Perspective and Plausibility in Ian McEwan's Saturday

I wasn’t sure if was going to like this book. Having read it, I’m still not sure if I do. Reading as a writer, what are some of the things I learned from Saturday?

I saw Ian McEwan being interviewed by Charlie Rose some years ago and the book piqued my interest at that time. The events of Saturday take place over a single day—an old motif in novel writing, one which structures such famous works as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s a readable, bounded, novel that you could probably accomplish in a Saturday, or a least a long weekend.

Digging in, what I found interesting was the narrator perspective McEwan chose: a third person point of view very tightly related throughout to the main character, neurosurgeon Henry Perowne. The perspective is so closely Perowne’s that I wondered what was gained by writing in third person rather than first. (Or what would have been lost, had he chosen first person?) Saturday makes it obvious, if you have any doubts about this, that you can employ a third person point of view narrator and achieve total intimacy with your character(s).

Speaking of characters, I found the characterization of Perowne’s wife unconvincing. In particular, the couple’s love life did not feel real to me and seemed more like, (to hazard a guess), a male fantasy of marital sex life, complete with bravado.

I also stumbled hard over a key moment in the plot. The break-in at Perowne’s home seemed out of place to me and an unnecessary, melodramatic, conclusion to the day. The character of Baxter, a thug with Huntington’s disease, likewise appeared staged and implausible. Was McEwan trying to forcibly relate absolutely everything in the book to neuroscience?

Although there were several brilliant moments when I felt the prose shine into me, Saturday seemed like an easy write. Perhaps this is testament to McEwan’s mastery of the form. Or perhaps he took the easier way out here. You can decide for yourself.