BBC RadioSaturday Drama:
Julian Barnes' absorbing tale of betrayal and revenge wrapped within humour and despair,
Ik keek uit naar dit vervolg op 'Trioloog', Helaas, dit is geen vervolg, Pas in de laatstepagina's wil er nog wel eens iets gebeuren en krijg je weer zo'n open einde, En dit keer liet me dat volkomen koud,
Een tweede koude persing dus, maar wel van een vakman, Da se razumemo odmah, o ovoj knjizi može biti napisano mnogo redova, ali ni ne mora, Toliko je dobra! Briljantna! Ovo nije klasična priča o ljubavnom trouglu mada može da zaliči na špansku seriju po zapletu, Kažem može, ne odbacujte je odmah, pobogu! Imamo Džilijen i Olivera koji su venčani, Oliver je nekadašnji najbolji prijatelj Stjuarta, Džilijen i Stjuart su nekada bili u braku i može se reći da mu je Oliver ukrao“ ženu,
Oliver je osoba koja je izuzetno obrazovana, koji je sav pompezan, uzdignut, osoba koja je u svemu i o svemu razmišlja, ali nikada posao ne privede kraju.
Stjuart je pomalo nesiguran, plašljiv, ali se sve to menja odlaskom u SAD nakon razvoda, gde će ući u posao sa organskim povrćem, Naravno, u svakoj ovakvoj priči mora da postoji povratak, ponovni susret, pa tako i ovde, Stjuart će se vratiti u Englesku i to pravo u život Džilijen i Olivera,
Okej, zaplet i nije toliko važan koliko način na koji je priča ispričana, Zamislite situaciju da ste ispred aktera ove priče i da ih ponaosob saslušavate“, Oni u dugim, individualnim sesijama objašnjavaju svoje viđenje priče, Tako se njihove priče poklapaju, preklapaju, dopunjuju, isključuju jedna drugu kako god da vi odlučite, Maestralno su izgrađene, maestralno! Ima tu još likova: na primer, Džilijenina majka ima šta ponuditi čitavoj priči, Stjuartova druga bivša žena takođe, pa čak i Sofi, ćerka Olivera i Džilijen.
Sva umetnost je u tome da se u pisanju čuje svaki pojedinačni glas, a Barns je uspeo u tome, Sve je toliko dobro oblikovano i ponuđeno čitaocu na razmatranje,
Možda ćete se zapitati da li je reč o pravoj ljubavi, da li je sve bila laž, sažaljenje, greška Silovanje Može biti.
Vrhunac romana jeste na kraju ove priče gde nam je posluženo nametanje, strastven seks, silovanje, Teško je sa sigurnošću reći šta se tačno dogodilo, a i menja se u zavisnosti od toga ko nam predstavlja priču, I tenzija raste, a Barns se smeši tamo u pozadini, maše kao neki zloćko iz crtanog filma i prepušta nam da prigrlimo objektivnost koja visi tu u negde u vazduhu.
A ti je prigrli, čitaoče, ako umeš!
Barnsovo pisanje ponekad ostavi bez daha, Ume da udari direktno u stomak, Kada bolje pogledam, ova knjiga je imala tendenciju da preraste u jednu histeričnu sapunicu, ali se to ipak nije desilo, Umesto toga, pružila mi je jednu pravu fuziju bola, gorčine, radosti i strasti, I drago mi je da sam sve to i osetila,
Book no.by Julian Barnes more precisely, the fourth audiobook,
I loved Love, etc, . The title itself couldn't be better because this novel is mostly about love and relationships and other things, that come under the umbrella of etc,
Barnes takes a magnifying glass and points it at love, especially as its manifestation between a man and a woman, He does this very well through several unreliable narrators, but ultimately, this is the story of a threesome that's made up of Stuart and Oliver, best friends, and their wife, Gillian.
Yes, that's right: Gillian was married to both of them, Not at the same time, First, she was married to Stuart and then divorced him for Oliver, Ten years later, Stuart comes back from the USA and gets back in touch with Gillian and Oliver, who now live in a shabby house and have two daughters.
