As Henry enter's the club to listen to Theo's music he is not not in the mood but he came anyway because it's his responsibility as a parent. When Theo's band begings to play their new song which they saved just for Henry's arrival Henry immediatly begins to analyze it into its components.
He begins by describing the different parts, of the music in a very concrete manner, "The piano and rhythm guitar lay down they're thick jazzy chords,"(174). There are several experiences of the music cannot be describing in the way above, so Henry must use more abtract terms, " He lets it engluf him. There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than theyve ever found before ... when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love"(176).
It seems that in the description of music like this, it is unable to be portrayed effectively without the use of a certain amount of abstract language. The problem with this type of language is that it can be interpreted differently by each reader, or maybe that is its strength? Although the portrayal of music through words can never transfer the entire experience to the reader. This may be as close as one can get.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Individual
The epigraph, a passage from Saul Bellow’s novel Herzog, refers to “the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible.” The individual becomes a mere number in the context of statistics, a blurry face in the context of a crowd. The novel highlighted the importance of remembering the individual, especially in this age of technology and globalization and conflict.
Henry’s profession, while noble and respected, is not very conducive to the perception of people as individuals. Baxter, for instance, while having a large impact on Henry’s life, becomes, in Henry’s eyes, merely a patient, a medical case. In the end, however, Henry is forced to see Baxter as a real person. He visits his bedside after the surgery, realizes that sleep and death are Baxter’s only reprieves and makes the decision to not press charges. Baxter’s life will be hard enough as it is. While one cannot totally excuse him from his actions, so much of his situation can be attributed to chance. The impartiality of genetics gave him the disease that will disintegrate his body and mind. We’ll never be able to tell who Baxter might have become had his genes not displayed 40 copies of a certain DNA sequence, or had his relationship with his father been different.
Art serves as a contrast to Henry’s scientific approach in that it highlights the uniqueness of the individual. Ten doctors will treat a heart attack in pretty much the same way, with the same results, but ten artists asked to portray a certain object will give ten vastly different depictions. In fact, it is art that saves Henry… not Henry’s calculations, or his medical knowledge. It’s Daisy who recites “
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A struggle to the death
Baxter’s behavior parallels that of a suicide bomber. He believes “he has no future and is therefore free of consequence” (217). Thus, he has nothing to lose in harming Henry and his family because of the dark future that awaits him. Baxter reaches a point where he is willing to put his future and his life on the line to pursue Henry, the man who stripped him of the little dignity he possessed. When Baxter attacks Henry’s family, he does so without contemplating the retribution of his actions because he believes that no possible punishment could be worse than the slow, grueling but inevitable death he will face as a result of his debilitating disease.
Henry takes an interest in Baxter not because he feels sympathetic towards Baxter’s situation or because he likes him as an individual but rather because Baxter is a fascinating, difficult case. Henry desires to add Baxter to his collection of medical conquests, viewing him as something and not someone. When Henry completes Baxter’s surgery, he records Baxter’s information in his notebook adding Baxter to his collection of patients and confirming his victory in their mutual struggle for control that began in the streets of London.
After Baxter’ surgery, Henry is restored to his high pedestal where he returns to observing the world through microscopes and scalpels. He no longer feels helpless because the surgery reminded him that he can “exercise authority and shape events” (288). In the outside world, Baxter may have appeared threatening. However, submerged in a medical universe where Henry is “king, he’s vast, accommodating, immune,” Baxter was merely a lost, confused soul who Henry saved in order to reaffirm his power in the one place he can still move mountains.
Henry takes an interest in Baxter not because he feels sympathetic towards Baxter’s situation or because he likes him as an individual but rather because Baxter is a fascinating, difficult case. Henry desires to add Baxter to his collection of medical conquests, viewing him as something and not someone. When Henry completes Baxter’s surgery, he records Baxter’s information in his notebook adding Baxter to his collection of patients and confirming his victory in their mutual struggle for control that began in the streets of London.
