"Saturday" on a Friday

Hello readers. Your favorite (or not so favorite) book blogger is back. And so soon after my last entry. Why am I back? Well, because I've read another book and I liked it. The book in question is Ian McEwan's Saturday. I started reading the book this past Saturday, and unlike the events in the book itself that take place all in one Saturday, I didn't finish reading it until today (Wednesday). And as you can see by my last sentence that I wrote two days ago, I actually started this post on Wednesday and just polished it up and added a few more sentences today, Friday. Again, I could not complete an activity in one day. An entire book takes place in one day and I can't even read the book or write about it in one day. What a sorry excuse for a reader and a blogger I am... Anyway, I have found that my calling is not writing about books. My mind is too scattered for such an activity, but I am going to try to continue to order my mind by writing about books on a semi-regular basis. Maybe I'll get better. We'll see...

The central character in the book is Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon and a man that has very high hopes for his Saturday. He plans on having a pleasant day, starting with a squash (I think it was squash, but I would have to look it up to find out for sure, but I don't think it really matters as it could be tennis or badminton and it wouldn't make a difference) game with one of his colleagues and ending with a dinner with his family, very much looking forward to a reunion with his daughter who he hasn't seen in months. What he doesn't suspect is that a minor car accident and the interaction that he has with the other cars' driver will have have negative consequences that will make his evening far from pleasant.

Perowne is a very methodical man, much in tune with his life of routine. He loves the intricacies and precision of surgery. He likes to know where he's going. He certainly doesn't suspect that this incident, however disturbing it was at the time, will come back to haunt him. I know John Lennon has a lyric in one of his songs about life happening when you're busy making other plans (I'm not going to even bother looking up the quote right now--I think you can catch the drift). I will, however quote from the book: "All he feels now is fear. He's weak and ignorant, scared of the way consequences of an action leap away from your control and breed new events, new consequences, until you're led to a place you never dreamed of and would never choose...(McEwan, 2005)" This pretty much sums up the central theme in the book--that you're never really in control, even when you think you are--that one small decision or action could possibly change the entire course of your life.

The only other Ian McEwan book I have read is Atonement. Despite the movie version advertising the love story as the main element (yes, Hollywood tends to do that, doesn't it?), I think it is more about one young girl's action, one fabricated story that she decides to tell, having a lasting negative impact on all the lives involved, including her own. This is an idea that the author seems to love to explore. Who knows--maybe all stories are about this, in some way or another. I don't know. I'm just a humble blogger rambling on inexpertly about the books I am reading.

I have found, in the course of reading these two books, that I am a big fan of Ian McEwan's writing. I really like his quiet, introspective, poetic style. In fact, I have become such a big fan that I checked out two more of his books from the library yesterday. I don't know if I'll blog about them, or not. Two days ago, I also started a Texas sized book (and no, it doesn't take place in Texas, but in India. I'm just making a size comparison. duh.)called A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. This book has 1474 pages and I am now on page 14. Only 1460 pages to go! I may or may not blog about this one in 2011, but not 2012 as the world is set to end then.

Cormac McCarthy's, The Road

Hello gentle readers or thin air, I have finished another book. "Wow," you say (well, thin air would probably just breathe it) "it's only been 4 months since your last entry and you've finished another whole book--I'm so impressed." Yeah yeah yeah, I know--I get it. I have read other books since then (although not many), but I just haven't felt compelled to write about them. This one was different...

First I must out myself as a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction. I know it's bleak. I know it's full of desperation. I know we still see humans screwing each other over, despite it being in their best interest to band together. Yes, there is darkness, but in that darkness, there are sparks of light and it is that light, that small smidgen of hope when hope is seemingly absent that piques (is that the correct word?) my interest. Second, I must say that I made sure that I posted a photo of the book that had the "winner of the Pulitzer Prize" label rather than "Oprah's book club" label. My loathing of "Oprah's Book Club" labels sullying the covers of books everywhere may have had something to do with that, but I also thought it was good idea to illustrate that this book won quite a prestigious award.

In this book, we see father and son traveling the bleak, barren road together. The apocalypse is never fully explained, but it has destroyed most of humanity and all of nature. The father and son are in it together--they only have each other. They are very aware of the thin thread that holds them together--that something could come along and sever it at any moment. The father has very little hope to offer to his son and his honesty is sometimes brutal, but his love for him and his desire to protect him is very real. In addition to searching for food, they are, in a sense, moving just for the sake of moving. The father knows that there is more than likely nothing better out there, but one must strive forward. Who knows, maybe there is something good out there. More than likely not, but life is about movement. We can sleep when we're dead, right?

Unfortunately, it seems that the handful of other survivors they encounter on the road are not very nice people. In fact, they just might eat you (probably even your brains), so father and son must steer clear of them. It makes it difficult to trust anyone. At one point in the book when the boy wants to help an old, starving man, the father does not want anything to do with him. He eventually relents and gives him some of their food, but treats the man with suspicion, bordering on contempt. He has his son to protect and they must survive at all costs, even if it means not acting in particularly charitable manner to someone that may or may not want to eat them.

Although the man knows that his boys' willingness to see good in other people and give them the benefit of the doubt, could be their undoing, he admires the innocence and purity of his thinking and does want to protect that to a certain degree. I wish I had the book here with me, so I could find a quote or two to illustrate my points. He also tells the boy stories and tries to explain things that don't exist anymore. For instance, there is talk of birds, at one point. The boy has never seen a bird, so in his mind, they are only as real as his father explains them. I feel a sense of urgency in this--that if the father does not pass along some of these memories, these entities will cease to exist. But does it matter anymore? Sure it does...I think.