Saturday Literary Elements

Contemporary, thriller, psychological novel

London, England, on February 15, 2003 (the date of the protest against the invasion of Iraq)

Third-person limited point of view following Henry Perowne, a middle-aged neurosurgeon

Philosophical, contemplative, anxious

Protagonist: Henry Perowne, a 48-year-old neurosurgeon who must deal with unpleasant encounters on his day off while interacting with his family. Antagonist: Baxter, a belligerent young man with Huntington's disease who threatens Perowne's family.

The novel follows a day in the life of Henry Perowne as he goes about his normal activities. There is an anti-war protest going on near his home, but Henry's major conflict is with Baxter, the driver of the other car involved in the collision. They part with hostility, leading to terrible events later.

Baxter, obviously mentally deteriorating, breaks into Henry's home and threatens his family. He punches Grammaticus in the nose and holds Rosalind at gunpoint while forcing Daisy to strip naked. Eventually Daisy's poetry recitation gives him euphoria, and Henry fools him with fake medical studies while he and Theo push him down the stairs, knocking him unconscious.

The conflict between Henry and Baxter as a result of their car collision and Baxter's unreasoning hostility foreshadow Baxter's breaking into Perowne's home and his threats to his family.

“As though in a pretence of normality, the landing lights are flashing. But the engine note gives it all away.” (Ch. 1)

This novel is filled with allusions. Henry references classical pieces such as the "Goldberg" Variations by Bach, as well as various pianists such as Angela Hewitt, Martha Argerich, and Glenn Gould. Daisy mentions poets like Shakespeare and Matthew Arnold, and Theo is mentioned in the context of blues musicians like Alexis Korner, John Mayall, and Eric Clapton. Henry also references physics illustrations such as Schrödinger's Cat.

The narrator/protagonist, Henry Perowne, is a neurosurgeon, so there is much imagery pertaining to neuroscience throughout the novel, both in the operating room and outside it. He sees people as products of the chemical processes in their brains, especially Baxter, who suffers from Huntington's disease, a neurological disorder that causes deterioration in the brain. Different parts of the brain are described in great detail, making the imagery of neuroscience the predominant one in the novel.

Baxter is attempting to keep the façade of his life up to impress others, but he is slowly losing his battle to Huntington's Disease. His fate is inevitable; no matter what he does to keep his life together, his genes have already written his doom.

At the beginning of the novel, Henry gets out of bed and looks out his window in the early morning, musing upon what he sees. The novel ends with a parallel scene in which Henry stands and looks out the same bedroom window, pondering what he sees, before climbing back into bed, bringing the novel full circle.

“A little syncopated stab on the turnaround, the sudden chop of an augmented chord, a note held against the tide of harmony, a judiciously flattened fifth, a seventh bent in sensuous microtones.” (Ch. 1)

“... ghostly swarms of purple and iridescent green are migrating across his view of a boundless steppe, then rolling in on themselves to become bolts of cloth, swathes of swagged velvet, drawing back like theatre curtains on new scenes, new thoughts.” (Ch. 1)