After Baxter’ surgery, Henry is restored to his high pedestal where he returns to observing the world through microscopes and scalpels. He no longer feels helpless because the surgery reminded him that he can “exercise authority and shape events” (288). In the outside world, Baxter may have appeared threatening. However, submerged in a medical universe where Henry is “king, he’s vast, accommodating, immune,” Baxter was merely a lost, confused soul who Henry saved in order to reaffirm his power in the one place he can still move mountains.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
From Large Scale to Small Scale
Henry Perowne's day is filled with a constant variation of large things beyond his control to smaller events which greatly affect him. He goes from feeling like the greatest neurosurgeon in all of London to an ant in the great scheme of things when discussing the war in Iraq. His argument with his daughter really hits home Henry's feeling of "if I'm not directly involved, how can I have any affect on the matter". His entire day is dodging the crowded streets of London where protests against the war are taking place. It is as if he is not only dodging the crowd, but the entire struggle with the war.
This all changes though when his encounter with Baxter inherits a visit to Henry's home during a dinner with his family. Baxter's break-in gives Henry a revised outlook on himself and his existence. His courage with Theo to repel Baxter is Henry's first step in his growth, which this book shows, is never over.
Henry, who even when discussing the war with his daughter seems to not even really comprehend that 9/11 and Iraq are serious matters, now has a new understanding on society and life. Perhaps the most moving part of the novel is when he starts to think about his family and realizes that something could happen to them at any time. He thinks of Rosalind's baby that is on the way and the future with a grand child in the picture. This entire scenario pushes Henry past his surgeries and squash matches to a better understanding of the world around him. It is amazing how one event can really make one realize just how important everyone and everything is around him, and that it is the same with those in Iraq.
This all changes though when his encounter with Baxter inherits a visit to Henry's home during a dinner with his family. Baxter's break-in gives Henry a revised outlook on himself and his existence. His courage with Theo to repel Baxter is Henry's first step in his growth, which this book shows, is never over.
Henry, who even when discussing the war with his daughter seems to not even really comprehend that 9/11 and Iraq are serious matters, now has a new understanding on society and life. Perhaps the most moving part of the novel is when he starts to think about his family and realizes that something could happen to them at any time. He thinks of Rosalind's baby that is on the way and the future with a grand child in the picture. This entire scenario pushes Henry past his surgeries and squash matches to a better understanding of the world around him. It is amazing how one event can really make one realize just how important everyone and everything is around him, and that it is the same with those in Iraq.
a day off?
“For certain days, even weeks on end, work can shape every hour (23).” Henry describes how he and his wife Rosalind are so busy with the demands of their respective occupations that they must attempt to schedule the rest of their lives accordingly. However, McEwan shows that it is not only Henry’s schedule, but also his thoughts, that are inextricably linked to his occupation as a neurosurgeon. As McEwan intimately follows Henry’s consciousness throughout his day off, we discover that this is no day off after all. Neurology weaves its way through Henry’s activities as he attempts to understand every person and explain every situation by way of precious, calculated science.
Upon waking up in the wee hours of his Saturday morning, Henry immediately wonders what “chemical accident” could have occurred in his brain causing him to wake (4). Looking from his window at the square below, Henry analyzes the people passing through it, even going so far as to diagnose one girl as a heroin addict after he sees her continually scratching her back, presumably a result of “amphetamine driven formication” (58). During his first encounter with Baxter, he notes the man’s “poor self-control, emotional lability, [and] explosive temper” as early signs of Huntington’s disease, an observation that would have evaded the attention of the average person.
Neurosurgery offers Henry a sense of control that he wishes to extend into other areas of his life. At work, Henry feels at ease because he knows “precisely what he’s doing,” but outside of the hospital, Henry loses this feeling of power and security. Thus, we see Henry constantly analyzing every situation in terms of neurology, perhaps in order to make him feel as though he still has everything under control as he does in the operating room. When Henry finally finds himself back in the hospital despite his scheduled day off, he discovers "he's happier than at any other point on his day off" (266).
Upon waking up in the wee hours of his Saturday morning, Henry immediately wonders what “chemical accident” could have occurred in his brain causing him to wake (4). Looking from his window at the square below, Henry analyzes the people passing through it, even going so far as to diagnose one girl as a heroin addict after he sees her continually scratching her back, presumably a result of “amphetamine driven formication” (58). During his first encounter with Baxter, he notes the man’s “poor self-control, emotional lability, [and] explosive temper” as early signs of Huntington’s disease, an observation that would have evaded the attention of the average person.
