'I don't believe in God, but I miss Him.' Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers. When Angela Carter reviewed Barnes' first novel, "Metroland", she praised the mature way he wrote about death. Now, nearly thirty years later, he returns to the subject in a wise , funny and constantly surprising book, which defies category and classification - except as Barnesian.
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Review
'...witty, poignant and allusive, deals with the problems of memory and bristles with asides on poetry, penguins and religion...' -- Scotland on Saturday
'A book length essay which Barnes fans will adore' -- The Sunday Herald
'It is entertaining, intriguing, absorbing ... elegance that makes a sombre subject irresistible reading.' -- The Financial Times
`It is not, Barnes tells us, an autobiography. It is rather an essay in the best sense: speculative and precise, intimate and metaphysical, capacious and democratic in the variety of voices, alive and dead, that are invited to counsel the author as he edges his way towards the void' -- Times Literary Supplement
`intensely serious book of striking elegance: a clever, complicated reverie on last things' -- Sunday Telegraph
`Barnes dissects with tremendous verve and insight this awesome inevitability of death and its impact on the human psyche.' -- New Statesman
`The best pages... are those in which he evokes his parents' -- Independent
`The grim reaper slinks through every page of Julian Barnes's compelling memoir-cum-meditation...he is consistently interesting and entertaining' -- Daily Mail
`an elegant, ludic meditation on death' -- Daily Telegraph
`intricate and elegantly structured beneath its anecdotal surface' -- The Times
'A book length essay which Barnes fans will adore' -- The Sunday Herald
'It is entertaining, intriguing, absorbing ... elegance that makes a sombre subject irresistible reading.' -- The Financial Times
`It is not, Barnes tells us, an autobiography. It is rather an essay in the best sense: speculative and precise, intimate and metaphysical, capacious and democratic in the variety of voices, alive and dead, that are invited to counsel the author as he edges his way towards the void' -- Times Literary Supplement
`intensely serious book of striking elegance: a clever, complicated reverie on last things' -- Sunday Telegraph
`Barnes dissects with tremendous verve and insight this awesome inevitability of death and its impact on the human psyche.' -- New Statesman
`The best pages... are those in which he evokes his parents' -- Independent
`The grim reaper slinks through every page of Julian Barnes's compelling memoir-cum-meditation...he is consistently interesting and entertaining' -- Daily Mail
`an elegant, ludic meditation on death' -- Daily Telegraph
`intricate and elegantly structured beneath its anecdotal surface' -- The Times
Review
"This is the most enjoyable of all Barnes's books."
--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Julian Barnes is a great author and an interesting thinker, and his subject here is perhaps the biggest of all subjects - mortality: specifically, the deaths of one's parents, one's own decline and fall, the meaning of life. Important news, then, and from an important source. I very much looked forward to watching his perspective form, and perhaps finding comfort and wisdom, or even just a few laughs, in his elegant prose.
Unfortunately the book didn't quite live up to its promise - for me, anyway. This is a very literary book - a self-consciously literary book in which every thought, feeling, experience, is dutifully backed up by a strangely numb Allusion To Literature. Instead of calling on his vast literary experience to enliven or illustrate the deadening weight of the feelings we all experience when our parents die, I felt Barnes was actually using literature as a hiding place from the feelings he meant to engage with. The net effect is an apparent callousness - as if one's dad's death is just an excellent opportunity for another starred First. I'm sure that is not what he intended, and God knows we all need a place to hide ... The book was just a little smaller in scope than I'd hoped.
Still read it, though. He writes like an angel.
Unfortunately the book didn't quite live up to its promise - for me, anyway. This is a very literary book - a self-consciously literary book in which every thought, feeling, experience, is dutifully backed up by a strangely numb Allusion To Literature. Instead of calling on his vast literary experience to enliven or illustrate the deadening weight of the feelings we all experience when our parents die, I felt Barnes was actually using literature as a hiding place from the feelings he meant to engage with. The net effect is an apparent callousness - as if one's dad's death is just an excellent opportunity for another starred First. I'm sure that is not what he intended, and God knows we all need a place to hide ... The book was just a little smaller in scope than I'd hoped.
Still read it, though. He writes like an angel.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Grim Reaper: is he all bad? Having read this book it looks as though Julian Barnes certainly thinks so; some people are afraid of dying and some people are afraid of the blank eternal nothingness of death itself. I'd hold my hand up to the former - just the mere thought of hospital beds and pained-looks from relatives, not to mention all the weeping and wailing, makes me shiver with horror, but eternal nothingness? No, I can't say I have a problem with that. Barnes sees things from the opposite view-point. Dying is fine, it's just the fact that it results in death which causes him problems.
