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patti_pinguin's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
tormentademar's review against another edition
3.0
“Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke. You dreamed all night, or for long, serious sections of the night, yet when you woke all you had was a memory of having been abandoned, or betrayed, caught in a trap, left on frozen plain; and sometimes not even that, but a fading after-image of the emotion stirred by such events.”
carrieliza's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting, sometimes funny, always absurd. I think I liked the last bit the best, though. A study of de-civilization? Strange to think about the British Empire in reverse.
donnereads's review
2.0
The premise sounded really cool but the writing style just didn’t work for me and the pacing was quite slow.
mrhumpage's review against another edition
4.0
An unusual start precedes a breakneck fantasy encompassing reflections on replicas, culture, and as the title implies, England, the country of the author's birth.
Despite much evidence to the contrary, it is clear that the country has a special place in Barnes' heart. Some fascinating characters - and unusually (from the other Barnes I have recently read) a female protagonist. Divided into four distinct chronological sections, it is well worth a read, though the ending struggles to match the promise laid down by the bulk of the words which come before it.
Despite much evidence to the contrary, it is clear that the country has a special place in Barnes' heart. Some fascinating characters - and unusually (from the other Barnes I have recently read) a female protagonist. Divided into four distinct chronological sections, it is well worth a read, though the ending struggles to match the promise laid down by the bulk of the words which come before it.
elliethecatlover's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 rounded down.
This story reminded me of a less cynical Ben Elton book. At moments I was really e gages, and thoroughly enjoyed, at other points I felt it was a bit of a slog. Well worth reading but maybe only once.
This story reminded me of a less cynical Ben Elton book. At moments I was really e gages, and thoroughly enjoyed, at other points I felt it was a bit of a slog. Well worth reading but maybe only once.
t_m41's review against another edition
3.0
Curious and unusual: fun but sometimes it feels a bit superfluous to it's own purpose
rubywarhol's review
2.0
DNF
Some cool political commentary, a couple of poetic gems, funny observations about Englishness, and random biographical bits about the past which I enjoyed, but the main plot wasn't very gripping and Sir Jack was an extremely boring character that was awful to read about.
DNF at 60% because there was too much business talk that no one cares about.
Some decent quotes:
Sometimes you can only remember a feeling but not a fact:
"Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke. You dreamed all night, or for long, serious sections of the night, yet when you woke all you had was a memory of having been abandoned, or betrayed, caught in a trap, left on a frozen plain; and sometimes not even that, but a fading after-image of the emotion stirred by such events."
- p. 6
Memories aren't necessary real - you manipulate them:
"If a memory wasn't a thing but a memory of a memory of a memory, mirrors set in parallel, then what the brain told you now about what it claimed had happened then would be coloured by what had happened in between. It was like a country remembering its history: the past was never just the past, it was what made the present able to live with itself. The same went for individuals, though the process obviously wasn't straight-forward. Did those whose lives had disappointed them remember an idyll, or something which justified their lives ending in disappointment? Did those who were content with their lives remember previous contentment, or some moment of well-arranged adverstiy heroically overcome? An element of propaganda, of sales and marketing, always intervened between the inner and the outer person."
- p. 6
'Your marriage ended in divorce?'
'I couldn't stand the pace of happiness.'
- p.46
First love:
"He found himself, in the parallel universe of real life, allowed to do the things he had previously dreamed of. With Christine he burst into a world of condom-unrolling and menstruation, of being allowed to put his hands anywhere (anywhere within reason, and nowhere dirty) while helping baby-sit her youngest brother; of dizzying joy and social responsibility. When she pointed at some bauble in a lighted shop window and cooed with a strange longing he found uniquely feminine, he felt like Alexander the Great."
- p. 100
Love and time:
"In the past he had noticed how being with a woman changed your sense of time: how lightly poised the present could be, how trudging the past, how elastic, how metamorphic the future. He knew even better how not being with a woman changed your sense of time.
So when Martha asked him what he'd thought of her when they first met, he wanted to say: I felt you would change my sense of time irrevocably, that future and past were going to be packed into present, that a new and indivisible holy trinity of time was about to be formed, as never before in the history of the created universe."
- p. 102
Some cool political commentary, a couple of poetic gems, funny observations about Englishness, and random biographical bits about the past which I enjoyed, but the main plot wasn't very gripping and Sir Jack was an extremely boring character that was awful to read about.
DNF at 60% because there was too much business talk that no one cares about.
Some decent quotes:
Sometimes you can only remember a feeling but not a fact:
"Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke. You dreamed all night, or for long, serious sections of the night, yet when you woke all you had was a memory of having been abandoned, or betrayed, caught in a trap, left on a frozen plain; and sometimes not even that, but a fading after-image of the emotion stirred by such events."
- p. 6
Memories aren't necessary real - you manipulate them:
"If a memory wasn't a thing but a memory of a memory of a memory, mirrors set in parallel, then what the brain told you now about what it claimed had happened then would be coloured by what had happened in between. It was like a country remembering its history: the past was never just the past, it was what made the present able to live with itself. The same went for individuals, though the process obviously wasn't straight-forward. Did those whose lives had disappointed them remember an idyll, or something which justified their lives ending in disappointment? Did those who were content with their lives remember previous contentment, or some moment of well-arranged adverstiy heroically overcome? An element of propaganda, of sales and marketing, always intervened between the inner and the outer person."
- p. 6
'Your marriage ended in divorce?'
'I couldn't stand the pace of happiness.'
- p.46
First love:
"He found himself, in the parallel universe of real life, allowed to do the things he had previously dreamed of. With Christine he burst into a world of condom-unrolling and menstruation, of being allowed to put his hands anywhere (anywhere within reason, and nowhere dirty) while helping baby-sit her youngest brother; of dizzying joy and social responsibility. When she pointed at some bauble in a lighted shop window and cooed with a strange longing he found uniquely feminine, he felt like Alexander the Great."
- p. 100
Love and time:
"In the past he had noticed how being with a woman changed your sense of time: how lightly poised the present could be, how trudging the past, how elastic, how metamorphic the future. He knew even better how not being with a woman changed your sense of time.
So when Martha asked him what he'd thought of her when they first met, he wanted to say: I felt you would change my sense of time irrevocably, that future and past were going to be packed into present, that a new and indivisible holy trinity of time was about to be formed, as never before in the history of the created universe."
- p. 102