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thess2022's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
richardr's review against another edition
The previous two novels by Julian Barnes that I'd read (Metroland and The Noise of Time) were both relatively conventional realist novels. By contrast, England, England is either more of a Swiftian parable about English identity. One of the difficulties with talking about English identity is how recessive it is, where discussions of it quickly fall back on banalities like queuing or zombie concepts like stiff upper leaf. Barnes resolves this by dwelling on two particular aspects of English identity: crass commercialism and the dead hand of history: the sense that England is a country with a great future behind it and that much of the present is essentially occupied by a nostalgia industry. In essence, the Isle of Wight is re-developed as a heritage theme park where all of the stereotyped aspects of Englishness (Big Ben, Stonehenge, red phone boxes, Beefeaters etc) can be enjoyed in one convenient tourist package. By contrast, the original England slides into isolation and reverts to a medieval society as the country is re-wilded (insert Brexit themed joke of your choice here). The premise is in short a Baudrillardian one that the fake becomes more real than the original.
In some ways this sort of concept is more the sort of thing I'd have expected from someone like Will Self: there is indeed a Self short story called Scale, wherein a drug addict living next to Bekonscot model village experiences a series of Alice in Wonderland adventures as he shrinks down through a Russian doll's nest of model villages. In Self's case, the country is run by the Nationalist Trust government, wherein the National Trust has taken over the country through a coup d'etat (Derek Jarman had a similar idea in Jubilee, where the Trust operate border checks on anyone trying to enter the Home Counties from London). The Self story embraces a sense of surrealism, whereas Barnes does seem to be trying to depict events realistically. I'm not sure this really works when the concept is what Barnes is trying to depict rather than the characters embodying it.
In some ways this sort of concept is more the sort of thing I'd have expected from someone like Will Self: there is indeed a Self short story called Scale, wherein a drug addict living next to Bekonscot model village experiences a series of Alice in Wonderland adventures as he shrinks down through a Russian doll's nest of model villages. In Self's case, the country is run by the Nationalist Trust government, wherein the National Trust has taken over the country through a coup d'etat (Derek Jarman had a similar idea in Jubilee, where the Trust operate border checks on anyone trying to enter the Home Counties from London). The Self story embraces a sense of surrealism, whereas Barnes does seem to be trying to depict events realistically. I'm not sure this really works when the concept is what Barnes is trying to depict rather than the characters embodying it.
fifo_86's review against another edition
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jdmitrijeva's review against another edition
4.0
laba satīra par tirgus diktētu tūrismu un kur tas noved. laba valoda.
stratski's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. En boek dat vooral heel erg bezig is met Ideeën en Dingen Zeggen Over. Veel blabla en weinig plot of karakterontwikkeling. Een alles wetende schatrijke zakenman besluit op het eiland Wight een soort Engeland experience te beginnen als ultieme toeristische attractie. Replica's van Stonehenge, de Big Ben, dat soort dingen. We volgen wat van zijn mensen tijdens de ontwikkeling en later de exploitatie van het project. En dat is het wel.
Deel 1: de hoofdpersoon als klein meisje (dit was nog wel een mooi verhaal)
Deel 2: het project wordt voorbereid en loopt (langdradig! Iedereen praat in filosofische monologen)
Deel 3: het is jaren later een het project heeft de wereld veranderd (heul pregnante dingen over de essentie van Engeland, of zo)
Het was niet heel erg vervelend, maar wist ook niet echt te boeien. Veel te pretentieus naar mijn smaak, dat geneuzel over authenticiteit en replica's en ongebreideld kapitalisme. Er zaten wel wat aardige passages in, waar zowaar wat karakterontwikkeling plaatsvond, maar de voornaamste reden dat ik dit boek heb uitgelezen is toch dat ik op vakantie was een geen zin had mijn andere boek uit te graven uit mijn bagage.
