Originally Posted by
WICKES
(Plot spoiler alert)
Henry Perowne, the central character, is a British neurosurgeon living in London. We follow him through one saturday of his life, set against the backdrop of the imminent invasion of Iraq. He is happily married with two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter is returning home that afternoon, while the son still lives at home. He sets off to buy food to celebrate her homecoming, plays squash with a colleague, has a car accident, returns home. That evening, cooking and chatting with his children and father in law, two of the young men involved in the accident appear in his home with a knife. For a while they bully and terrorize the family, but eventually one flees and the other is thrown down the stairs by the son. Perowne then saves his life in the operating theatre, and the novel ends with Perowne musing on the future, both personal and national, as the day comes to a close.
I'd be very interested to hear the views of others. Personally, I wasn't impressed. The first problem is the main character: a dull, middle aged, middle class, pasty Englishman. Throughout the novel I simply pictured McEwan himself (also a dull, middle aged, middle class, pasty Englishman). Unless they are about to see their life fall apart or are brilliant, witty, life-loving hedonists like Falstaff, happy characters are always less interesting. But Perowne is worse than happy- he is content. Who wants to read a novel about a content, middle aged man? He is as bland as a lump of doe. The family itself is just too happy and successful to be believable- I mean a daughter who is an Oxford-educated, published poet and a son who is a brilliant blues musician about to go on tour! Oh, and a wife who is a hugely successful barrister... why not! Let's make the dog a crufts champion while we're at it.
I could also live without the McEwan/ Perowne middle-class, guilt-ridden love of multi-cultural London. For example, on his ward there is a black teen whose foul-mouthed, violent, aggressive attitude has upset the nurses. But Perowne "admires her spirit"...groan. Why not have him secretly wanting to throw her out the window, or occasionally stealing morphine, or being secretly in love with one of the Fillipino nurses? If you are going to deal with multi-culturalism (a huge issue in contemporary Britain) then you have to give both sides of the argument. This is typical of Perowne's utterly predictable and uninteresting character.
I didn't hate the novel though. The moments of tenderness and love between the family I found touchingly real, in particular Perowne's love for his children: his dutifully following his daughters reading lists, the moment after his son saves his life in which he "has never looked more beautiful" to his father. The final ten pages are also wonderful and worth the whole novel. Perowne can't sleep, he leaves his bed and, standing at the bedroom window, allows his mind to wander, to see the future unfolding. At the very end he becomes, almost, interesting.