, I didn’t read those words, I just scanned the sentence. Some diseases or places in the body are just too difficult.

At page 9, Henry talks about a operation he has done on a girl:

“The culmination of today’s list was the removal of a pilocytic astrocytoma from a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who lives in Brixton with her aunt and uncle, a Church of England vicar. The tumour was best reached through the back of the head, by an infratentorial supracerebellar route, with the anaesthetised patient in a sitting position. This in turn created special problems for Jay Strauss (his anaesthetist) for there was a possibility of air entering a vein and causing an embolism.” (page 9)

The second thing I found impressive actually the whole book’s theme. It’s all about fear. Fear of the ‘terrorists’ (even if they aren’t terrorists), fear of the war between America and Iraq, fear of muggers, for aggressive people like Baxter... There is so much fear in this book and you can feel it everywhere you read it. It’s hard to pick a fragment in this book, because it needs the entire context, but I will give it a try. When Henry goes to his window and sees the burning plane, at first he thinks it’s a meteor. He goes back to bed, but then he hears a loud noise, and watches again.

“ He’s moving towards the bed when he hears a low rumbling sound, gentle thunder gathering in volume, and stops to listen. It tells him everything. He looks back over his shoulder to the window for confirmation. Of course, a comet is so distant it’s bound to appear stationary. Horrified, he returns to his position by the window. The sound holds at a steady volume while he revises the scale again, zooming inwards this time, from solar dust and ice back to the local. ” (page 14)

Another thing that I found really impressive of Henry Perowne, is that he diagnosed Huntington’s disease, just by observing a man for a minute or so. He looked at Baxter, and saw him walking a bit ‘jazzy’, shaking a little, and some other body movements. Then he just knew that it was Huntington’s. I think this is very impressive because... it just is. How could you possibly conclude that of a few symptoms, AND GET IT RIGHT?! I knew that House from House MD could, and I know it’s a book, but I also know that there are people who can do it (I’ve found it online). I’ve found a quote, right before he gets beaten (or at least thinks he is, he doesn’t really get beaten up, just a punch to his chest). Here, he doesn’t discover it –that was way too much text to put in here.

“ He has, as he reckons, a few seconds left. Baxter is in his mid-twenties. This isn’t the moment to be asking for a family history. If a parent has it, you have a fifty-fifty percent chance of going down too. Chromosome four. The misfortune lies within a single gene, in excessive repeat of a single sequence – CAG. Here’s a biological determinism in its purest form. More than forty repeats of that one little codon, and you’re doomed. Your future is fixed and easily foretold.

(...)

There’s nothing to lose by making a guess. He speaks into the blaze of Baxter’s regard.

‘Your father had it. Now you’ve got it too.’ ” (Pages 93-94)

The fourth thing that I find impressive (I can’t find the right word for it, it’s not impressive, impressive-shocking in a good way is the closest I can get), is that Henry Perowne thinks of everything in a medical and fact-ish way. At first I thought he wasn’t really capable of showing feelings. The reason for that was quite simple, but superficial, when he feels a cramp at his chest where he was hit by one of the sidekicks, he thinks in a medical way. I think it would be quite cool to think of everything medically, but not if it’s the only way you can think. I feel like he lacks some fantasy in his life. That also makes me think that he suffers from a form of autism (I am probably biased because I watch House MD, and it’s said about him that he’s autistic, so the fact given that he’s also a doctor and quite obsessive, I conclude (too easily) that he suffers from something in the autistic spectrum.) The quote written down here takes place after he’s played a game of squash with Jay Strauss, his anaesthetist. Jay needed to go to the bathroom, and when he’s gone, Henry hopes to see other people play, but there’s no-one.