Barnes is always a joy to read. He writes with a dry elegance and he invariably has interesting things to say. Here, amidst all the staring into the abyss, he writes with humour - and perhaps more warmth than he might care to admit - about his parents and grandparents: their lives and loves, and of course their final release from earthly bonds. He also writes with a fabulous gallows humour about funerals - the fat worm that positively seems to strut in the soil by the open grave - and the way in which we dream about dying (quietly, with dignity and a witty final line) differs from the sadly more common reality (howling into the darkness). He is also good on religion, indeed the book begins with something of an atheist's lament: "I don't believe in God, but I miss Him'. Barnes's brother, a philosopher, regards this sentiment as 'soppy' and I know exactly what he means but I'm with Julian on this one. I don't believe either, but I suspect I'd feel happier if I did.
There is a great deal of gloomy graveside meditation in here but every page is touched with humour, reflection and learning. Barnes is great at wheeling out the apposite quotation or anecdote. He's also good on the nature of memory and the philosophical examnation of death ('to be a philosopher is to learn how to die'). It's not a book for everyone but, for those of us who have ever reflected upon the welcoming grave, it's a beautiful and profound meditation on final things. A book to have by your bedside as the light fades....
Barnes is always a joy to read. He writes with a dry elegance and he invariably has interesting things to say. Here, amidst all the staring into the abyss, he writes with humour - and perhaps more warmth than he might care to admit - about his parents and grandparents: their lives and loves, and of course their final release from earthly bonds. He also writes with a fabulous gallows humour about funerals - the fat worm that positively seems to strut in the soil by the open grave - and the way in which we dream about dying (quietly, with dignity and a witty final line) differs from the sadly more common reality (howling into the darkness). He is also good on religion, indeed the book begins with something of an atheist's lament: "I don't believe in God, but I miss Him'. Barnes's brother, a philosopher, regards this sentiment as 'soppy' and I know exactly what he means but I'm with Julian on this one. I don't believe either, but I suspect I'd feel happier if I did.
There is a great deal of gloomy graveside meditation in here but every page is touched with humour, reflection and learning. Barnes is great at wheeling out the apposite quotation or anecdote. He's also good on the nature of memory and the philosophical examnation of death ('to be a philosopher is to learn how to die'). It's not a book for everyone but, for those of us who have ever reflected upon the welcoming grave, it's a beautiful and profound meditation on final things. A book to have by your bedside as the light fades....
99 of 106 people found the following review helpful
By M. Davey
Format:Hardcover
I have long been a fan of Julian Barnes and purchased this new volume without reading reviews, as I now tend to do with favourite authors. I took it for granted that the writing would be excellent and it was. However, I was amazed at the feat that he has brought off here. The discourse on life and death, interwoven with autobiographical detail, passages about Jules Renard [and you don't need to know anything about him to enjoy the writing - to me he was only a name],combine to produce a stunning and thought-provoking book. It is one of the best he has written, for sheer content and style. Although death figures large, the result is never morbid. To me it is a celebration of life by one of the most literary of all writers. Where another author might have written separate chapters or disappeared down cul de sacs, Barnes has produced a masterpiece of constrained, fluid writing, integrating all the elements brilliantly.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Locked in his Head
Julian Barnes thinks of death every day, and it horrifies him to think that, as for every one of us, one day sooner or later will be his last. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Angelica Garden
5.0 out of 5 stars
An honest book which offers many perspectives
This book could be subtitled 'An anthology of literary anecdotes about death', Julian Barnes recounts the thoughts of literary figures on mortality as asides, woven into his own... Read more
Published 4 months ago by William Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Literary Perspective on Death from an Agnostic with an Ironic Sense...
"Fear not, O land;
Be glad and rejoice,
For the LORD has done marvelous things!" -- Joel 2:21 (NKJV)
Having enjoyed some of Julian Barnes' novels, I picked up... Read more
Be glad and rejoice,
For the LORD has done marvelous things!" -- Joel 2:21 (NKJV)
Having enjoyed some of Julian Barnes' novels, I picked up... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Donald Mitchell
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not his best
I have been a devoted Julian Barnes reader these past fifteen years and have always felt a bit like coming home every time I picked up a new one. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Tilma
3.0 out of 5 stars
Kindle edition disappointing
I enjoyed the book, but I've logged on purely to comment on the Kindle edition, which is littered with typos. Read more
Published 19 months ago by K. Thomas
2.0 out of 5 stars
The wrong kind of irony?
I suppose Barnes is what passes for avant garde in this country (Pinter was another such); but I can't help thinking he'd sound better in French - unlike certain Americans I like... Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2011 by Simon G. Barrett
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not for me
I bought this book as it was recommended however found it very difficult to get 'into' therefore about a quater way through gave up on it sorry, but this doesnt mean you wont like... Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2011 by Mrs. Sandra Leigh
5.0 out of 5 stars
Take the sting out of death
This is an ambitious book, but Barnes is such a master of language and humour that it works. It is part memoir of his parents, and part homily to some of his literary heroes. Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2011 by Mr. James G. Thompson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Barnes does it again
A cleverly constructed discussion of death, the possibility of life after it, the meaning of life. I couldn't put it down and will dip into it from time to time again but two... Read more
Published on 15 April 2010 by DR T MOTTRAM
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unimpressed
The product review states that this is Barnes best book. If that is the case I will not be rushing to buy another of his books. Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2010 by Peregrinus
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