Ian McEwan’s novel represents Saturday February 15th 2003 as it is experienced by Henry Perowne, 48-year old consultant neurosurgeon at a central London hospital. The day begins with his waking strangely early and observing in the sky an aeroplane on fire as it crosses London. He thinks of the recent attack on New York’s World Trade Centre and an impending catastrophe, but the television news tells him nothing, and he takes an early breakfast with his son Theo, a young blues player of promise who has returned from a gig. A little later this mysterious plane will be explained as a Russian cargo-plane on fire, and a little later again as possibly an attempt at a terrorist atrocity that was aborted through mechanical failure.

This article in full comprises 1488 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 12 April 2005

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Saturday". The Literary Encyclopedia. 12 April 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16704, accessed 9 February 2010.]