Neurosurgery offers Henry a sense of control that he wishes to extend into other areas of his life. At work, Henry feels at ease because he knows “precisely what he’s doing,” but outside of the hospital, Henry loses this feeling of power and security. Thus, we see Henry constantly analyzing every situation in terms of neurology, perhaps in order to make him feel as though he still has everything under control as he does in the operating room. When Henry finally finds himself back in the hospital despite his scheduled day off, he discovers "he's happier than at any other point on his day off" (266).
Sunday, January 27, 2008
"An orthodoxy of attention"
Henry dismisses his daughter’s ways of thinking as “the recourse of an insufficient imagination, a dereliction of duty, a childish evasion of the difficulties and wonders of the real” (66). However, as displayed by the argument he has with Daisy over the
"Everything belongs in the present"
During his visit with his aging mother, Henry’s day is quickly thrown into sharp relief by the relative motionless and stagnate day experienced by Lillian Perowne. His mother’s dementia alters not only her state of mind but her relationship with time, as well. Unlike his mother, Henry constantly deliberates over his past actions and experiences. Whether reflecting on his initial meeting with Rosalind or a family rift between Grammaticus and Daisy, Henry’s thoughts continually wander to the past in order to make a connection with his present.
Lillian’s inability to remember her past life strips her of anything else but the present moment. McEwan presents her as a figure divided into two selfs: the former woman of the past who swam extraordinarily well and raised a son and the old woman sitting at the elderly community like a blank page, desperately waiting for someone to fill in the lines of her life. She remains a nonentity without any memories of her former self and a future offering nothing but a handful of empty moments.
Imprisoned in the present, Lillian offers an understanding to the reader that even though the novel transpires along the course of one Saturday, Henry’s “day” transcends the framework of a limited 24 hours and spills over into his past as well as his ponderings of the future.
Ian McEwan as the Mental Archaeologist
It is surely no mere coincidence that McEwan's protagonist, Henry Perowne, makes his living dissecting, examining, and repairing the human brain. As a neurosurgeon, Perowne, on an almost daily basis, has access to the chemical and physical nuances of the human brain, as he lays bare the object responsible for the functioning of every man's conscious existence. With his novel, Saturday, McEwan performs an almost identical task, offering his readers a glimpse into Henry Perowne's every mental process with his sometimes embarrassingly intimate account of a single day in this man's life.
McEwan acknowledges this comparison, these professional mirror images, with Perowne's recollection of a tour he and his colleagues took of Emperor Nero's abandoned palace during a neurosurgery symposium in Rome. Buried by the rubble of history, the palace is an underground affair, only partially open to the public. McEwan writes,
The palace lay undiscovered for five hundred years under rubble until the early Renaissance...A curator pointed out a jagged hole far above them in an immense domed ceiling. This was where fifteenth-century robbers dug through to steal gold leaf. Later Raphael and Michelangelo had themselves lowered down on ropes; marvelling, they copied the designs and paintings their smoking torches revealed. Their own work was profoundly influenced by these incursions. Through his translator, Signor Veltroni offered an image he thought might appeal to his guests; the artists had drilled through this skull of brick to discover the mind of ancient Rome. (McEwan, 249)
Though in the next paragraph Perowne laments the inaccuracy of the comparison, noting that his efforts expose only the brain and not the mind, McEwan's likening of himself to the Renaissance masters is clear. By writing such a novel, he has exposed the elements of human consciousness. Later, in surgery, Perowne acknowledges the limitations of sciences in understanding "how this well-protected one kilogram or so of cells actually encodes information, how it holds experiences, memories, dreams and intentions." (McEwan, 262) For McEwan, who is less of a neurologist and more of a mental archaeologist, the every detail of a day in this "kilogram of cells" operation becomes the stuff of literature, an examination of the human experience.
