Julian Barnes Archive (1971-2000)
Housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Julian Barnes Archive spans the author's career from his first published fiction "A Self-Possessed Woman" (1975) to Love, etc. published in 2000. Additional papers will find their way to the archive in due course.Scholars will be interested to learn that the Harry Ransom Center sponsors fellowships to conduct research in their collections, including the Julian Barnes Archive. Recent fellowships have been awarded to Ryan Roberts (2003-2004) and Vanessa Guignery (2005-2006), pictured here with Barnes's unpublished manuscript for A Literary History of Oxford.
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Slate's editor Jacob Weisberg visits Julian Barnes to discuss book collecting. 
Vanessa Guignery has written extensively about Julian Barnes, including her most recent book, The Fiction Of Julian Barnes: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Her insightful and scholarly critiques of Barnes's works are complemented by accessible writing and a genuine understanding of the author. Covers all novels from Metroland through the bestselling Arthur & George.
Pateman has previously explored Julian Barnes's works (see below), and this volume stands as the culmination of his insightful reflections on Barnes's ouevre. Pateman's analysis covers the full range of Barnes's work, beginning with Metroland through Love, etc. In addition to Pateman's analysis, the volume contains a bibliography of additional criticism that will lead students and curious readers to some of the better essays and texts related to Barnes's works.
In September 1998, Julian Barnes published a short story titled "Vigilance" in the Times Literary Supplement. Set in a concert hall, Barnes's protagonist discusses his displeasure with the audience's behavior and outlines strict methods for dealing with errant coughs and annoying shifting in seats. The irony of the narrator's confessional is enhanced by his direct reference to the reader and his personal stance on public interactions.
One topic of which writers seldom weary is writing. The hows, the whys, the inspirations and the obstacles -- all combine to shape a writer's stories and, often, career. The pieces gathered by Marie Arana, editor in chief of The Washington Post Book World, reflect the frustrations and pleasures a writer's life entails. The contributors list is impressive: Umberto Eco, Jane Smiley, Wendy Wasserstein, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, Julia Alvarez and, along with numerous others, Julian Barnes. 
I first read Bruce Sesto's book on Julian Barnes when it was titled The Fictional World of Julian Barnes. Submitted as his dissertation to the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1995, Sesto's study of Barnes was typical fare -- mostly plot summary wrapped around light literary theory. When I learned Peter Lang would publish the book in 1999 (and with a new, fancy title, no less), I was excited at the possibility of a thorough reworking of the text. I waited … and waited … I wrote Sesto and was told it would be published soon, so I waited … and waited … and wrote the general editor at Peter Lang. Soon … it would be published soon. Years passed (literally), but finally the book made the slow progression to hardback in November 2001. The suspense, the build-up, the high hopes were quickly squashed, however, because the book is merely a word-for-word copy of Sesto's dissertation. What could have been the holdup?
Julian Barnes is an avid sports enthusiast. He has written about sports of endurance (cycling), accuracy (snooker/golf), and mental fortitude (chess), all with equal interest and respect. Not suprisingly, football, the sport of choice in Barnes's writing, combines all of these characteristics with the qualities of passion and emotion.
Julian Barnes. L’art du mélange (2001) by Vanessa Guignery is the second volume of the new collection Couleurs anglaises directed by Bernard Gilbert at the Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux (France). This collection aims at presenting the works of major or promising British contemporary writers from the perspective of a specialist who wishes to communicate to the reader his/her personal enthusiasm for a work of art. The volumes on David Lodge and Julian Barnes have been published in Autumn 2001; volumes on Kazuo Ishiguro, Graham Swift, Jeanette Winterson, Salman Rushdie and others will soon follow. The books, entirely written in French, are intended for keen readers of British contemporary literature, undergraduate and postgraduate students but also a wider public eager to know more about new forms of writing.
Flaubert’s Parrot de Julian Barnes (2001) by Vanessa Guignery is a scholarly analysis of Julian Barnes’ novel, intended for postgraduate students, particularly those who are preparing the agrégation competitive examination in France. The aim of this study, written in French, is to present a thorough examination of Flaubert’s Parrot so as to determine its specificity and originality in contemporary British literature. Chapter one, "A generic, structural and ontological instability", presents Flaubert’s Parrot as a book which challenges any attempt at categorisation, classification and genre taxonomy, mixes fiction and non-fiction, and simultaneously exploits and subverts the need for structure. Chapter two, "The haunting presence of Gustave Flaubert", traces Julian Barnes’ attachment to Gustave Flaubert and analyses the various forms of Flaubertian metatextuality, intertextuality and hypertextuality in the novel. Chapter three, "The choice of hybridity", focuses first on the circulation of texts in Flaubert’s Parrot which demands that the reader be active and take part in a form of intertextual game, and then on the linguistic medley between English and French, based on contrastive phenomena, literal translations and bilingual puns, whose aim is mainly humorous but also reveals the author’s keen concerns about novelistic techniques. Chapter four, "The figure of the narrator", tackles the question of the possible confusion between author and narrator, and discusses the main features of Geoffrey Braithwaite, a self-conscious and reluctant narrator who wavers between a reluctance to discuss his private life, as emblematised by the indirections, delays, ellipses and gaps in the text, and a willingness to share with the reader the traumatic subject of his wife’s adultery and suicide. Chapter five, "The knowledge of the past", shows how Braithwaite creates a new form of biography which is hybrid, subjective, partial, incomplete and contradictory, hence reflecting the new awareness of the irretrievability of the past. Flaubert’s Parrot presents itself as a historiographic metafiction in which the narrator does not consider historical or biographical knowledge as an unproblematic category, but questions the ways in which we come to know the past.
