Metroland (Picador Books): Amazon.co.uk: Julian Barnes: Books

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Baumgartner's Bombay

by Anita Desai

4.0 out of 5 stars (2) �5.99

Cosmopolis

by Don DeLillo

3.2 out of 5 stars (9) �5.99

Saturday

by Ian McEwan

3.0 out of 5 stars (165) �5.99

Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

3.2 out of 5 stars (115) �4.88

Lights Out for the Territory

by Iain Sinclair

4.3 out of 5 stars (6) �6.99

› Explore similar items

Product Description

Review
"Barnes writes like a dream." --Village Voice Literary Supplement

Product Description
The adolescent Christopher and his soulmate Toni had sneered at the stifling ennui of Metroland, their cosy patch of suburbia on the Metropolitan line. They had longed for life to begin - meaning sex and freedom - to travel and choose their own clothes. Then Chris, at thirty, starts to settle comfortably into bourgeois contentment himself. Luckily, Toni is still around to challenge such backsliding.

See all Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

julian barnes(2)

cookery(1)

1984(1)

dystopia(1)

ideas(1)

utopia(1)

leyla sanai(1)

jealousy(1)

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars passage of time, 15 Jul 2002

By	A. Peel (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Metroland is a very intimate and enchanting novel written in the first person. The reader is drawn into Chris, the narrator's, world at the very outset and from that point on, we are taken on a journey through life, time and age.
We start out in the mind of a 16 year old boy, feeling all his hopes and ideals alongside him, sharing his philosophies and questions with his closest friends in a haven of teenage, mutual, intellectual exchange.
Then comes Paris, May '68. Chris has matured. We sense that he has begun to live, and has become increasingly uncertain of how the realities of life fit in with his childhood ideals.
As the work draw slowly to a close the narrator is experiencing "real" life to the full; the marriage, the mortgage and the child, and yet the need to question seems to have been appeased. We now sense his readiness to live life day by day, without too much forward-thinking. With age, he no longer really asks why things happen, he merely accepts.
The ageing process we feel in the novel is fascinating, in particular when we consider the relationship between the two childhood "best friends", Chris and Toni. As children they seem to parralel so closely, with similar beliefs and concerns, yet as time passes their priorities and goals move in conflicting directions. Chris adapted his ideals to reality. Toni, on the other hand, tried to live by his childhood ideals as an adult, torturing himself in the process in the hopes of being true to his past self and his broken dreams.
Some of us mature and develop and some are children forever ....who is happier?

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life and love in the suburbs, 4 Dec 2000

By	aroper99@yahoo.co.uk (London) - See all my reviews

For the adolescent Christopher, born of a middle class family in the middle class rural suburbs of the estate agents' and adman's conceptualised Metroland - defined after the First World War as the path travelled by the old Metropolitan railway line out from Baker Street to Watford, Chesham and Amersham - life is about big issues. He and his friend Toni are obsessed with the "purity of language, perfectibility of self, function of art" and Love, Truth and Authenticity. Always capitalised, and often according to the wisdom of such literary luminaries as Rimbaud and Flaubert.

Christopher's transition into adulthood is undertaken in a different Metroland - Paris in 1968. Whilst the student riots rage not far away, Christopher is too busy finding out about the realities of love, truth and authenticity to become involved. Such realities ultimately lead him back to his own childhood metroland again. But now he sees it and life through different eyes.

Barnes paints a rich picture in the reader's imagination, and his use of language is poetic, descriptive and colloquial in turn. To enjoy this, you first have to overcome a sneaking suspicion that you are not quite clever enough to read it. This was compounded (on my part anyway) by having only a smattering knowledge of French and a complete ignorance of most of the authors, playwrights, philosophers and artists dropped into the narrative like so many starlets at a Hello! party.

However, once you've determined not to let this deter you, the novel blossoms into a funny and realistic recollection of the ideals, presumptions and pretensions of one's teenage years, and the recognition that in the end life is often rather more straightforward and mundane than you thought it would be.

Having become engrossed in the novel, I personally found the ending a bit of an anticlimax, but arguably this could be one of the messages of the novel itself. It is not as sophisticated as 'England, England', the only other Barnes novel that I've read, but confirms his importance to modern British writing. Not bad for a first novel either!

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

10 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars True, True, However, And True, 25 Nov 2002

By	taking a rest - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

True, the coming of age story has been written ad nauseum. It is also true that the coming of age angle in the 1960's will also cause a reader to contemplate the moment just prior to the aspiration of food particles. However, it is also true that this version of this oft-told tale is the first offered to readers by Mr. Julian Barnes. And finally, it is, or should be true, that whether or not an Author is the first, or one thousand and first to pen his or her version of a familiar tale, it should be judged on its merits, not graded upon its location in time relative to other familiar themes.

That's as far as I can go in defense of this particular work. I have read 5 novels by the Author, and this I enjoyed the least. However, Julian Barnes writes with such a qualitative consistency superior to most novelists, that his weaker work can be still be valid when placed in relation to other novels he has written.

The two young men we follow were just a bit too clever in their own estimation to be enjoyable. Their faith in change, which we expect to fail, rings true in the narrowest of confines, between only themselves. Their antics when younger quickly dissolve as time and their proximity to each other changes.
One of the young men has an encounter on a train with a more elderly gentleman, one who by definition of their teenage beliefs is deserving of only scorn. And while there is no epiphany at the moment of exchange, his faith and all he believes it to be predicated upon are proved to be false, and further, are proven to be in terminal health, he just isn't prepared to accept defeat.

The stars and my comments may be contradictory. The only defense I offer is that when this man writes, he is very good, and even this work has moments that are exceptional.

Not his best, but better than most that has gone before.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

Listmania!

Awesome books you must own: A list by Mr. T. WELTON
Something For Everyone: A list by "emmvics"
Books to live by: A list by "lotika"

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > B > Barnes, Julian
Books > Fiction > By Period

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.

Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

From soap to shavers, massagers to mascara, stock up on your daily essentials or truly pamper yourself.

›Discover Health & Beauty

More From Julian Barnes

Nothing to be Frightened of

`a rapt meditation on death, which mixes essay and memoir to elegant... Read more
£8.99 £6.29

Boys Smell

Lynx Africa Body Spray and After Shave Gift set

But we make sure they smell good...

›Discover male grooming at Amazon.co.uk

Treat Someone

With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

	74% buy the item featured on this page: Metroland (Picador Books) 4.0 out of 5 stars (3)
	9% buy Lights Out for the Territory 4.3 out of 5 stars (6) �6.99
	6% buy England, England 4.0 out of 5 stars (1) �5.99
	6% buy Baumgartner's Bombay 4.0 out of 5 stars (2) �5.99


Amazon Home

International Sites: United States \| Germany \| France \| Japan \| Canada \| China

Business Programs: Sell on Amazon \| Fulfilment by Amazon \| Join Associates \| Join Advantage

Customer Service \| Help \| View Basket \| Your Account

About Amazon.co.uk \| Careers at Amazon

Metroland (Picador Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product details

Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Customer Reviews

Customer Discussions

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Listmania!

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

More From Julian Barnes

Boys Smell

Treat Someone

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History