Julian Barnes - The Only Story

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Brilliant but slightly flawed

I thought The Only Story was excellent in some parts but that it lost its way a little.  It is, of course, beautifully written throughout with some very poignant observations but struggled to carry the story through to its end.

The story begins with a nineteen-year-old Paul in the mid-1960s in a "respectable" Surrey village, who falls for and eventually begins an affair with an older, married woman whom he meets at the Tennis Club.  Julian Barnes uses this as a device to reflect on youth and its lack of care for consequences, on love and on the progress of lives, including the slowly growing crises that may overwhelm them.

For much of its length I found it excellent.  Barnes is insightful and slightly resignedly compassionate to his characters, who all seem exceptionally real and well-drawn to me.  His prose is wonderful; elegant, poised, sometimes very witty and very easy to read.  The narrative is partly in Paul's first-person voice which I thought caught the mind of a middle-class nineteen-year-old at that time beautifully.  I highlighted a lot of examples, like this, for example: "I was keen in those days to find hidden motives – preferably involving hypocrisy – behind the obvious ones."  Period is perfectly painted in attitudes, language and the general background.  He is very good on memory – the idiotic details we do remember and the important things we don't, and its unreliability.  He sums it up well in the phrase, "But I'm remembering the past, not reconstructing it."

The final third of the novel is in the third person (but jumps to first person briefly, which I found simply annoying) and although it's thoughtful and intelligent, it read to me less like the conclusion to a novel and rather more like an essay on the way a life can begin with real passion and ideals and then be lived at a slightly sad, reserved level.  For two-thirds of the book I was very involved with the story of Paul and Susan, but the long, rather bleak and melancholy conclusion didn't work quite so well.  It is full of truth and insight – but perhaps not really a story.

Despite this reservation, The Only Story is beautifully written and has lots of real insight.  I can still recommend it warmly. 

(My thanks to Jonathan Cape/Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley.)