The only Ian McEwan novel I’d read before picking up Saturday was Atonement, which is included in The Guardian’s list of the top 100 novels of all time. While Atonement started out slowly, I ended up loving the story, so I figured I might as well give McEwan another read. Unfortunately, Saturday started out slowly and became progressively more boring as it went on. It was a relatively short novel that took me more than a month to read because it was so dull and uninteresting.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Neurosurgeon Henry Perowne is standing at his bedroom window early on a Saturday morning when he witnesses an airplane burst into flames as it approaches London’s Heathrow airport. That’s the beginning of what will prove to be anything but a typical day for Perowne.
Perowne eagerly awaits news reports of the plane crash, as he fears it might be due to terrorists — especially since there’s a big anti-war rally scheduled for later in the day. After hearing that it was just a cargo plane, Perowne begins going about the rest of his day: squash with someone from the office, shopping at the fish market, dinner with his family.
A couple of shocking events disrupt the day, and cause Perowne to examine his life and values a bit more closely when all is said and done.
My Reaction: I can’t believe how excruciatingly dull this book was! I have read plenty of novels where most of the “action” consists of following the main character’s train of thought, and have been able to enjoy several of those. I don’t need constant shoot ‘em up action in books the way I do in films. But the interior monologues only work when the protagonist is interesting, which, Henry Perowne most certainly is not. I never got a feel for the guy, never grew to care about him or his experiences, and therefore never got into the book.
In addition, I thought McEwan made a grave miscalculation by deciding to go into such minute details about the squash match or dinner preparations. That squash match in particular seemed to drag on forever, and was driving me crazy with how utterly boring it was. It’s unfortunate that I was too stubborn to skip through those passages entirely, but I was banking on McEwan’s great reputation and figured he would give the reader a big payoff. He didn’t.
Overall, Saturday ranks as one of the worst books I’ve ever read. There was nothing pleasing about this experience at all, and I wish I’d never picked this title up. I mean, it’s Walden-level boring, which is as bad as it gets for me! There are probably a few philosophical points that I completely missed, but whatever. If those themes didn’t grab me while I was reading the novel, then they’ll certainly mean nothing to me now. Skip this snoozefest!!