McEwan acknowledges this comparison, these professional mirror images, with Perowne's recollection of a tour he and his colleagues took of Emperor Nero's abandoned palace during a neurosurgery symposium in Rome. Buried by the rubble of history, the palace is an underground affair, only partially open to the public. McEwan writes,
The palace lay undiscovered for five hundred years under rubble until the early Renaissance...A curator pointed out a jagged hole far above them in an immense domed ceiling. This was where fifteenth-century robbers dug through to steal gold leaf. Later Raphael and Michelangelo had themselves lowered down on ropes; marvelling, they copied the designs and paintings their smoking torches revealed. Their own work was profoundly influenced by these incursions. Through his translator, Signor Veltroni offered an image he thought might appeal to his guests; the artists had drilled through this skull of brick to discover the mind of ancient Rome. (McEwan, 249)
Though in the next paragraph Perowne laments the inaccuracy of the comparison, noting that his efforts expose only the brain and not the mind, McEwan's likening of himself to the Renaissance masters is clear. By writing such a novel, he has exposed the elements of human consciousness. Later, in surgery, Perowne acknowledges the limitations of sciences in understanding "how this well-protected one kilogram or so of cells actually encodes information, how it holds experiences, memories, dreams and intentions." (McEwan, 262) For McEwan, who is less of a neurologist and more of a mental archaeologist, the every detail of a day in this "kilogram of cells" operation becomes the stuff of literature, an examination of the human experience.
Ian McEwan as the Mental Archaeologist
It is surely no mere coincidence that McEwan's protagonist, Henry Perowne, makes his living dissecting, examining, and repairing the human brain. As a neurosurgeon, Perowne, on an almost daily basis, has access to the chemical and physical nuances of the human brain, as he lays bare the object responsible for the functioning of every man's conscious existence. With his novel, Saturday, McEwan performs an almost identical task, offering his readers a glimpse into Henry Perowne's every mental process with his sometimes embarrassingly intimate account of a single day in this man's life.McEwan acknowledges this comparison, these professional mirror images, with Perowne's recollection of a tour he and his colleagues took of Emperor Nero's abandoned palace during a neurosurgery symposium in Rome. Buried by the rubble of history, the palace is an underground affair, only partially open to the public. McEwan writes,
The palace lay undiscovered for five hundred years under rubble until the early Renaissance...A curator pointed out a jagged hole far above them in an immense domed ceiling. This was where fifteenth-century robbers dug through to steal gold leaf. Later Raphael and Michelangelo had themselves lowered down on ropes; marvelling, they copied the designs and paintings their smoking torches revealed. Their own work was profoundly influenced by these incursions. Through his translator, Signor Veltroni offered an image he thought might appeal to his guests; the artists had drilled through this skull of brick to discover the mind of ancient Rome. (McEwan, 249)
Though in the next paragraph Perowne laments the inaccuracy of the comparison, noting that his efforts expose only the brain and not the mind, McEwan's likening of himself to the Renaissance masters is clear. By writing such a novel, he has exposed the elements of human consciousness. Later, in surgery, Perowne acknowledges the limitations of sciences in understanding "how this well-protected one kilogram or so of cells actually encodes information, how it holds experiences, memories, dreams and intentions." (McEwan, 262) For McEwan, who is less of a neurologist and more of a mental archaeologist, the every detail of a day in this "kilogram of cells" operation becomes the stuff of literature, an examination of the human experience.
“There’s grandeur in this view of life”
The fact that Henry is unshakably certain that laboratory science will provide a “satisfactory account” of the secret of consciousness and his unwavering faith that such a “journey will be complete” reflects not only his character, but also his steadfast conviction in human advancement (263). Perowne’s resolute trust in the secular world and his rigid adherence to structure, and analytic, almost aloof mindset in his calculation of the world he perceives further supports that this particular view of life is the “only kind of faith” he is capable of fostering (263). Also, the fact that Henry is unable to “feel” what Baxter felt during Daisy’s recitation of Dover Beach also supports the claim that he is not necessarily devoid of emotion, but not able to be compelled by the simple beauty of words; the inability of Henry to understand or even feel the meaning behind the poem illustrates his own personal vantage point concerning life.
Paradoxically, during the operation, when Henry places his finger on Baxter’s cortex, Henry reveals his humanity, which is further illustrated in his “dream of the healing touch” (263). Furthermore, when Henry takes Baxter’s pulse, despite the fact that it is visible on the monitor, the “primal contact” further depicts the seemingly contradictory components of his character (271).