Gillian is an art restorator, and Oliver is, . . I'm not sure what. Stuart is a successful business man, Slowly, he makes himself very useful by becoming their landlord, and eventually Oliver's employer, Is Stuart still in love with Gillian, Does he love today's Gillian or is he just thinking of the person he had fallen in love with all those years back
This novel had an unusual structure that I don't remember coming across before.
The narrators addressed the reader directly, Incredibly enough, but not surprising given Barnes' talent, it worked really well, There was a playfulness about it and it had a certain rhythm that kept things interesting and moving along at a fast pace, It worked brilliantly as an audiobook, especially since three different narrators were reading the three main parts, Each voice was distinctive and contributed in different ways at putting the puzzle together,
There were quite a few quotable passages, unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of audiobooks is that you can't keep track of them easily I usually do chores when I listen to the audiobook, I rarely/never stop to take notes.
This was yet another fantabulous, brilliant, enlightening book from Julian Barnes,
Recommended
,One of the best sequels one can possibly think of!
The story keeps getting better, Simply Brilliant! Seems a bit drifty and pointless for a lot of it but once a crucial point is hit, everything makes a lot more sense, For this reason, I felt that the construction was messier than some other Barnes novels but Ill probably come to appreciate it the more I think about it as with the rest of Barnes, save BSSM and TNOT.
Aside from love and memory, this book deals a surprising bit with maturity growing up and taking responsibility which has deepened my appreciation of Barnes because I never quite realised this aspect was present in quite a few of his other books as well.
It has many quotable moments and the ending is better than most other Barnes novels Ive read, Diez años atrás, Barnes revolucionó la forma de narrar un triángulo amoroso con la publicación de la novela coral Hablando del asunto, Allí, sin otro recurso que el de la recitación de fidelidades e infidelidades, dos hombres y una mujer intentaban explicarnos y explicarse a ellos mismos ciertas emociones peligrosas y la delgada línea que separa la pasión de la amistad.
Una década más tarde, Stuart ya no es el cornudo desconcertado, Oliver ha dejado de ser la joven promesa artística con ganas de dinamitar parejas y Gillian sigue pensando si habrá hecho lo correcto a la hora de hacer lo incorrecto.
Así es: continúan hablando del mismo asunto pero ahora tal vez mucho más preocupados por la permanencia del etcétera que por la fugacidad del amor.
Comedia de costumbres tan tierna como feroz, Amor, etcétera es una historia que reconcilia en un mismo libro la pérfida elegancia de Jane Austen con la potencia neurótica de Woody Allen.
O viceversareally: more than "it was all right" because there were indeed times that I enjoyed it a lotparticularly those sections which focused on one of my favourite characters in living memory: the overeducated threedimensional narcissist and connoisseur of archaicisms Oliver:
I was dozing, I confess.I just can't get enough of that guy and his vocabulary, his selfregard, and his theglasswasthreequartersemptywhenitwasthrustuponmeism.
Et tu O narcoleptic and steatopygous Stuart, he of the crepuscular understanding and the Weltanschauung built of Lego, Look, can we please take the longer view Chouenlai, my hero, Or Zhouenlai, as he later became, What do you consider to have been the effect on world history of the French Revolution To which the wise man replied, It is too early to tell.
Or if not quite so Olympian or Confucian a view, then at least lets have some perspective, some shading, some audacious juxtapositions of pigment, OK Do we not, each of us, write the novel of our life as we go along But how few, alas, are publishable.
Behold the towering slush pile! Dont call us, well call youno, on second thoughts, we wont call you either, Now, dont rush to judgement on OliverIve cautioned you about that before, Oliver is not a snob, At least, not in the straightforward sense, It is not the subjectmatter of these novels, or the social location of their protagonists, that is the problem, The story of a louse may be as fine as the history of Alexander the Greateverything depends upon the execution, An adamantine formula, dont you agree What is needed is a sense of form, control, discrimination, selection, omission, arrangement, emphasis, . . that dirty, threeletter word, art, The story of our life is never an autobiography, always a novelthats the first mistake people make, Our memories are just another artifice: go on, admit it, And the second mistake is to assume that a plodding commemoration of previously fêted detail, enlivening though it might be in a taproom, constitutes a narrative likely to entice the at times necessarily hardhearted reader.
