Thanks for this great review! Julian Barnes is my favourite living novelist. I'm currently re-reading Before She Met Me. I know that a lot of people had some problem's with Flaubert's Parrot and I can certainly see why. It's also not my favourite work by him, but I enjoyed it and liked the challenge of reading it. It even made me pick up Flaubert afterwards, I had not read any work by him before. It's hard to recommend a book of Julian Barnes to you, because I always have the feeling that he reaches different types of readers with each book. But you can find humour, questions about life, difficulties of human relationships and recurring topics like time and memory in each of his novels. And I really appreciate the ruthlessness of his stories, the honesty in them, that he doesn't shy away to tell you things you probably don't want to hear and also that he never takes you by the hand, but makes you think and finding things out by yourself. In my opinion his last book The Only Story is his best work, but I'm not quite sure if I would have thought so at your age. I'm pretty sure that you would actually enjoy his first novel Metroland, it's hilarious in my opinion.
Thank you for the obviously well-informed recommendations :) it's definitely true that he doesn't shy away from unpleasant topics; I think it's what makes his treatment of the banal misery of the characters' marriage in Flaubert's Parrot is so powerful.
Thanks for the video! One of the books of Flaubert, that gave me an enormous impression, was l‘education sentimental. Can only recommend anybody to read it!
I'm a big fan of Barnes and have just finished this and thought it was a very valuable read, in terms of how it challenged my notion of what constitutes a novel, as well as being extremely informative, while at the same time providing a heavy dose of enjoyment. The Sense of An Ending was my favourite novel last year and The Only Story also stands out for me as an excellent work of his. I'm working my way through his works chronologically, so I've a way to go but I hope to have read all his novels by this time next year and am sure there will be a few more gems to encounter along the way.
The only thing of his I've read is a foreword to a small book written by his brother (coffee with Aristotle). Didn't even know he was a novelist. What you said is fairly interesting, Might take a look at later.
The Sense of an ending is compelling because one waits for, well, the Ending and its Sense, or because of all the twists, but I'm not sure how much of the protagonist's angst comes across as plausible, and why his past haunts him so badly. There's a generic neurotical personality - that had to face other manipulative personalities - and a failed coming of age that is coming back to haunt him when he's drawing the bottom line on his entire life, etc. But I wasn't very satisfied by the whole, it feels disproportionate and not really warranted. I don't know. It would have if it had just been a short story. Also he doesn't praise Slaanesh.
I loved _Flaubert's Parrot_ . My favorite Barnes novel is _A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters _ but I also liked _Arthur and George_ . I didnt like _England, England_ and was kind of meh about _The Only Story_ which I read last year.
The Noise of Time (about Shostakovich) is amazing :-)
Thanks for this great review! Julian Barnes is my favourite living novelist. I'm currently re-reading Before She Met Me.
I know that a lot of people had some problem's with Flaubert's Parrot and I can certainly see why. It's also not my favourite work by him, but I enjoyed it and liked the challenge of reading it. It even made me pick up Flaubert afterwards, I had not read any work by him before.
It's hard to recommend a book of Julian Barnes to you, because I always have the feeling that he reaches different types of readers with each book. But you can find humour, questions about life, difficulties of human relationships and recurring topics like time and memory in each of his novels. And I really appreciate the ruthlessness of his stories, the honesty in them, that he doesn't shy away to tell you things you probably don't want to hear and also that he never takes you by the hand, but makes you think and finding things out by yourself.
In my opinion his last book The Only Story is his best work, but I'm not quite sure if I would have thought so at your age.
I'm pretty sure that you would actually enjoy his first novel Metroland, it's hilarious in my opinion.
Thank you for the obviously well-informed recommendations :) it's definitely true that he doesn't shy away from unpleasant topics; I think it's what makes his treatment of the banal misery of the characters' marriage in Flaubert's Parrot is so powerful.
Just finished this novel and went looking for some further discussion; great video covering all the major themes. Hitting subscribe!
Thanks for the video! One of the books of Flaubert, that gave me an enormous impression, was l‘education sentimental. Can only recommend anybody to read it!
I'm a big fan of Barnes and have just finished this and thought it was a very valuable read, in terms of how it challenged my notion of what constitutes a novel, as well as being extremely informative, while at the same time providing a heavy dose of enjoyment. The Sense of An Ending was my favourite novel last year and The Only Story also stands out for me as an excellent work of his. I'm working my way through his works chronologically, so I've a way to go but I hope to have read all his novels by this time next year and am sure there will be a few more gems to encounter along the way.
Did you know that Flaubert wrote one of the first postmodern novels, "Bouvard and Pecuchet"?
Talking it Over is probably my favorite Julian Barnes novel.
The only thing of his I've read is a foreword to a small book written by his brother (coffee with Aristotle).
Didn't even know he was a novelist. What you said is fairly interesting, Might take a look at later.
Loved Sense Of An Ending, always meant to read this, but forgot about it completely; put it on my TBR now
reading it now; bookmarked this vid to come back to after
Great job doing this video! Keep up the good work ;)
The Sense of an ending is compelling because one waits for, well, the Ending and its Sense, or because of all the twists, but I'm not sure how much of the protagonist's angst comes across as plausible, and why his past haunts him so badly. There's a generic neurotical personality - that had to face other manipulative personalities - and a failed coming of age that is coming back to haunt him when he's drawing the bottom line on his entire life, etc. But I wasn't very satisfied by the whole, it feels disproportionate and not really warranted. I don't know. It would have if it had just been a short story.
Also he doesn't praise Slaanesh.
I loved _Flaubert's Parrot_ . My favorite Barnes novel is _A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters _ but I also liked _Arthur and George_ . I didnt like _England, England_ and was kind of meh about _The Only Story_ which I read last year.
I was about to recommend A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Great book.
I read The Only Story. It had a lot of potential, but ultimately it disappointed me.
Hey, I know this is unrelated but im just really curious. What is your religion? If you have any
He's Italian, so he probably grew up as a Catholic