The view that all issues will be resolved, that the human race is perpetually moving forward, and the certainty that all secrets will be revealed constitutes Perowne’s “grandeur is this view of life.” Despite the apparent clash in his detached perception of the world around him and occasional bouts of humanity, almost compassion, Henry’s actions ultimately mirror this absolutist view of life.
Paradoxically, during the operation, when Henry places his finger on Baxter’s cortex, Henry reveals his humanity, which is further illustrated in his “dream of the healing touch” (263). Furthermore, when Henry takes Baxter’s pulse, despite the fact that it is visible on the monitor, the “primal contact” further depicts the seemingly contradictory components of his character (271).
The view that all issues will be resolved, that the human race is perpetually moving forward, and the certainty that all secrets will be revealed constitutes Perowne’s “grandeur is this view of life.” Despite the apparent clash in his detached perception of the world around him and occasional bouts of humanity, almost compassion, Henry’s actions ultimately mirror this absolutist view of life.
Friday, January 25, 2008
McEwan Responds
Two articles in which Ian McEwan responds to the terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 and answers questions about Saturday's relationship to terrorism, war, and modern life in the city.
The second is an interview he gave a few weeks after the attacks:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,365767,00.html
The first is an article he wrote in The Guardian the day after the attacks:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1524058,00.html
The second is an interview he gave a few weeks after the attacks:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,365767,00.html
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Simple Meals
Henry arrives home after Theo’s performance ready to cook his immaculate stew. He is alone, and it seems that the world’s interruptions to his routine life will cease for these few hours as he cooks. However, he finds himself drawn again to the news, and he flips on the television instead of putting on some music. McEwan then follows with a hauntingly realistic depiction of Perowne’s cooking escapade.
For Henry, “With the idea of the news, inseparable from it, at least at weekends, is the lustrous prospect of a glass of red wine” (180). He associates aspects of everyday life with events that potentially affect the globe. As the news continues, scenes of the massive war protest are followed by his selection of vegetable ingredients for the stew. Sound bites of the Prime Minister speaking of Saddam give way to scrubbing mussels in the sink. Troops on the Iraqi border are shown by their tanks awaiting the invasion order, and Perowne begins to make a salad. It is as if the news is as much a part of his diet as the food he is preparing.
The world that has troubled his mind throughout the day, caused his initial run in with Baxter, and will eventually lead to a fight with his daughter, is willfully brought into his life again with the push of a button. The scene reveals just how deep global events penetrate into the daily activities of the individual. Watching troops prepare for war has become as commonplace as chopping onions for dinner. For better or worse, the world has been brought to the living room, and McEwan closely intertwines Perowne’s life with events happening around the globe.
The World from His Window
From the way he sleeps naked to the way he interacts with the world around him, Henry Perowne lives according a deluded sense of grander. It is not that his life is any more or less trivial than that of everyone else. Rather, his life fails to have any meaning because he fails to properly look for it. He cannot appreciate his own or other’s situation because he is too caught up with personas instead of people.
Henry is easily critical of others as he looks into the square below his window. Instead of seeing a distraught girl and a compassionate boy in an intensely emotional interplay, he sees addicts bickering over “a missed score” (58). Judgmentally Henry proclaims, “People often drift into the square to act out their dramas…Passions need room, the attentive spaciousness of a theater” (58-59). But people are far more complex than actors on a stage. Henry is incapable of seeing the humanity in others because of the apathetic role he plays in his own life, much of which takes place the poignantly named surgical “theater”.
Henry values the fact that he is a proud father and an accomplished surgeon. Yet, his last meaningful connection with his son was when he taught Theo his first three notes; and with his daughter, he acts more like a child and she like the parent. Meanwhile at work, his outlook is that “there has to be more to life than merely saving lives” (28). To him, his children are trophies to be had and his patients are bodies on which to be operated.
Henry is easily critical of others as he looks into the square below his window. Instead of seeing a distraught girl and a compassionate boy in an intensely emotional interplay, he sees addicts bickering over “a missed score” (58). Judgmentally Henry proclaims, “People often drift into the square to act out their dramas…Passions need room, the attentive spaciousness of a theater” (58-59). But people are far more complex than actors on a stage. Henry is incapable of seeing the humanity in others because of the apathetic role he plays in his own life, much of which takes place the poignantly named surgical “theater”.