Julian Barnes’s first novel Metroland depicts the life of Christopher Lloyd from his formative teenage years through his college days and into middleclass life in the suburbs of London. More importantly, the novel reveals the development of Chris’s relationships with his best childhood friend Toni, his Parisian lover Annick, and, as he settles into middle age, his wife Marion. The novel is expertly constructed and finely balanced between these three time periods in Chris’s life. Barnes uses French liberally throughout the novel and includes numerous references to works of literature and art. The novel is highly intelligent, humorous, and strikingly touching as Chris is forced to decide whether the life he is leading as a husband and father is an abandonment of his childhood values and beliefs and, if so, whether he should accept his life or leave Metroland to pursue the dreams he once had.
I first discovered Clive James’s writing while sifting through the back pages of some Observer issues published in the early eighties. His insightful television reviews published during this time helped make his name known to the larger public in England during the 1980s, as had his regular television appearances for the BBC and ITV. James, being Australian, is renowned in that country, as well, having been made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992. In America, however, James’s work remains vastly and sadly under-appreciated. Most likely, much of the problem stems from American’s self-focused interests (not many receive the London Times, let alone the Observer), particularly during the eighties. The continued absence of British television programming in the U.S. doesn’t help, either. What’s so special about Clive James, after all?
Several years ago I became a collector of Julian Barnes books. I had read most of the novels and had acquired the standard set of Picador and Vintage paperbacks, but one act pushed me beyond the realm of mere reader and into the unqualified world of collector. It wasn't my purchase of a signed UK first edition of Staring at the Sun. It's a nice copy, I admit, with a loose and flurried signature by Barnes in blue ball-point pen to someone named Peter with 'best wishes'. I still remember the thrill of owning my first signed title and of wondering what Peter must have been thinking when he took his personalized edition to the used book store. Was he a graduate student, as I was at the time, struggling to pay his tuition? Had his horse come up lame at the track? Did he buy the book new at a signing and, upon flipping through a few pages, decide that Barnes wasn't to his taste? (Surely not!) Did he take trade instead of cash? What titles did he leave with? Did he read those books or leave them to gather dust on some forgotten shelf? I didn't have any answers, but I did feel, as I placed the book on a special shelf in my cramped apartment, that I had rescued this once-cherished book. 
I didn't even own the basic first UK edition of Cross Channel (strangely, I still don't), but here in front of me was the opportunity to acquire one of only fifty copies of a specially signed edition. I am still amazed at the absence of any hesitation as I dialled the listed number and placed my bid: $190. I hung up the phone and my stomach hurt. I had bid nearly a month's rent. To my surprise, I won the auction at $184, including auction fees (shipping and insurance were extra). Despite the shame I felt for having squandered so much money on a stack of paper, I had to admit feeling an undeniable satisfaction when I finally held the book in hand. I had managed to acquire a superbly rare book, the one item I was sure would escape my grasp for the longest period of time, the essential peak of any Barnes collection that strives for completeness. 
In 1992, Julian Barnes travelled to Gennes, France to interview the film director Claude Chabrol. Madame Bovary had been released with Isabelle Huppert playing the role of Emma, and Barnes was writing a piece that would be published in the Observer Magazine. The Chabrol profile is interesting for its insights into the director's nearly obsessive faithfulness to Flaubert's novel, including the fact that Chabrol "established an inventory of all the noises mentioned by Flaubert -- the bird calls, buzzing wasps, animal bleats and baas -- to use as a basis for the soundtrack." Such fidelity to the text seems ironic given the novel's subject matter, but it also serves to raise questions about the nature of storytelling and the translation of the written word into images on celluloid. Barnes briefly comments on what he calls "the question of Book into Film" by asking, "What do we want of it, what is it for, and whom is it for? . . . And for those who know the book, is the film a parallel experience, an extension, or an alternative?" Chabrol offers his view, saying, "I had always believed that cinema and literature were going in the same direction, were companions." 