“ Henry resists the temptation to sit down. Instead he steps out to take a look at the other games – he’s always hoping to learn something from the classier players. But the place is still deserted. The club members are either massing against the war, or unable to find a way through central London. As he comes back along the courts, he lifts his T-shirt and examines his chest. There’s a dense black bruise to the left of his sternum .It hurts when he extends his left arm. Staring at the discoloured skin helps focus his troubled feelings about Baxter. Did he. Henry Perowne, act unprofessionally, using his medical knowledge to undermine a man suddering from a neurodegenerative disorder? Yes. Did the threat of a beating excuse him? Yes, no, not entirely. ” (page 111)

Huntington’s is a horrible disease, with a lot of physical complications, memory loss, and also very strong mood swings. A good example of one of these mood swings, is when Baxter has hijacked them. At first, when he comes in the house, he is angry and dangerous. He has a knife, and because his hand shakes, he can’t really control it. When he puts the knife to Rosalind’s throat, his hands also shake. Henry is very anxious that he might accidently slit her throat (he doesn’t). Baxter’s still very angry and frustrated. Then he asks –or demands actually- Daisy to take off all her clothes. When he sees she’s pregnant, he feels sorry, but his anger is still there. Then, when he sees Daisy’s book, he takes it from the table and is a bit cynical. He demands her to read him a poem, her favourite poem. She reads it, and his mood changes drastically to euphoria. She read the poem a couple of times, the first time he couldn’t hear her, the second time he was so in awe that he wanted to hear it again. This is after she’s read it for the second time.

“ She looks up. Unable to control the muscular spasms in her knees, Rosalind still gazes at her daughter. Everyone else is watching Baxter, and waiting. He’s hunched over, leaning his weight against the back of the sofa. Though his right hand looks slacker, and his posture, the peculiar yielding angle of his spine, suggests a possible ebbing of intent. Could it happen, is it within the bounds of the real, that a mere poem of Daisy’s could precipitate a mood swing?

(...)

It’s hard to tell, for his face is never still, but Baxter appears suddenly elated. His right hand has moved away from Rosalind’s shoulder and the knife is already back in his pocket. His gaze remains on Daisy. (...)

‘You wrote that. It’s beautiful. And you wrote it.’ ” (pages 121-122)

I thought McEwan wrote amazingly here, because I felt like I was in the room and I felt the fear of being murdered and I just felt everything. That’s what I found impressive.

Reading experience
When I started reading, I thought the book was coming on very slowly. I totally understand that every person has to be introduced properly to the reader, and when I read further, it was necessary to know all of the characters well, so I’m glad for the introduction. While reading it just almost bored me. Things started to get interesting when Baxter drove into his rear bumper. Then the violence came along, or at least, McEwan made you think there was going to be a beating. Then he only got one punch.

When he started to think about Baxter and Huntington’s, I was amused. I just loved to read his thoughts and his associations. I thought his thinking steps were very easy to follow, which made it a nice read.

Things really got interesting for me when Baxter hijacked the family. In this part, and actually in the whole book, I could feel the fear as if I was actually with them. I could see everything happening before my eyes, and hear the people talk. In my head, they were so real, only their faces were blurry (I always have that, faces of characters are pretty much always blurry in my head.)

The book is written about one day, but in this particular day, so many things happen! And the good thing: it didn’t bore me for a second.

I was actually looking for a thriller or a detective, but I don’t regret reading this book at all. It was a good book, but I did find that I had to sit in a place quiet to understand everything (probably because there were so many terms I didn’t know, and that caused that I was easily distracted from reading.)

Deepening assignment; Theme
There are several subjects in this book, but I think the main subject is ‘fear’. That fear-element is all over the story. Of course, it’s not always that present everywhere, but while reading it, I noticed that even I held my breath when the situation became frightening for the main characters.

I think that Ian McEwan wants to show the readers that there’s always something to be scared of. It starts out with terrorism. In the beginning of the book, in the morning, all the focus is on the burning plane. That’s what is on his mind the whole early morning. When he goes downstairs to the kitchen, his first intention to go there is because he wants to know what was going on with the plane. He stays there and talks with Theo about the plane, waits for the next broadcast in the hopes to obtain more information, where the two passengers on board are said to be extreme-Islamic, and that they were planning on a terrorist attack. Later that day, the two men turn out to be Russians, with no harm intended. The only thing found on the plane was child pornography (a big fear nowadays), and the two passengers claimed that it wasn’t theirs. I think McEwan wants to let the reader know that these fears of an actual plane crash organized by terrorists, are quite surreal. Yes, 9/11 happened, but there was no evidence that it was organized by terrorists. And even if it was, then it’s not said something like that will happen in the near future.

