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The Only Story

The Only Story 1

by Julian Barnes
Hardback
Publication Date: 29/01/2018
5/5 Rating 1 Review

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The brilliant new novel from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending

Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.

First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn’t know anything about that at nineteen. At nineteen, he’s proud of the fact his relationship flies in the face of social convention.

As he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.

Tender and wise, The Only Story is a deeply moving novel by one of fiction’s greatest mappers of the human heart.

Reviewed by Robert at Angus & Robertson Bookworld:

How to convey the brilliance of this book? I could start by saying that The Only Story is a wonderful and achingly beautiful book about the ephemeral nature of love and the slipperiness of memory.

Paul looks back over the last 50 years of his life and reflects on an affair he had as a student with the middle-aged Susan. As a nonchalant youth of the British upper-class suburban world of tennis clubs, golfing stockbrokers and unhappy couples in the 60's, Paul had stumbled along with the best intentions. He framed his love for Susan as a heroic quest for freedom from suffocating parental expectations, but consequences follow even the smallest of acts. What had once seemed simple and carefree soon becomes a complex and painful burden, where words said and roads taken become irredeemable.

Soren Kierkegaard once famously said that "life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." Julian Barnes shows us that understanding life backwards is much trickier than you'd think - it keeps transforming, with new understandings forcing out the old. With The Only Story, he has created another thoughtful and elegant masterpiece that is touching and deep, and arguably his best yet - it is certainly worthy of another Man Booker Prize

ISBN:
9781787330696
9781787330696
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Format:
Hardback
Publication Date:
29-01-2018
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
224
Dimensions (mm):
222x147x25mm
Weight:
0.4kg
Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and The Noise of Time. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and two books of non-fiction, Nothing to be Frightened Of and the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life. In 2017 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur.

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How to convey the brilliance of this book? The Booker-winner returns with another thoughtful and elegant masterpiece. It is touching and deep, and arguably his best yet.

"The Only Story" is a wonderful and achingly beautiful book about the ephemeral nature of love, and of the slipperiness of memory and judgement. Paul, the narrator (with an admittedly unreliable recall) looks back 50 years and tries to frame his student affair with the middle-aged Susan. As a nonchalant youth in the 60's British upper-suburbia of tennis clubs, golfing stockbrokers and unhappy couples, Paul had stumbled along with the best intentions. He saw his love for Susan as a heroic quest for freedom from suffocating parental expectation. But consequences follow the smallest of acts, and what had seemed to be simple and carefree, soon becomes a complex and painful burden. Words said and roads taken become irredeemable.

Even the older Paul's retrospection is intricate in itself, his viewpoints changing, slipping from one interpretation to another. The cover image of this book (a tear-stained journal with quotes crossed-out and new ones written) tells of a past not set, but changing with every remembering.

Soren Kierkegaard famously said "life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards". Barnes shows us that the understanding backwards is much trickier than you'd think. It keeps transforming, with new understandings forcing out the old.

There is a droll melancholy in this novel, and our narrator is a sharp observer, however uncertain he is of details. There is some gentle satire of the English character that is reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh, and some asides on ageing that will linger. I advise you to savour this book as the author's exquisite prose and insight can be easily be missed in the tight narrative.

This poignant novel is certainly worthy of another Booker Prize. You will be left pondering the bittersweet legacy of your one true love, musing on time's arrow and the endless ripples of loss.

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