Science Writing

I've just finished Ian McEwan's Saturday, and I'll admit it has me puzzled. What's the point of it?

It's an apposite question, as one of the novel's themes is the main character's lack of interest in novels and poetry. Our hero Henry Perowne, successful neurosurgeon, has never had much time for that sort of thing, and wonders guiltily if he's missing much. He's wading through some classics - Anna Karenina, that kind of thing - which his daughter has prescribed for him in an attempt to smooth over what they both agree is his lack of culture.

What's going on behind the scientist-catching-up-on-art storyline seems to be novelist-catching-up-on-science. McEwan is clearly well read in this area. He knows his Dawkins and his Dennett, his Oliver Sacks and his Antonio Damasio. He's recently spoken at an event marking the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of The Selfish Gene, and had a piece in the Guardian on the tradition of literary science writing. He's also clearly spent quite some time doing research for this book, lurking around neurosurgery units, and is perhaps a bit too keen to let us know it, describing in detail the ins and outs, as it were, of probing the cortex. And then there's the little observations that Perowne makes, about the mysteries of the brain, about how extraordinary it is that a slip of the knife here, a faulty gene there, can change personalities, change lives.

So, a novel of ideas. Nothing wrong with the ideas, as you'd expect from McEwan: it was the novel bit that I had problems with. The whole business with the thug Baxter, the sudden violent intrusion that threatens to blow apart Perowne's day: the first time it's Perowne's scientific expertise that rescues him, when he realises that Baxter has a rare genetic condition (yeah, right); the second time, in their house, it's the daughter who saves the day by quoting Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" (don't try this at home, next time you have an intruder with a knife). It's nicely symmetrical - first the science, then the art - but it does, to put it mildly, lack a certain verisimilitude. Then there's the final scene with Perowne operating on the wretched Baxter after the man had cracked his skull falling down their stairs. Aren't there rules against this sort of thing? But of course, as always, Perowne is superb.

And that's my problem, really, in a nutshell. Bloody Perowne. He's too nice, too good a man. I can see it could've been awkward after McEwan spent so long researching the neurology stuff (there's an acknowledgement to Neil Kitchen, consultant neurosurgeon at the National Hospital in Queen Square, at the end of the book: "It was a privilege to watch this gifted neurosurgeon at work...") if he'd inserted a few little quirks to make Perowne more interesting. Neil, I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear that you were offended about that scene in my book where the neurosurgeon crept downstairs in the night to bugger the family dog. Of course this was in no way intended as a slur on you. How was I to know that you also have a black labrador? And please assure Bob that I have nothing but total admiration for the way he assisted you in the theatre, and the anaesthetist with the smudged mascara and breath smelling of whisky was in no way intended as a portrayal of him... So, if not Perowne himself (though I have to say I prefer my neurosurgeons - in novels if not in life - to be seriously flawed) then what about the family? They're perfect! He and his wife are still deeply in love, and aren't shy of declaring their passion. They make love twice in the one day (in their late forties for God's sake, at an age when decent people are settling down to a life of crosswords and su doku) and though we don't get anything too explicit we can be sure it's pretty damn good all round. They live in a Georgian house in Fitzroy Square, and go on holidays to the French chateau in Ariege where bibulous father-in-law lives with his succession of mistresses. The daughter is a prize-winning poet who, when we first meet her, tells her dear old Dad that she loves him while he feels the sting of tears in his eyes, and the son....the son is a blues player. A successful, very good, taught-by-Jack-Bruce-played-with-Eric-Clapton blues player. I don't know why this in particular gets to me, but really, a blues player, for Chrissakes. What's going on here? After all the research on neurosurgery, could he not be bothered with any more digging around, to find out what young people listen to nowadays? Try and come up with something slightly more feasible? Jazz, perhaps? Trance? Techno? I don't know. It's true that it usually looks forced when an older author name-drops what he considers to be hip bands (that's my one problem with the otherwise near-perfect Elmore Leonard), and maybe McEwan figured, hey, I'll stick with what I know, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, but it certainly seemed odd to me. And not only that, the kid eats healthy food, loves his Dad, is personable, doesn't smell, or vomit, or ingest illegal substances, or invite unsuitable friends home, or resent his parents' success, or any of the other kinds of thing a normal son might do. All in all, then, it's a fantasy portrait of the ideal professional couple with their two engagingly bohemian children living a life of perfect fulfillment. And when crisis comes in the ugly shape of genetically-challenged Baxter, they don't suddenly find their inner weaknesses. Their world doesn't collapse around them. No, they sail through in triumph, coping nobly in the face of adversity.

I don't know.....I like a novel about people's faults, about why we're all fuck-ups in the end, about the fatal flaw - whatever it is - that makes us human. Novels don't have to be that way, of course, but the best ones usually are. Perowne, in one of his musings, thinks about how the media are always on about how bad things are when really we've never - to coin a phrase - had it so good. Perhaps in that spirit McEwan felt that he didn't want a hero with flaws, because there are - really there are - some very fine people out there, so why not write a novel about one. And besides, he clearly admires scientists like Perowne, like the neurosurgeon Neil Kitchen he followed around, and wanted to present, as it were, that side of the argument, without compromising it with details of personal failings. Maybe he wanted to get away from the old Romantic image of the scientist as Frankenstein. But in that case, what's the point? If it doesn't confront human dilemmas, human foibles, why make a novel of it? Why not just write a book about science.....about neurosurgery or whatever? Sadly, though it may be bad science, a novel needs a bit of something extra, like a Frankenstein....or a black labrador.

Comments

[nullo]

"Anna Karenina, that kind of thing"? your mistake is to think that books like Anna Karenina belong to a kind, and then you find yourself wondering about Saturday (a pleasent read, by the way). Leave McEwan to himself, and go back to Tolstoj, I say.

[DaninVan]

"a pleasent read, by the way", says 'nullo'.
Kind of sums up what our host was saying about 'Saturday'. By the sound of it, too pleasant by half. Thanks for the heads up, M.H. :)

[Backword Dave]

"It's nicely symmetrical - first the science, then the art..." I didn't spot that, but you're right. That's what he's going for.

I thought it was a very poor novel (and a remarkable drop in quality by McEwan) for much the same reasons. I borrowed my copy from the library, so I can't check, but I think McEwan describes Perowne as "like a god" twice, which was nauseating the first time. In the final scene, IIRC, Perowne is also drunk. He may feel sober, but the champagne he's had would make him unfit to drive, let alone perform brain surgery.

As for the blues-playing son, oh please. Are there well adjusted blues players? The squash game was rubbish as well.

The only bits I liked were with the grandfather, who was a bit of a sod, but at least he seemed real. I have worried that my disappointment was coloured by my attitutude toward the war. It's nice to find someone pro Iraq who didn't like it either.

[Esbonio]

I was very kee to read this book after all the positive comments I read/heard in the media. I was disappointed.