For a book that made the Booker shortlist in 2005, Saturday was excruciating to read. Now, I don’t pay a lot of attention to bookers and PEN awards. Maybe I’ll give a Pulitzer or a Nobel a second glance. Maybe. But Saturday literally got drenched in praise. It had praise dripping out of its ears. The New York Times called it one of the most important pieces of post-9/11 fiction. It certainly wants to be, but I think Jonathan Safran Foer got a lot closer.
Maybe my problem is that I’ve never read any of McEwan’s other books, but from my perspective it felt like someone trying to modernize Mrs. Dalloway and throw in some “thoughtful” commentaries on terrorism and the state of the world. Reading it felt to me like the longest Saturday ever. Despite the blurbs, nothing meaningful really happens in this novel. There is more medical jargon than a copy of Gray’s Anatomy and the central, supposedly life changing action, is completely unbelievable. Furthermore, the commentaries on terrorism have almost nothing to do with what’s going on in the character’s lives. Every twenty or so pages another reference pops up apropos of nothing.
Plus, I don’t think I’m a fan of McEwan’s style. It seemed overly descriptive and sentimental to me. Like this passage:
“They are alive for love, but only briefly. The end comes in a sudden fall, so concentrated in its pleasure that it’s excruciating, like nerve end being peeled and stripped clean.”
Gag me with a spoon. All the book critics may disagree, but I give it a 2.
I gave up on that book a third of the way through it. And by gave up on I mean I opened the nearest window and threw the book through it. Then I went outside, picked it up, carried it inside, and threw it back through the open window again, but with real emphasis the second time.
I didn’t like it much.