Saturday.

By Ian McEwan.

Doubleday. 289 pp. $26.

Saturday begins with its main character, Henry Perowne, getting out of bed because he's unable to sleep and going to stand by an open window. It is a chilly night, a Friday night, a few hours before dawn. Henry sees a plane heading toward Heathrow. Suddenly, the plane bursts into flames. Henry's attention is riveted on the descending aircraft. Almost two and a half years after the attacks on 9/11 gripped the public consciousness, this brilliant middle-aged neurosurgeon fears another upending of reality. But what has really happened is that public consciousness has finally caught up with Ian McEwan's vision of life. ...