Deel 1: de hoofdpersoon als klein meisje (dit was nog wel een mooi verhaal)
Deel 2: het project wordt voorbereid en loopt (langdradig! Iedereen praat in filosofische monologen)
Deel 3: het is jaren later een het project heeft de wereld veranderd (heul pregnante dingen over de essentie van Engeland, of zo)
Het was niet heel erg vervelend, maar wist ook niet echt te boeien. Veel te pretentieus naar mijn smaak, dat geneuzel over authenticiteit en replica's en ongebreideld kapitalisme. Er zaten wel wat aardige passages in, waar zowaar wat karakterontwikkeling plaatsvond, maar de voornaamste reden dat ik dit boek heb uitgelezen is toch dat ik op vakantie was een geen zin had mijn andere boek uit te graven uit mijn bagage.
suzea's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
tillandsia's review against another edition
4.0
I liked several things about this book: the central idea is interesting and original; Martha Cochrane, the main character, is very well written; the first section of the book - which describes her childhood - is really moving; there are many thoughtprovoking details. I liked its central themes: authenticity vs imitation, "organic" vs constructed tradition, (historical) memory vs storytelling, and how the two halves of these pairs are often impossible to tell apart. At the same time I felt that the book was only scratching the surface: it kept making the same recurring points about these topics without ever getting any deeper. This made it boring after a while, even if there were always some witty or moving passages that made it worth reading to the end. There were also some plot holes - the motivations of characters and the relationships between them were not always clear -, and some parts that were, in my opinion, not very well developed, as if they had not been thought through well enough (for instance, how can a list of popular stereotypes about England not include bad food and rainy weather?). Nevertheless, all in all I gave it four stars because of the interesting main idea and the many poetic musings about history and tradition.
myfrogmonster's review against another edition
2.0
No character development, or maybe I should say I didn't care about or really like any of the characters. But I was curious enough to see this one to the end. Frankly I enjoyed the last 20 or so pages the most. It was an interesting idea but the story itself, and the flat characters really didn't make it real for me. I just couldn't believe in it or immerse myself in this new version of England.
bookisgood_2020's review against another edition
2.0
A theme park based on England & English history. History, that is politically correct so that cancel culture can’t touch it. The monarchy is touchable now as the royal family lives here in a replica of Buckingham Palace. A replica so flabbergasting that people disremember the original. Originality expires & the park rises with its colossal claws of capitalism when the rich arrives here for a pole dance of English legacy. Dancing on this lap of satire & dystopia, this is Julian Barnes’s 1998 Booker-shortlisted novel England England.
Based on this peculiar world, the ambitious novel booms with the inkling of small dark memories creating big unforgettable hole. And that hole is slowly widened when you are introduced to a world where money can buy anything. A vision so bleak that every sentiment can be stripped down to a price and every character (Martha, Sir Jack Pitman, Paul) is lost in a loop of symbolism & anti-symbolism. Everything means something yet everything is worthless.
This is not a novel with postmodernism & structuralism blended into it. It is unapologetically based on these theories. So the narrative is more faithful towards these literally theories than the art of fiction itself. And that is why it suffers from the disease of intellectual snobbery.
It’s avant-garde but emotionally dead. You don’t care about this world or its people as you start despising both after a point. In Orwell’s 1984 we get a murky world with some characters to hold onto. Now imagine a dystopia-in-process with emotionally unavailable characters. That is what England England is. Even in a game of existential crisis, some meaning (probably a slight one) must come out of a pessimistic chronicle.
But Barnes altogether takes away the concept of meaning from the storyline. There is no free will. No growth. No surprise. It is like a dark wall that claims to be a moonless night. But you know that even a moonless night makes you anticipate the moon. But England England doesn’t even do that. You just anticipate for the book to end. Torture Torture.
Based on this peculiar world, the ambitious novel booms with the inkling of small dark memories creating big unforgettable hole. And that hole is slowly widened when you are introduced to a world where money can buy anything. A vision so bleak that every sentiment can be stripped down to a price and every character (Martha, Sir Jack Pitman, Paul) is lost in a loop of symbolism & anti-symbolism. Everything means something yet everything is worthless.
This is not a novel with postmodernism & structuralism blended into it. It is unapologetically based on these theories. So the narrative is more faithful towards these literally theories than the art of fiction itself. And that is why it suffers from the disease of intellectual snobbery.
It’s avant-garde but emotionally dead. You don’t care about this world or its people as you start despising both after a point. In Orwell’s 1984 we get a murky world with some characters to hold onto. Now imagine a dystopia-in-process with emotionally unavailable characters. That is what England England is. Even in a game of existential crisis, some meaning (probably a slight one) must come out of a pessimistic chronicle.
But Barnes altogether takes away the concept of meaning from the storyline. There is no free will. No growth. No surprise. It is like a dark wall that claims to be a moonless night. But you know that even a moonless night makes you anticipate the moon. But England England doesn’t even do that. You just anticipate for the book to end. Torture Torture.