Saturday

Just finished reading the Kindle version of Ian McEwan's Book "Saturday"  Vintage 2006 for the second time. One of the delights of Kindle versions is that you can annotate the material as you go along which lessens the number of times you spend looking for a passage half remembered which has taken on significance for whatever reason. The book was recommended by my tutor as one that offered a number of ideas around the theme for assignment 5.

One strong impression left with me was the possibility that the book is a recollected dream. There is a definite denial of this in the narrative but how do we distinguish between our waking experiences and our dream world whilst we are in the dream world. Simple denial is not enough because dreams can be only too real and close to our conscious world. Why do I think that it matters? Apart from trying to distinguish the two states one of which would be considered 'real' (the quote marks indicate my scepticism about what is and what is not real) and one a false world of events. We are probably safe in assuming that the dream world is more open to interpretation as a better reflection of the person than the carefully constructed world when we are awake. Yet to be decided but I may pursue this line of thought in the assignment.

If what is recorded is a dream we can draw the reasonable conclusion that the events in the dream have meaning to the dreamer. In the case of 'Saturday' the main character is a neurosurgeon called Perowne who is at the top of the tree in his profession. The main events in the narrative are an incident in which he is assaulted by a man called Baxter; a squash game with a colleague and Baxter's invasion of Perowne's house seeking revenge all of which occur on the Saturday of the title. It could be argued that these three events reveal much about Perowne - his retreat deeper into his own world when that world is attacked; his underlying aggression revealed in the squash game that is normally not evident and the ambivalence and repressed feelings towards his family (his wife is held captive by a knife wielding Baxter and his daughter is forced to strip under the threat of the death of her mother. Freudians would have  a field day with this scenario which is so reminiscent of the early stages of sexual development as described by Freud). If it were a dream then Baxter, a violent and aggressive person, could be seen as Perowne's alter-ego; a part of him that he keeps repressed. By passing the unacceptable parts of his nature to 'an other' he can retain his self image that is so much part of his persona.

Just because I would like it to be a recollection of a dream this does not make it so. It can be read as a straightforward narrative of a day in the life of Perowne. I think that from an analytical point of view this makes it less interesting but wishing does not make something real. Or does it??