Ian McEwan talks about his novel Saturday and the confrontation at the heart of it between his protagonist, nice upper middleclass neurosurgeon Henry Perowne and the villain of the piece, Baxter, which is symbolic of some greater confrontation:
IMcE: Let’s put it this way: I am not writing an allegory here. I am not making Henry stand for something. But, nevertheless, just a little or maybe a lot below the surface in his confrontation with Baxter is an echo of the confrontation of the rich, satisfied, contented West with a demented strand of a major world religion.
As you know Bob, the plot of Saturday takes place on Saturday, 15 Februari 2003, the day two million people marched through London against the War on Iraq, but which none of the characters in the book joined, even the vaguely antiwar ones, because they all had something better to do. The march only features as the catalyst that brings Henry and Baxter together in their not quite symbolic, symbolic confrontation and in several minor encounters which are only there do drive McEwan’s point home that going on an antiwar march is a deeply unserious thing to do. That McEwan indeed intended the confrontation between villain and protagonist to be symbolic — “an echo” — of the War on Terror (as viewed bya a middleaged bedwetting upper middle class writer fearful of the loss of his priviledges) is no more than the rank icing on a rotten cake. Christ, what an asshole.