On whose lips rightly lies the perpetual question: why are you telling me this
Otherwise, though Alas, I must ask of you, O Julian: why are you telling me this, this whateverhappenedto,yearslater tale sitelinkTalking It Over was all that these three really needed of our attentionexcept for the aforementioned Oliver, perhaps, though he definitely takes a back seat in this sequel, which is all Stuart's story, really: and the story of a stockjobberturnedgrocerymagnate is just not all that interesting or necessary, really.
And as for Gillian, she remains a bit of a cipher, I'm afraid, And everyone's sunk that much further into mediocrity Stuart, into bland opacity Gillian, into depression Oliver, and, well, into middleagespreadism allaround, that it's kinda just depressing to read about them and their intervening decade of doingnotallthatmuchitude.
Oliver's witty aperçus because fewer in number just don't provide sufficient relief from the banality and bathos, alas, An unnecessary read, albeit a quick one that rekindled fond memories of its superior predecessor, Talking It Over, I'm not a serious reader, I don't program my reading, Of course I have a list actually it's a very nice notebook with excerpts from "Le petit prince" typed on the cover, of course I try to read what's on the list, even if many times I don't even remember who recommended the books, where I read the reviews or why I wanted to read those books in the first place.
As I said, I'm not a serious reader, If I were, I would have known that Love, etc, is a sequel to sitelinkTalking It Over, It's quite frustrating to see a whole shelf of Barnes in every possible book shop or library and not know how he writes, There must be a reason for him being published, read and awarded quite many prizes, So, here I am, facing the dilemma: what do I choose The only one I was sure I wanted to read was sitelinkSomething to Declare: Essays on France aka Tour de France Mr.
Barnes and I are both francophiles, but it wasn't there so I had to make up my mind, I chose based on looks : I liked the cover and the title,
The fact that it's a sequel it's not very problematic, you get the story anyway, everything happensyears later, And now, the surprise: the narrative technique, Barnes lets all his characters speak directly to you, the reader, It's like an attorney defending his case, It's like multiple recorders turned on at the same time, recording people's thoughts on the same matter, I really liked that, it made the reading vivid and challenging, And yes, I have to admit I like Barnes, he's writing is smart, witty and funny,
The plot is obvious: love triangle, problems, children, marriage, divorce, Love, etc. Not one, not two, but threecount emthree unreliable narrators, How fun! Julian Barnes is brilliant, This is the story of a love triangle, of sorts, Oh its all so very modern, or postmodern, or at least contemporary, Gillian and Oliver are married, Olivers one time best friend is Stuart, Gillian and Stuart were once married, Oliver “stole” Gillian from him one might say, Oliver is a pompous prig, an overeducated wastrel, with various projects "in development" which is another way of saying he thinks about things to do, but never does them.
Stuart was a bit of a milquetoast but seems to come into his own when he leaves England after the divorce, goes to the States and becomes a successful businessman in organic veggie marketing.
Go figure, it was the nineties, Of course, then he comes back: back to England, back into Gillians and Olivers lives,
But none of that is important, thats only plot and character, No, the brilliant and highly entertaining part of this book is the way its told: in separate, long, individualised “block quotes”, As if the characters were speaking to an un identified interviewer, the person behind the camera, Think of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, in the therapists sessions, speaking directly at the camera, the questions unheard, only inferred from the replies.
And you, the readers, are the camera, Of course you didnt hear the questions youre hearing over your shoulder busy adjusting the lens or fstop or something, so every utteranceno matter how seemingly banalis brilliant, and fraught with potential weight.
And others get their say as well: Gillians mother, for example, has a fair bit to contribute, and Stuarts second exwife, And Gillians young assistant whos shagging Stuart even Gills and Ollies daughter, Sophie poor kid,
The artistry of course is that one hears each individual voice
in the writingevery few paragraphs the text shifts suddenly into that individual characters voice, Some are easier than others, the children, Gills mother shes French and doesnt speak the English so well, yes, but the three principles are all of the same class and educational background.
Its very well done and extremely entertaining,
Love, etc. , would make a fantastic mockumentary, I kept seeing, or hearing rather, Hugh Laurie as Stuart, but hes a little long in the tooth at this point the principal liars are all in their mids: Still not too late for a youthful indiscretion.
Unfortunately I found after having finished that this is a sequal to hisnovel Talking it Over, which has the same format, I'm really going to have to check these things out, .