Saturday, March 03, 2007

Saturday Blahs

Not the day but the book. Anyone else have a hard time slogging through Ian McEwan's Saturday? It's much shorter than Atonement - which I loved - but, like some real-life days, it seems to last 'way more than 24 hours. I've been trying to get though this little volume for almost 3 weeks. Granted, I've been dead-tired by the time I reach my bed at night, so I'd need a real page-turner to keep me from reading a few lines then settling into sleep. And this ain't it.

McEwan and Saturday do have interesting bits every now and then. Like this one:

"Without looking, he finds the button that secures the car. The door locks are activated in rapid sequence, little resonating clunks, four semiquavers that lull him further. An ancient evolutionary dilemma, the need to sleep, the fear of being eaten. Resolved at last, by central locking."

Never thought of automatic car locks as solving any ancient dilemma. Hm. Still, not enough to keep me awake. Ho-hum.

1 comment:

Liz Hinds said...

It is a struggle, Maryb. We read it for our reading group. or rather we were supposed to read it but so few of us succeeded that reading group has been all but abandoned.

I did enjoy it in the end but it took a long time and lots of threats to give up on it if it didn't grip me soon. But I hate to give up on a book.

I enjoyed Atonement but felt a bit cheated at the end. A bit like Margaret Forster's Diary of an Ordinary Woman.