He is looking for someone or something that no one will discuss, that he has only inferred, for the unnamed person of thing whose advent or presence has been troubling the company all day.

Then a hand as massive and hard as an elk’s horn, lashed by tough sinews to an arm like the limb of an oak, grabs the boy by the shoulder and drags him back to the wings.

“You know better, young man,” says the giant, well over eight feet tall, to whom the massive hand belongs.

So, I finished reading Ian McEwan’s Saturday about two weeks ago, but I haven’t had time to get down my reflections on it. Like his last book, Atonement, this is a very quiet, but very good book. Ordinary people with ordinary lives, who sometimes find themselves spinning slowly out of control. Saturday is an explicitly post-9/11 book, and it was more than a little eerie to being reading the opening scenes, in which the main character rises from bed in the middle of the night, walks over to the window and sees a flaming airplane heading toward Heathrow–particularly because my reading corresponded with the London bombings.

For the most part, the text is an exploration of how we live our everyday lives in the post-9/11 era. It’s about our assumptions and fears. And, it’s about our ambivalence concerning US interventions in Iraq. These larger geopolitical concerns float around the periphery of Henry Perowne’s not so typical Saturday in February 2003. For me, there is always a haunting possibility that the next time I turn on the radio or the TV or the computer and see something tragic and intentional. The feeling of subtle vulnerability is pervasive. And, so it is for Perowne.

Perowne is a neuro-surgeon who is making his way through the day. He is anticipating a dinner marking the arrival from France of his daughter and his father-in-law, both of whom are poets. His involvement in a minor traffic accident early in the day–caused in part by his efforts to circumnavigate an enormous anti-war protest–provides an infusion of drama for the story. By the evening hours, this brief altercation has put his entire family in a great deal of danger.

Such a normal day, but really not….

I don’t usually read much that ends up on the bestseller lists, but my friend Terry (more about Terry soon) was reading the Kite Runner the last time I saw her. And, I had the book on my shelf from one of those “buy two off the table get one free” at B&N, so I slid it into the list after Gilead.

First, let me say that I really enjoyed the book. In the midst of trying to work on an article and manage a bunch of projects at work, I made my way through it in about a week and a half, which is far quicker than most of my leisure reading these days.

The story begins with Amir and his buddy Hassan in Afganistan in the 1970s when they are young boys. These are complex characters who are flawed in very human ways. Their time together includes one major tragic event that spawns a series of others. The tale winds it way to America in the 1980s and then back to Afganistan in the summer before September 11. In lots of ways, it’s a strange text, with a string of predictable coincidences and tie-ups. But, this is not a story with a happy ending and the process of character redemption is definitely two steps up and one step back. And, that, made it worth reading.

Next up: Ian McEwan’s Saturday.

If you’re looking for something to read, you might want to consider Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Gilead. It’s a wonderful little book about an Iowa minister who, since he is close to the end of his life, is writing a letter to his young son. In the course of the letter, John Ames wanders off on a number of interesting theological paths — from Feuerbach to Barth. The imagery is wonderful–particularly as he is discussing baptism and eucharist, but also when he recalls the exploits of his abolitionist-grandfather.

A little book, but definitely one worth spending some time with….