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Saturday

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Saturday

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: James Wilby
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About this listen

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 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction War Short Story
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McEwan is a master of perception and articulation of other people’s inner thoughts and emotions.

This microcosm of a book takes place on one day and examines the inner life of Henry Perone, Neurosurgeon, whose life is in some ways immutable but in others subtly effected by circumstances on one particular day.

Henry’s inner life is compelling, exacting, intellectual and wracked with the anxiety’s that grip us all. This novel takes us on a tour of this thoughts on a fateful Saturday, in an early 2000s world wrestling with the anxiety of a turbulent decade to come.

On the way you will meet his family who give you an insight into the artists mind to be compared to Henry’s more logical one.

Perspicacious and precise, McKewan is a gifted writer who can put his finger exactly on the edge of consciousness that we all wrestle with, however knowingly. His knowledge of the medical profession is convincing and clearly well researched.

One final note is that the narration is excellent, it has the surging urgent quality that suits the text extremely well. This is certainly a 5 star audiobook.

Stellar

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Interesting to me because I’ve worked in the medical field and also lived in the very area it’s set in.
I thought the reading was absolutely brilliant. He did the most amazing job of all the different characters and his reading is what held me into the story. Remarkable talent

Saturday

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Ian Mcewan's intricately detailed novel really comes to life with this reading. I enjoyed reading 'Saturday' but having listened to it on audible, I have found a greater enjoyment! By the end of it, you really feel as though you know Henry like a friend.

James Wilby is a great choice for this novel

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A vurtuous King. Modern day motality tale. Atheists would adore this book. Brain is a receiver of logos but not according to this.

Virtuous

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Meticulous writing, as you'd expect from McEwan. The musings of the main character are uninteresting, so it wasn't possible to feel vested in the events of the day, nor in any of the characters. The periodic political detours were ponderous, stale, and akin to reading an adequate high school essay. The drama, when it finally comes, quickly resolves, before the final muted, pedestrian musings that mercifully bring Saturday to an end, having never cohered thematically or dramatically.
Unlike numerous other McEwan books, this isn't memorable, it leaves no mark.

Ponderous musings

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