Julian Barnes

Offering the magic pleasure of reading

As I was contemplating writing this piece, the thought crossed my mind that Julian Barnes (b. 1946) represents, for me, apparently, a perfect sort of Britishness. What is perfect Britishness? It might be that mid-England BBC accent, a personality that presents as detached, ironic, full of dry humour, someone exuding calm, yet caring, depth of feeling that can only be hinted at. Barnes, of course, is famously a francophile, so I’m not sure what that says about me. If pressed, I would say that the notion of perfect Britishness is silly, after all. But, then, silliness would be part of the mix, too.

More on Barnes in a bit, because I want to begin by acknowledging some losses: Gordon Phinn and David Menear.

I published two of David’s short stories in The Danforth Review: Picasso in Prison (2013) and Ragged White Ice (2017). David passed away earlier this year at age 72, according to a note left on his Facebook page by his daughter. I understand he had a career in advertising and in retirement turned to other creative pursuits, including acting and writing. His book Swallows Playing Chicken was published in 2019 by Mansfield Press.

Gordon had many books related to psychic activity, but I knew him as an engaged reader and critic of Canadian literature. I first met him in the early 2000s at a Toronto Small Press Fair, where he was selling his non-fiction chapbook, which included an essay on John Metcalf, which I asked if I could re-print in The Danforth Review. Gordon agreed I could. Gordon also published via Amazon this other Canlit critical summary: Bowering and McFadden: A Short Critical (and Shamefully Incomplete) Appreciation of their Contributions to Canadian Literature (2020). Gordon drove a bus for a living, but his mind was boundlessly elsewhere — and an autodidact I couldn’t help but admire. The last time I saw him he told me how he’d just shared time with Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. I wasn’t so sure about that, but there’s a good chance they’re jamming now. Gordon passed away on April 4.

*

Okay, now Julian Barnes, who remains with us, though he’s just published what he says will be his final book, Departure(s) (2026).

I saw Barnes once, probably in 1992, at the Harbourfront Reading Series in Toronto. I pick that date because that was the year his novel Talking It Over was published in Canada, and it was one I read. I remember him as dry, witty, perfectly British.

Subsequently, I noted Barnes when Martin Amis dropped his agent, Pat Kavanagh (Barnes’s wife) in 1995, a story Slate revisited in 2023 after Amis’s death. Barnes and Amis had been long-time friends. After the events of 1995, they were no longer. In Experience (2000), Amis notes his letters to Barnes at the time are the property of his former friend, though the copyright on the contents remains with him. In Departure(s), Barnes writes that Amis once told him that “life is thin gruel compared to literature.” Barnes says he disagrees.

An Art/Life moment.

Along with reading Departure(s) (by audio), I decided to also take in a Barnes title I had long meant to get to, A History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters (1989). I’m glad I did, though it wasn’t at all what I expected. What did I expect? I wasn’t really sure, except I for sure didn’t expect repeated references to Noah and the flood. Nor did I expect to find a reference such as this one:

The Canadian writer Marvis Gallant put it like this: ‘The mystery of what a couple is, exactly, is almost the only true mystery left to us, and when we have come to the end of it there will be no more need for literature — or for love, for that matter.’ When I first read this, I gave it in the margin the chess marking ‘!?’ indicating a move which, though possibly brilliant, is probably unsound. But increasingly the view convinces, and the marking is changed to ‘!!’

Having read Departure(s) before A History, it was odd to find Gallant’s brilliant quotation, or the rest of that paragraph, because it so well summed up Departure(s): the voice, the sentiment, the surrender before the unknown. Both Departure(s) and A History, of course, are categorized as novels. Fiction. Yet, the veneer between the narrator and the author is thin. In Departure(s), the narrator is called Barnes and has Barnes’s life, though let’s acknowledge that the two may overlap, but they remain separate. More or less.

In Departure(s), the narrator Barnes offers a summation of his life, while also telling us the story of a couple he met a university (whom he introduced, in fact) who decided upon graduation to break up instead of get married. Decades later, the man in the couple asked the narrator Barnes to help re-introduce him to the woman. He does, and soon, they do — marriage, this time. Barnes is glad to have them both back in his life. He has a unique role in their love connection and soon is their mutual confessor.

The woman tells him she’s likes his books, but not the ones with magical bits. Stick to the real, please, she asks. The real is mysterious enough, he agrees. He no longer much cares what people think of his work. Old grievances, he can’t even remember. He promised not to write about the couple, but of course he does. We’re reading about it. The couple didn’t survive their second attempt any better than their first. Who could say why? Not Barnes, not even Gallant!! (Literature — and love — is safe, surely.)

Departure(s) is perhaps not major Barnes, but it is a notable summation and coda.

Barnes entered the pantheon for me with Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), which I read for a course in literary biography as part of my MA, University of Toronto, 1995. Ostensibly a biography of French writer, Flaubert, told via the story of his parrot, the book contains such rich layers of storytelling and irony, it struck me simply as genius. Though I remember one of my classmates, who had attended Harvard, didn’t like it at all. He was of the type of reader Barnes assigned to the woman lover in Departure(s). Not one to take pleasure in magic. #SAD

A History does indeed include 10-1/2 chapters and offer a history of the world, of sorts. It might be more accurately described as a series of linked short stories — linked by theme over time rather than events or characters, though, as noted above, one character does repeat: Noah. If the Bible story is taken at face value (please done), then Noah is father of us all. His story also includes the promise that the world will not again be destroyed. The rainbow tells us so. Barnes manages to find echoes of Noah’s tale throughout the centuries, often in the oddest of places. The book begins with a voice of a creature who stowed away on the arc, a creature small but undescribed, who tells “what really happened,” especially to the magical creatures (who were tasty to Noah’s family, let’s just say).

