Saturday

by Ian McEwan | Other |
ISBN: 0224072994 Global Overview for this book
Registered by puppymummy of Melbourne CBD, Victoria Australia on 9/19/2005
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8 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by puppymummy from Melbourne CBD, Victoria Australia on Monday, September 19, 2005
Bought for the Booker longlist bookrings, to be read soon!

List of participants as follows:

Viola7
xoddam
star-light
Fleebo
woosang
goodthinkingmax
Alectoness
Melanie2474

Journal Entry 2 by puppymummy from Melbourne CBD, Victoria Australia on Sunday, October 30, 2005
Overall I am very disappointed in this one. It started off excruciatingly slowly, and I'm just not interested in reading poetic descriptions of pigeon excrement gleaming in the moonlight. There were sections of the book that really grabbed me, but the book is set entirely in one day and not enough happens to make it interesting the whole way through. I found the sections where he filled in with lots of details and lots of musing very self-indulgent and perhaps a bit pretentious. Lovers of literature for the sake of the well-written word may love it, but it's simply not to my taste. I also didn't appreciate the musings on the Iraq war - didn't agree with him, and it also meant it was outdated even though the book has only just been published.
Will be posted to viola7 when I have confirmed her address.

Journal Entry 3 by puppymummy at on Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Released 18 yrs ago (11/1/2005 UTC) at

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to viola7 as part of the bookring.

Journal Entry 4 by Viola7 from Brisbane, Queensland Australia on Tuesday, November 8, 2005
This looks interesting too and very contemporary. However, I may be the only person in the world who holds this opinion but I thought that Atonement was vastly over-rated and that the legal case at its centre had too many flaws to be really believable. Hopefully I will like this better although I see that Puppymummy didn't like it much which doesn't bode well!

Journal Entry 5 by Viola7 from Brisbane, Queensland Australia on Friday, November 25, 2005
As far as I'm concerned Ian McEwan's writing is vastly over-rated. This is very stream-of-consciousness and deadly boring. There's too little time in life to spend it reading books that I don't like!

The inscription by Saul Bellow turned me off this a bit too. I saw what he meant but didn't really agree with his bleak view of America.

Journal Entry 6 by xoddam from Springwood, New South Wales Australia on Monday, December 5, 2005
Got the parcel on Thursday, thanks Viola7. I'm right up close to the top of the list and this is right at the bottom of my priorities for reading -- so if anyone wants to read it *now*, just PM me (and puppymummy so she can rearrange the list) and I'll be happy to forward it.

Journal Entry 7 by xoddam from Springwood, New South Wales Australia on Sunday, January 8, 2006
Well I'm very pleased to say that I like this book more than the previous readers did, and I'm even glad I didn't read my list in 'priority' order (I bumped this up as I had three books to forward to the same person). I haven't read any other Ian McEwan but I will henceforth stop avoiding him :-)

This is the finest example of 'stream-of-consciousness' writing I've seen. The protagonist wakes early in the morning and the novel consists of everything that crosses his mind until he finally drifts off to sleep some thirty hours later. It helps that this character is sympathetic and has a very orderly mind :-)

The day in question is Saturday the 15th of February, 2003. It's a day that many people will remember well, because of the mass anti-war rallies which took place around the globe on that day. The protagonist does not attend, because his feelings on the invasion and those who oppose it are ambivalent, but the rally and its causes are never far from his consciousness. I marched in Glasgow outside the conference of the Labour Party, where Blair bunked off early instead of giving his speech at his allotted time with 120,000 protestors chanting just outside the window. I chatted with the police and with the British Association of Muslims (at the time my employers were Scots of Pakistani extraction) and with a strange gent carrying a placard calling upon the Queen to take the reins of government and prevent the war; I found it rather hard to convince him that the Royal Family are arms dealers (because technically they aren't, their investments are mostly in real estate and agriculture, but look who turns up at missile bazaars flogging the best of British).

The book is self-indulgent, but in a way which made perfect sense to me; I didn't find it detracted at all from the writing. I loved Perowne's London, I loved his neurosurgery, I loved his arguments for progress (smug? maybe, but correct) and against the idea that because some things are getting worse the world as a whole is going downhill. I don't think its precise location in time and space is in any sense a liability for the book as literature; one may as well say Les Miserables is 'outdated' for the half-century or so of French history it covers in detail.

Thanks puppymummy and viola7.

Journal Entry 8 by xoddam from Springwood, New South Wales Australia on Monday, January 9, 2006
sent to star-light in Melbourne along with two other Booker Longlist books. Of those I've seen, these three were among the easier books to read, so don't be appalled by the weight of them all!

Journal Entry 9 by star-light from Melbourne CBD, Victoria Australia on Thursday, January 12, 2006
Received today in what must be the largest parcel I have ever received. :) Thanks xoddam for posting and also for the other goodies that came with the books. It may be some time before I get to this but I will do my best.

