![]() ![]() All this takes place against the backdrop of the buildup to the Iraq war in 2003. Literature winds up playing a surprisingly important role in that crisis, but so does the work that brings Perowne, a confirmed atheist and lover of the material world, so much satisfaction. ![]() He uses his expertise to escape a confrontation, but the incident hangs over the rest of his day - playing squash, visiting his elderly mother, listening to his son play in a blues band, whipping up a seafood stew - and results in a terrifying intrusion into his contented life. On his way to a squash game, and anticipating a family dinner party that will bring Daisy back home after a few months abroad, Perowne gets into a fender bender with a petty hoodlum in whom he recognizes the early signs of a degenerative nerve disease. And where "Atonement's" narrator Briony Tallis is a published author, Perowne not only doesn't write books, he can barely bring himself to read them, though he tries for the sake of his daughter Daisy, a poet about to publish her first volume of verse. ![]() Instead of a twisty, self-devouring meditation on lies, guilt and literature, "Saturday" is a smooth, seamless creation depicting one day in the life of Henry Perowne, neurosurgeon, Londoner and happy man. "Saturday" is about as different from his 2001 bestseller, "Atonement," as you can imagine. With his 12th novel, "Saturday," Ian McEwan has reached a position that most writers dream of and few ever attain: His books are both automatic bestsellers and critically revered. ![]()
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