I cried the first time I read The Truth About Dogs. Tears literally fell down my face. I don't remember now which of the cartoons I read first, whether it was the image of a man checking the bottom of his shoe with the caption "Dogs shit everywhere" or whether it was the series titled "A Comparison of Breeds" that showed various dogs caught in the act, straddled and intent. Whatever it was, it was brilliant. The subtle humor exhibited in Volker Kriegel's collection builds inside you until no amount of restraint can control your laughter. Kriegel's drawings are intelligent and timeless for their insights into both canines and, more importantly, humans. The dogs presented here are surprisingly real. They serve as mirrors of our own laziness, carelessness, crassness, ineptitude, kindness, and silliness. Of special interest to Barnes readers is the thoughtful, considered, and warmly funny introduction that Barnes provides for the collection. 
Kriegel's relationship to Julian Barnes does not end with The Truth About Dogs. For several German editions of Barnes's novels, Volker Kriegel provided illustrations for the dust jackets. As a gifted illustrator, Kriegel could have easily thrown together some generic images to satisfy a deadline, to receive a paycheck and be on his way. What is heartening, however, is the attention to thematic detail and the respect Kriegel shows Barnes's work. The Metroland cover shows the expected train, but notice the gaze and direction of the man's face. Distinctly British, this suited ("settled"?) man stares away from the train toward its destination, leaning for a better look. He does not smile and his general stance reveals an additional insight into the characterization of Metroland's protagonist Chris. 
In one of the best dust jacket illustrations to any Barnes novel, Kriegel presents a woman's belly, thighs, and pubic hair being watched over by a group of men with leering eyes. The scene perfectly matches the sentiment of the novel, suggesting all that Graham Hendrick fears about his wife's former love life. The imagine immediately brings to mind a passage from the chapter "Mister Carwash": 
As you can see, "Literary London" was, and some would argue is still, a web of connections. In the early 1980s, there was talk in the papers of a "Literary Mafia" that consisted of Barnes, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and others, but the truth of the matter was less than what was suggested. True, there were authors who tended to work for similar magazines, eat together, relax together, etc., but the suggestion that these authors somehow controlled the British literary world was unfounded. Too many market forces were entering the picture by the late 1970s. Art was being forced to fend for itself, to make ends meet when the bills came at the end of the month. As Barnes states, "The notion that a literary magazine might receive an Arts Council subsidy was regularly denounced in the press. The fact that the New Review was a large-format glossy and not printed on recycled Bronco was an extra offence." Escaping from creditors was a full-time job. As Barnes and the other contributors to Another Round develop this theme in greater detail, each story adds to the next until one can hardly imagine how Hamilton lived through the New Review experience at all. In the end, any semblance of power or control over art and writing evaporated when Hamilton was forced to end publication of The New Review. The largest and best of the literary dragons had been gutted. 
Most of Another Round deals with Hamilton's New Review days, but a number of contributors recall the struggles of Hamilton's earlier literary publications, including the short-lived Tomorrow Magazine. More impressive was Hamilton's The Review, a poetry journal published for ten years, mostly throughout the 1960s. To look over issues of The Review is to watch the development of a great talent. Not in the contributors, necessarily, but in the editor. Hamilton was The Review and his influence and expectations for quality are what made it one of the most influential poetry journals of all time.
Hamilton's reputation as a literary force only grew with The New Review. He published a new generation of authors, including Ian McEwan's first short stories (detailed in McEwans's entry in Another Round), Martin Amis, and James Fenton. Craig Raine was made books editor and Barnes was made a contributing editor. Small steps, but important ones in the early days of these authors' careers. Hamilton's influence is difficult to judge, but the fact that many of these authors have contributed to his festschrift speaks volumes. Barnes writes, "[Ian] was the Gaffer, and what this means in literary journalism is: someone whose presence and example make you write as well as you are able." What greater testimony could one ask for?
The "copy" Buford "behaved so badly toward" was Barnes's "Emma Bovary Eyes", a chapter from his then upcoming Flaubert's Parrot. There are many texual differences between the Granta text and the final published version, but many of those changes were initiated by Barnes between UK proof and final UK hardback. Decifering which were Buford's contribution without direct guidance from either Barnes or Buford would be too difficult. The truth, as it were, is not recorded.
Barnes's next Granta contribution dealt with kings, as well. "Trap. Dominate. Fuck." traces the events of The Times World Chess Championship between Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short. While skillfully describing the buzz surrounding the events within the match, Barnes also comments on the buzz that surrounded the event of the match itself. Barnes's discussion of chess as a marketable sport is particularly interesting.
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
Julian Barnes, like Flaubert before him, has often stated the importance of separating the author from the novel. "Don't we believe the words enough? Do we think the leavings of a life contain some ancillary truth?" asks Geoffrey Braithwaite in Flaubert's Parrot. Biographical details do not, or should not, offer the reader any greater appreciation of a work of art. "Books are not life, however much we might prefer it if they were" (FP 86), but still we chase the writer by reading the Observer profiles and by advance purchasing the next book of criticism. So what do we expect when faced with Merritt Moseley's Understanding Julian Barnes? That word "understanding" intrigues, as if to say, "Here he is. Finally. Mystery solved." Can it really be that easy? 