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Ian McEwan\u2019s Saturday <\/em> is from one angle a novelization of Arnold\u2019s \u201cDover Beach,\u201d which also figures prominently (if improbably) into the plot. The book begins with neurosurgeon Henry Perowne looking out a window early on a February morning on a world where ignorant armies clash by night, and ends with him kissing his wife Rosalind\u2019s neck and declaring \u201cThere\u2019s always this, is one of his remaining thoughts. And then: there\u2019s only this.\u201d Come, let us be true to one another. <\/p>\n McEwan always writes beautifully, and often with remarkable insight. One of the most arresting passages in this novel occurs as Henry bathes in the sound of his son Theo\u2019s blues band during a rehearsal: \u201cThere are these rare moments when musicians together tough something sweeter than they\u2019ve ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself. Out in the real world there exist detailed plans, visionary projects for peaceable realms, all conflicts resolved, happiness for everyone, for ever \u2013 mirages for which people are prepared to die and kill. Christ\u2019s kingdom on earth, the workers\u2019 paradise, the ideal Islamic state. But only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and its\u2019 tantalisingly conjured, before fading away with the last notes.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ian McEwan\u2019s Saturday is from one angle a novelization of Arnold\u2019s \u201cDover Beach,\u201d which also figures prominently (if improbably) into the plot. The book begins with neurosurgeon Henry Perowne looking out a window early on a February morning on a world where ignorant armies clash by night, and ends with him kissing his wife Rosalind\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\n