Journal Entry 10 by star-light from Melbourne CBD, Victoria Australia on Tuesday, March 14, 2006
I am also happy to report that I enjoyed this book. There was a slow build-up of tension that kept me interested as Perowne went about his business. I thought it was interesting to follow Perowne around for a day and get an insight into his thoughts while he went about the minutiae of his life - playng squash, visiting his mother, cooking, spending time with his family, performing neurosurgery. The parts about neurosurgery both fascinated and disturbed me. It was described in such detail but there are some things that I would rather not know. I'm a squeamish reader!

Fleebo was next but she's swamped with books right now and has asked to be skipped, so this will go to woosang later today.

Journal Entry 11 by woosang from Campbelltown, New South Wales Australia on Tuesday, March 28, 2006
I did receive this book earlier in the month, but had forgotten to journal it. Sorry. Will get to it soon have two in front.

Journal Entry 12 by woosang from Campbelltown, New South Wales Australia on Friday, April 7, 2006

Book 46

Saturday

I really enjoyed this novel. I know others in the bookring didn't, but I really liked it. I enjoyed the stream of conscienciousness way of telling the story, and I found it easy to follow. It reminded me of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner but with one character, not three. The one day concept was also good, as not everything could be tidied up in one day, so we don't expect a neat ending. Also probably it relates to how we deal with life one day at a time. I felt the book could have been shorter, there were times when the character rambled on a bit, but perhaps it was deliberate, to represent how people have private monologues in their heads.
I found him to be a delighful person, I would love to know someone like that, that way he treats his mother, still with love and respect even tho he hates what has happened to her. The way he fights to protect his loved ones, and the acceptance of his children. He was human and manly at the end too. (Can't say too much can I ??)

Far superior to The Sea 9/10

Posting on Payday, to Goodthinkingmax

Journal Entry 13 by goodthinkingmax from Sydney CBD, New South Wales Australia on Monday, April 10, 2006
I'm looking forward to reading this one. A number of non-Bookcrossing reader friends have mentioned it to me and said they thought I might enjoy it. Thanks for sending it on woosang.

Journal Entry 14 by goodthinkingmax from Sydney CBD, New South Wales Australia on Tuesday, April 18, 2006
I quite enjoyed reading this book, from the first description of waking on page one. Perhaps my frame of mind contributed to the enjoyment, as I read it on a day on which I had nothing urgent to do or attend, so I just sat back and enjoyed the words, the progression of thoughts and observations. I was completely happy to lose myself in a paragraph describing the observations of even inane objects and events and to ponder Henry's perceptions of the world on the day of the international peace marches in 2003. I found the writing remarkable, beautifully tackling each moment, each thought and with such clarity for the reader. I can't say I appreciated Henry as much as woosang did but I enjoyed his thought processes and definitely his neurosurgery!

Fleebo is ready for this one now so I will pass it on soon.

Journal Entry 15 by Fleebo on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Received from goodthinkingmax. Thanks very much!

Journal Entry 16 by Fleebo on Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Hindsight is a wonderful gift, isn't it? It can make your characters seem very worldly regarding impending war if you're writing of a past time.
What a relief, to have finally finished this book. I could muster no interest in the main character who was a) a brain surgeon and b) unable to see the point of literature. Bleh on both counts. What a bore. The other characters were much better, except for the flatness of Rosalind. Perhaps the book was really about science (doctor and lawyer) vs. art (musician and poet) in today's uncertainty. Art, and peace-mongering, won hands down IMO. (And perhaps I'm just being impolite about a book I didn't like at all. I still think that this was a far better book than the Booker winner, it's just that I am not feeling at all generous after a slow, slow read.)
Alectoness has already read this book, so I am contacting Melanie2474 next.

Journal Entry 17 by Melanie2474 from Narrabundah, Australian Capital Territory Australia on Sunday, July 16, 2006
Starting this today in the hope of turning it around within the week, provided it passes the 100-page test :) On the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Edited 18/7/06: Just couldn't get into this; I think I'm distracted by too many other things to really concentrate on it and it has therefore failed the 100-page test.

Edited 19/7/06: Puppymummy has decided she doesn't want this back so I will hang on to it for now and either have another crack at it when I'm not so distracted or pass it along to someone at a Canberra meet up. Thanks puppymummy :)

Journal Entry 18 by xoddam from Springwood, New South Wales Australia on Thursday, October 26, 2006
I'm hijacking this journal to let people (the ones who liked it, anyway) know that it's quoted on the second page of George Monbiot's HEAT: How to Stop the Planet Burning. He was struck by this passage:
When this civilisation falls ... The old folk crouching by their peat fires will tell their disbelieving grandchildren of standing naked mid-winter under jet streams of hot clean water, of lozenges of scented soaps and of viscous amber and vermilion liquids they rubbed into their hair ... and of thick white towels as big as togas, waiting on warming racks.
Monbiot goes on to ask: "Was I really campaigning for an end to all that?"

Just plugging my bookring!

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