Barnes’s deep intelligence shines through in A History, though I’d still mark Flaubert’s Parrot above it.

I have a number of Barnes’s books on my shelf that remain unread — for now — but two I’ve read that I want to note are The Sense of an Ending (2011) and Levels of Life (2013). Both of these, by my count, are 10/10. Levels has magical elements, reader, beware lol. My Goodreads review of Sense is short and to the point: “Bought this book in Heathrow airport, London, UK. Finished it somewhere over the Atlantic.” Five stars.

My review of Levels (from my blog, Underground Book Club, June 3, 2013), which I, however, only gave three stars on Goodreads, was somewhat longer:

Levels of Life
by Julian Barnes
Random House, 2013

"Early in life," Barnes writes, "the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven’t. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven’t. Later still — at least, if we are lucky (or, on the other hand, unlucky) — it divides into those who have endured grief, and those who haven’t. These divisions are absolute; they are tropics we cross."

He also writes, “There is the question of loneliness.” Then a few sentences later, “Nothing can compare to the loneliness of the soul in adolescence.”

Together, these quotations seem to beg the question, Is loss of a spouse like a return to adolescent confusion?

Yet, he is unambiguous. Adolescent loneliness is the worst.

Before I address this question, I should say something about the book as a whole. It is slim, a mere 118 pages. A quick read, it is divided into three sections. Ostensibly, it is about grief; specifically, it is about Barnes’ grief for his wife of 30 years who died in 2008, after a 37 day illness. Cancer in the brain.

But to say the book is a memoir would be mistaken. It is part memoir, part essay, part fiction. The three sections are titled: The Sin of Height, On the Level, and The Loss of Depth. Levels of life, as the title says.

The balloon on the cover is another hint. There is a survey of 19th century balloonists, and also 19th century photographers. This is all interesting, well told, precise in description, alert in metaphor, and … all preamble to Barnes’ use of the first person to describe his experiences following the death of his life-partner.

"There is the question of grief versus mourning. You can try to differentiate them by saying that grief is a state while mourning is a process; yet they inevitably overlap. Is the state diminishing? Is the process progressing? How to tell? Perhaps it’s easier to think of them metaphorically. Grief is vertical — and vertiginous — while mourning is horizontal."

Me, I like this distinction. Grief has nausea; mourning, sadness.

Let’s get back to the question of adolescence, which Barnes doesn’t develop, but which I would like to push deeper. In my own case, as my wife approached death (and I mean her final months, so there was a period of extended awareness of doom many times longer than Barnes had), I had feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. When you are living with the awareness of doom, yet trying not to be consumed by doom, you focus on the day-by-day. Watch the flowers grow. Take pleasure in the laundry. The future goes blank. You cannot plan. You cannot take for granted that you will be together six month from now. Maybe not even two months from now. “I’ve been here before,” I told Kate. “I know this feeling. I feel twenty-two again.”

History did not record what she said in response. I don't remember. I don't think she said anything. "Do whatever you need to do, honey," or something along those lines.

The future, then, was blank. Full of possibility, yes, but blank. Lonely, too. One quests for love, to relieve the loneliness. Having found love, one can always lose it. It is part of the marriage contract. One must go first. The marriage contract becomes a caregiver’s contract. I will look after you. I will not abandon you.

Barnes writes, “There were 37 days between diagnosis and death.” In my case, there were 21 months. Grief is not competitive, and I don’t mean to be stern; however, the structure of this book is limiting, where it could be broadening. Barnes is careful to say each grief is specific, each experience is unique, yet the book reaches for general conclusions also. Levels of life.

I was not married for three decades, yet I inherited two step-children (and a new partner in her ex-husband), and the future is blank. Full of possibility. It must be. The children demand it so. As they should.

At one point, near the end of Kate’s life, I was speaking to a psychologist. She asked me how I was doing. I said I was listening someone compulsively to the music I used to listen to when I was 15 years old. I told her that for some reason I felt it important to reconnect with that adolescent. He had the whole world in front of him. He had all of his options open. I needed to live like that, I said. I needed to be ready for anything, and I trusted my 15-year-old self to get me through it. She was disagreeable. “We’ll see how that goes,” she said. I would like to report now, in that regard, things went just fine. I have been horribly, horribly sad, but I survived adolescence, and I’ll survive this. (At least, until I don’t. Time comes for all of us.)

I would have liked to have seen Barnes develop this line of thought (find arguments that contradict his absolutes), yet he is fanciful and metaphoric, an auteur, and, let it be said, brilliant. Earnest to a fault. Besotted with love. A true hero. Bravo.

I saw him once, at the Harbourfront Reading Series in Toronto. Late-1980s I would guess. It was the slightest of connections, yet I bleed for him, having read of his heartbreak. I wish him happiness, and healing laughter.

Keep passing the open windows, Julian. You know what I mean.