Henry values the fact that he is a proud father and an accomplished surgeon. Yet, his last meaningful connection with his son was when he taught Theo his first three notes; and with his daughter, he acts more like a child and she like the parent. Meanwhile at work, his outlook is that “there has to be more to life than merely saving lives” (28). To him, his children are trophies to be had and his patients are bodies on which to be operated.
Ebbs and Flows
McEwan takes painstaking efforts to illustrate his theme of a constantly expanding and contracting consciousness. Henry Perowne experiences radiating waves of awareness, sometimes living purely in the moment, sometimes contemplating the difficulties of national politics and the impending war. Through the use of careful motifs, McEwan causes Perowne to radiate between his personal life and the overall complexities of society.
Firstly, McEwan uses the protest against the war to consistently bring Perowne’s mind back to the imminent struggle. While on his way to play squash, Perowne’s path is obstructed by the antiwar march. Consequently, he recalls his interactions with Miri Taleb and his distaste for Saddam’s tyranny. Suddenly, Perowne gets into an altercation with Baxter and his cronies and for that instant, Perowne’s entire awareness is in the moment. Upon fleeing from his encounter with Baxter, he continues his journey to the athletic club, once again being reminded of the war by the protestors. Finally, he plays his match with Jay where, “every point is now a drama, a playlet of sudden reversals, and all the seriousness and fury of the game is resumed.”(115) Clearly, all that existed for Perowne was that moment.
Also, Perowne’s relationship with Baxter undergoes many ebbs and flows. Starting with the encounter in the alley and ending with Perowne delicately holding Baxter’s hand, this relationship between two seemingly unrelated characters has an extreme influence on the outcome of Saturday, both directly and indirectly. McEwan, sometimes far too obviously, uses characters and events to create a flux within the main character, Henry Perowne.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Refusal to Adapt
McEwan begins the second section of Saturday with a quote from Darwin’s The Origin of Species: “There is a grandeur in this view of life…” The rest of Darwin’s quote continues: “…with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are begin evolved.” Darwin describes a world in which the new built upon the things that came before it; a world that began as one thing and continues to grow and change, incorporate and adapt. This idea is echoed in he world that Henry Perowne inhabits in Saturday.
Physically, we see that the buildings around him have been converted from one thing into something else. He parks his car in the “mews” which were once stables to house horses and have been converted into garages for residents to park their cars. The club where he plays squash “is in Huntley Street in a converted nurses’ home…”, “Cleveland street used to be known for garment sweatshops and prostitutes[, n]ow it has Greek, Turkish and Italian restaurants…” and so on (76). The London that Perowne inhabits has evolved and adapted from the London of 10, 50, 100, and 1000 years ago and everything is still in motion, still changing.
Perowne acknowledges that these changes in geography have taken place, and yet he seems reluctant to admit any changes in his own day or his life in the present world. Following his encounter with Baxter, Perowne is shaken up, and yet he stubbornly refuses to admit to himself the potential and continuing danger the encounter poses to him. When he fancies he sees the red BMW behind him in traffic, he feels almost nothing. Then he sees the car again and muses that “he’d like to see Baxter again, in office hours, and hear more and give him some useful contacts” (149). Henry doesn’t feel anger or fear at the prospect of Baxter’s reappearance, and takes lackadaisical stance on the whole business, a position he also takes towards the growing threat of Terror from Islamic extremists. For Henry, “the world has not fundamentally change… There are always crises, and Islamic terrorism will settle into place, alongside recent wards, climate change, the politics of international trade…” (76). Henry is of the view that his world has not changed and that the threat of Terror will recede, that he will not have to adapt his world to accommodate the change. McEwan constantly places both of the things that Henry refuses to acknowledge the severity of in the background of his day. The news of the peace rally and the Russian plane follow him from home to the fitness club to the nursing home, and Baxter’s car keeps popping up nearby Chances are, by the end of the day, Perowne will have to face both of these things and make the necessary changes, for in a world where only the fittest survive, those who fail to adapt will die.
