Julian Barnes has a reputation for being unduly "cool" (due chiefly, I think, to fiction like Flaubert's Parrot). Even Salman Rushdie (no slouch among the ironically detached) had to admit his favourite portion of A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters was the half-chapter essay. I'm fond of Barnes's fiction and his essays. I think of them as the products of a gifted man working diligently to tease apart The Big Problems. And I'm grateful to anyone who takes a sincere crack at the task.
Don't miss this essay in The New Yorker.
3 comments:
Here's how unduly "uncool" I am: I read the first half of Barnes' New Yorker essay but wasn't interested enough to click to the second half. Much too long for me to read on the screen. But at least now I can say that I've "read" Julian Barnes. :)
AC
AC - if it helps, I wasn't thinking "cool" as in "hep cat", but "cool" as in too ironic to be pertinent. So yer still a hep cat in my books...
That helps, WP. Thanks. :)
After my comment, I had a "you're one to talk" moment, as the stuff I post over at Never Mind the Bibles (when I post) is pretty lengthy for the computer screen, too. Verbose writer, heal thyself.
AC
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