Julian Patrick Barnes

born on 19th January, 1946 in Leicester

Magdalen College, Oxford - modern languages (French, Russian, PPP)
lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary
journalist, literary, TV and restaurant critic
brother Jonathan is a philosopher (ancient philosophy)
Barnes attempted PPP (philosophy, politics, psychology) but came
back to languages.
"I was frustrated to keep finding that philosophy seemed to consist of
telling you one week why the philosophy you had studied the previous
week was entirely wrong."
both parents teachers of French language (Barnes is keen
Francophile) he claims that there is no direct influence of his
parents knowledge of the language
Europeans consider him to be a French writer; but French public considers
him to be pure English.
at the age of 13, Barnes started to feel fear of:
Death, God, Sex
he recollects: hunched over some book or magazine in the family
bathroom, I used to tell myself that God couldn't possibly exist because the
notion that He might be watching me while I masturbated was absurd; (...)
all my dead ancestors might be lined up and watching too ..."
"I don't believe in God, but I miss Him."
(The Telegraph, JB: Life as He Knows It)
wife Pat Kavanagh (British literary agent) died on 20th October,
2008 from cancer (Levels of Life, 2013)
advocate of assisted dying, patron of Freedom from Torture, Dignity
in Dying
His work:
pseudonym: Dan Kavanagh (crime fiction), Edward Pygge, PC49, Fat Jeff
(journalist)
influences: Gustave Flaubert, Jules Renard, Igor Stravinsky, Frank
O'Connor, Ford Madox Ford
Literature is "a process of producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered
lies that tell more truth than any assemblage of facts."
"We talk about our memories, but should perhaps talk more about
our forgettings, even if that is more difficult - or logically impossible -
feat."
4 time nominee for MBP (Flauberts Parrot; England, England; Arthur and
George)
The Sense of an Ending (2011)
- the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner
MBP = posh bingo cherished it more for the prize money (50,000
pounds) than prestige

Critics on The Sense of An Ending winning the MBP
"One of the things the book does is talk about humankind. None of us
really know who we are - we present ourselves in all sorts of ways."
Dame Stella Rimington
"This [book] is definitely one that splits opinion, with some finding it subtly
powerful and others frustratingly underdeveloped. But great writers
rarely please everyone." Jonathan Ruppin

Barnes likes to mix genres and the FORM is very important. He focuses on
the structure, the way details build .. not just the story.

set up/pay off


Themes and topics
memories/imagination
"Our experiences and how we remember them shape our character and
what we become. But what happens when those memories are not
accurate?"
- all memories are imperfect
- memory is closer to imagination, than to newspaper facts
- we are narrative animal, we live by stories, some of them true, some
false; we are bound to tell our side of the story
Our experiences and how we remember them shape our character
and what we become. But what happens when those memories are
not accurate?

nostalgia - powerful recollection of strong emotions and the regret
that such feelings are no longer present in our lives

you can become nostalgic about the times you suffered more, because that
is when you were more alive (unlived life the unlived life is not worth
examining, the unexamined life is not worth living)

we suffer from nostalgia, because it keeps us from engaging in the present
and misrepresents the past

history/evidence:
- what is the evidence of the things that happen in life?
- what is history (lies of the victors vs. self-delusions of the defeated)

suicide:
- there is a vulnerability when you leave behind the institutions
(where rules protect you)
- we think that the facts of our lives are certain
time/change:

- "It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth
and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for
ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others."
change of character:
- character changes with time vs. at certain point in life, the character is
set (20-25)
- JB: frozen character, not addaptable
- people change, but they are not always able to change at the
same rate, in the same period