Saturday turns to a Sunday

Or, brain surgey with Bob Hoskins.

Wow, it’s another three week gap no blog. So much planned to do over the seasonal break, but little of that accomplished, other than reading of course.

Read the whole of Ian McEwan’s “Saturday“, pretty much during that one day following the sunrise on Saddam’s execution. Spookier though is the plot of fifty year old parents with two young adult children, so much to identify with even before we get to the blues guitar and the fascination with complex poetic consequences of ethical decisions beyond logical cause and effect. (I wonder if my Tom knew the plot when he bought it as a Christmas present ?) A book of its time set in London in 2003 after 9/11 and before 7/7 on the (satur)day of the London peace march against going to war in Iraq. Impressive in its scope of issues addressed; “ambitious” is the critic’s preferred term I believe. I won’t spoil with further plot detail, from the grandeur of Darwinian minds to (perhaps over researched ?) fascinating insider detail on neuro-surgery via all society’s issues of our “changed times”, save perhaps global warming. An excellent read too, kicking off in the style of his “Enduring Love“, with the breakneck pace and surreality of involvement in a freak accident.

On Friday; it took from the small hours of Friday morning UK time to the afternoon of Saturday US Central time for us to return, what’s that almost forty hours ? and another six for our baggage to materialise; did I mention the outward leg – changing terminals at Heathrow ? Soon air travel will be recognised for the torture it literally is. Anyway, Friday I finished Alex McCall-Smith’s “The Sunday Philosophy Club” at the third sitting over two days. McCall-Smith’s Edinburgh altogether gentler and more parochial alongside McEwan’s London. Despite the fact that the heroine Dalhousie is editor of “The Review of Applied Ethics” and the references to moral philosophers more explicit, in fact there is much less of it to deal with in McCall-Smith’s who-dunnit of misunderstood motives.

If Saturday reads like a blockbuster screenplay (I see Bob Hoskins co-starring), Sunday is more a book at bedtime script (I hear Barbara Flynn’s voice). Both very good, cleverly done with excellent results. Both recommended.