GatesyRead

  I’ve been reading Julian Barnes all my adult life and it would take a lot for me to express disappointment in one of his novels. Professional reviewers aren’t paid to be as loyal or generous. Sam Byers describes the novel as dealing in evasion: ‘vagueness layered on vagueness’ ( The Guardian , 14 April 2022). Helen Elliott uses the phrase ‘exasperated sign’ in her heading and concludes that Barnes is out of touch: ‘In 2022 sincerity and authenticity are rumbling irony as the preferred mode for many highly literate readers and writers’ ( Sydney Morning Herald , 7 April 2022). I might confess that a novel that deals with ambiguity and irony would be more likely to appeal to me as a reader than to make me sigh, and although I did wonder about whether there was enough meat on the bones, I still enjoyed the delicate little meal that it was. In Part One we meet Neil, our narrator, and Elizabeth Finch, a dynamic History lecturer – as well as Neil’s immediate companions, conservative Geo