Then, the second fear, is the fear of being mugged, hijacked or beaten up. This all happens to Henry from the early midday to the late afternoon. He sees three men entering a red BWM, which he associates with crime, “And for no good reason.” He gets hit by them a bit later, and then he is scared by them as well, they don’t seem the nicest people to be around. When they walk up to him, he decides to step out of his car, so that he is in a safer position. They threaten to mug him, but then Baxter decides they don’t want his money. Baxter just wants Henry beat up. That’s an element of fear. Later in the book, he scares the whole family when he threatens to kill Rosalind, tells Daisy to undress and hits the grandfather. I think those are pretty credible fears, they could happen to you every day. In my opinion, McEwan made it pretty unlikely though, because he put all of these events in one day.

The book didn’t really change my view on fear or terrorism, I think for the book to change my view, more background information is required- that’s how I feel about it. This book only shows one person’s perspective about this particular subject. I think for me to form an opinion, it would definitely require more opinions. So my view didn’t change. I must admit that while I was reading it, I was grasped by the fear the main characters were under, but it didn’t change my view.

I think the author dealt with the subject in a quite deep way. He interwove it in pretty much everything, without calling it fear, but always made me feel it was there. He took the subject further than just one aspect, since he described it in terrorism, burglary, violence and threatening.

The subject, fear, is a motif, but there are also two different motifs I found in this book. I couldn’t find any motifs online, there were no summaries or any book reports on it, so I had to think them out by myself. These are those two:

1. Things aren’t always what they look like

2. Ethical questions

The first motif might not be the strongest, but I think it’s there. The embodiment of this motif is the plane. At first, Henry and the people at the news think that it’s a terrorist attack by Islamic people in name of jihad. Later, they think the men are Czech and Algeranian, but that they did set their plane on fire. Then, eventually, it turned out that the two men were from Russia, and had no harm intended. Because of the fear, people saw things differently and others just assumed that.

The second, stronger motif I found was the ethical questions he asks himself. I think the best example for this motif happens when Baxter hit Perowne, and Perowne notices Baxter has Huntington’s. He notices it, and then he decides in a fraction of a second what he has to do with it. Will he act unprofessionally and use his medical knowledge in disadvantage of this man to escape beating? He answers it with a yes, but doubts his decision later on. I also wrote this moment in my “impressive moments”. The second time this motif jumps up is after he threw Baxter off the stairs, he has to operate on Baxter, the same man who almost killed Henry’s wife, threatened to rape his daughter and punch his father-in-law.

The book’s title is “Saturday” and is quite easy to explain: the whole book takes place on a Saturday. There might be more depth to the title, but I couldn’t think of any other explanations. I searched the internet too, but I couldn’t find anything there either.

The story ends with a conversation between Henry and his wife in bed. They tell each other about their day, then they fall asleep. Baxter was successfully operated by Henry, Henry’s mother was demented, like I said before, and there’s more information given about her life and how her amnesia got worse and she even forgot where she lived. They felt bad to clean up her house after she went to the resting home, but they had to after a year. It was hard for him to see how she was already gone so far and would never come back. Henry then looks at the future- how he sees it. Theo will get professional at music and go to New York, Daisy will publish her poems and raise a baby with her Italian boyfriend Giulio, and Henry accepts it now. He is less afraid of terrorists, because he sees that an attack will happen sometime, and just by worrying about it, it will not not happen. He also says that he has to pursue everyone to drop charges against Baxter.

I think the author wants to make clear that you can accept almost everything, accept your fears and forgive people who might have harmed you or ones you love. That's the deepest message I could find.