Physically, we see that the buildings around him have been converted from one thing into something else. He parks his car in the “mews” which were once stables to house horses and have been converted into garages for residents to park their cars. The club where he plays squash “is in Huntley Street in a converted nurses’ home…”, “Cleveland street used to be known for garment sweatshops and prostitutes[, n]ow it has Greek, Turkish and Italian restaurants…” and so on (76). The London that Perowne inhabits has evolved and adapted from the London of 10, 50, 100, and 1000 years ago and everything is still in motion, still changing.
Perowne acknowledges that these changes in geography have taken place, and yet he seems reluctant to admit any changes in his own day or his life in the present world. Following his encounter with Baxter, Perowne is shaken up, and yet he stubbornly refuses to admit to himself the potential and continuing danger the encounter poses to him. When he fancies he sees the red BMW behind him in traffic, he feels almost nothing. Then he sees the car again and muses that “he’d like to see Baxter again, in office hours, and hear more and give him some useful contacts” (149). Henry doesn’t feel anger or fear at the prospect of Baxter’s reappearance, and takes lackadaisical stance on the whole business, a position he also takes towards the growing threat of Terror from Islamic extremists. For Henry, “the world has not fundamentally change… There are always crises, and Islamic terrorism will settle into place, alongside recent wards, climate change, the politics of international trade…” (76). Henry is of the view that his world has not changed and that the threat of Terror will recede, that he will not have to adapt his world to accommodate the change. McEwan constantly places both of the things that Henry refuses to acknowledge the severity of in the background of his day. The news of the peace rally and the Russian plane follow him from home to the fitness club to the nursing home, and Baxter’s car keeps popping up nearby Chances are, by the end of the day, Perowne will have to face both of these things and make the necessary changes, for in a world where only the fittest survive, those who fail to adapt will die.
Selective Mercies
In the third section of Ian McEwan's Saturday, Henry visits a fish market in Marylebone to select the ingredients for the dinner he is planning to prepare for his family that evening. As he surveys the creatures--both dead and alive--on sale before him, he contemplates the reasons why he is comfortable ordering lobster in a restaurant, but not purchasing a live one to prepare himself at home. He concludes these reflections with the following:
"The trick, as always, the key to human success and domination, is to be selective in your mercies. For all the discerning talk, it's the close at hand, the visible that exerts the overpowering force. And what you don't see...That's why in gentle Marylebone the world seems so entirely at peace." (128)
As a neurosurgeon, what Henry Perowne sees is very different from what many other people might. A quick visual assessment of a person he sees even from a distance can present him with enough information for a diagnosis of what is amiss deep within that person's brain (or even his or her genetic code). Although Henry can see Baxter's suffering--past, present, and future--he is unable to recognize much of the man in front of him. He recognizes enough of Baxter's humanity to diagnose him and know to use that information against him, but not enough to sympathize with the pride he has insulted and the desperation he has aggravated.
Henry's mercy is selective, as is his vision. He has mercy on Baxter as a neurological problem, but not as a person. By almost any worldly standard, Henry Perowne is a successful man--a well-regarded professional with a good career, a beautiful home, and a loving family. His life is a happy one, but happy in part because he is selective in his mercies--he allows himself to be affected only by what he sees, and sees only what he wants to.
"The trick, as always, the key to human success and domination, is to be selective in your mercies. For all the discerning talk, it's the close at hand, the visible that exerts the overpowering force. And what you don't see...That's why in gentle Marylebone the world seems so entirely at peace." (128)
As a neurosurgeon, what Henry Perowne sees is very different from what many other people might. A quick visual assessment of a person he sees even from a distance can present him with enough information for a diagnosis of what is amiss deep within that person's brain (or even his or her genetic code). Although Henry can see Baxter's suffering--past, present, and future--he is unable to recognize much of the man in front of him. He recognizes enough of Baxter's humanity to diagnose him and know to use that information against him, but not enough to sympathize with the pride he has insulted and the desperation he has aggravated.
Henry's mercy is selective, as is his vision. He has mercy on Baxter as a neurological problem, but not as a person. By almost any worldly standard, Henry Perowne is a successful man--a well-regarded professional with a good career, a beautiful home, and a loving family. His life is a happy one, but happy in part because he is selective in his mercies--he allows himself to be affected only by what he sees, and sees only what he wants to.
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