I’ve only read a handful of McEwan’s previous books. Amsterdam won the Booker a few years back, and I’ve never quite understood why, since it has no really likeable characters. Enduring Love and Atonement are far superior – pleasurable books.
So along comes Saturday, which had vast swathes of press devoted it to it back at the start of the year when it was published. It’s set against a backdrop of the Stop the War protests of 15 February 2003.
We follow the day through the eyes of Henry Perowne, a neuro-surgeon, and his family. Things go wrong when he has a car accident with the “wrong sort of person” in the morning. And you just know that things are going to catch up with him later in the day.
I found the first half of the book a little slow, with extended sequences describing a game of squash for example, but it’s undoubtedly exquisitely written, and things certainly do hot up later in the day. The fact that it’s set against the protests is reasonably relevant to the plot, but far from essential, and I suppose the backdrop might have been better used. It seems unlikely to me that anybody would have attempted to drive around central London that day.
A very worthwhile McEwan, but not quite as good as his best, and I say that as someone who’s very aware that he’s not read the earlier works.