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  • Saturday

  • By: Ian McEwan
  • Narrated by: James Wilby
  • Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (162 ratings)
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Saturday cover art

Saturday

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: James Wilby
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Summary

Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease.

What troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the world - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city and his happy family life are under threat.

Later, Perowne makes his way to his weekly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him.

Towards the end of a day rich in incident and filled with Perowne's celebrations of life's pleasures, his family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appearance of Baxter, Perowne's earlier fears seem about to be realised.

©2005 Ian McEwan (P)2014 (p) AudioGo Ltd. Published by Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about Saturday

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Update

Any additional comments?

Rather than slate this book and it's story, let me tell you where I am with it, and you can make your own mind up.

So I am four hours into the book. The story is set in London, depicting a Saturday as experienced by a successful neurosurgeon, Henry. So far, in four hours, Henry has woken up from his bed in a weird dream like state, good downstairs for a drink of milk and had a chat with his teenage son, who also can't sleep. He was also staring out the window when he saw an aeroplane on fire heading for the runway. He wasn't seen anything on the news as yet.

He's made love to his wife. He is excited about his daughter coming to visit from Paris where she now lives. She likes literature and forces him to read more.

He left the house to go to work where he has just crashed his BMW into another motorist who was driving a BMW series 5...

...and thats it. I've decided not to listen to any more because the fact I am four hours into this book and so little has happened is enough for me to give up.

So there you have it. Love or hate this review; I have given you the facts. Ian Mckewan spent two years shadowing Mr kitchen, a brain surgeon (who operated on my mother in law's tumour) in London in order for him to be able to write this book. It was because of this that I wanted to give it a go.

Decide for yourself what you wish to do!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A formidable exercise in stream of consciousness

Excellent narration, slightly cliched with the voices of the crooks, but well suited to the protagonist and narrator. The story is a formidable exercise in stream of consciousness, and will thrill any reader of Joyce who enjoys contemporary literature

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A good book

Ian McEwan always delivers a good story, this is definitely a good story. The narrator is easy to listen to. Not always the case I find.
Enjoyed it very much.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Flawless narration by James Wilby

A masterclass in narration as near perfect as I have heard. Fantastic novel brilliant examination of the minute details of a day.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Half a Weekend

Life and death all in a day. I will be reading more by this author. Thanks Ian I was transported.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Superb writing

Read this last year. Just listened to this faithful reading. It is equally good . Great thriller .

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

Brilliant written and thought provoking with back drop of Iraqi war. An amazing insight into the work of a neurologist.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Nauseatingly smug

This has to be McEwan's most insufferably bourgeois, self-satisfied and flatulently over-researched novel yet. He writes with the sheltered, detached, ignorance of someone who has never experienced life outside the wealthy parts of Oxford and London. His depiction of the working class caricatures of Baxter, Nige etc is outrageously snobbish and cliched as he looks down on them - "ape like features...but quite intelligent" How unbelievably patronising is that?

Perhaps the worst part of the book is the fact that it is overstuffed with endless details of neurology and neurosurgery, the only purpose of which is for McEwan to be able to show off how much he has 'researched' the subject. But this just bogs the narrative down in an absurd minutiae of facts which makes it read more like a wikipedia article than a novel. This is not literature; it's pure self-indulgent nerdiness. And as for the interminable squash game - boy oh boy! Page after page of excruciatingly dull description of two self-satisfied men slugging it out on a court. What conceivable purpose does this serve? I thought it would never end. The plot itself takes several truly preposterous turns (which I shall not spoil here - suffice it to say that they stretch credulity to breaking point).

I enjoyed 'Atonement' and 'The Child in Time', but this is truly dreadful.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Goes nowhere but a thoroughly enjoyable listen

As with much of the other reviews, I will note that this book doesn’t have much of a plot and doesn’t really go anywhere. It follows a man’s day from start to finish, expanding on various aspects of his day with anecdotes and thoughts back into the past. It is a pleasurable listen whilst doing something such as cleaning as it doesn’t require too much concentration. That said, the detail with which particular elements of the story are described is good. Overall a very decent listen and glad I decided to give it a go after being hesitant initially

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

A truly intimate experience. Fascinating and addictive storytelling made all the better for being heard rather than read.

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