A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich--Julian Barnes's first novel since his best-selling, Man Booker Prize-winningThe Sense of an Ending

1936: Shostakovich, just thirty, fears for his livelihood and his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has taken a sudden interest in his work and denounced his latest opera. Now, certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, shot dead on the spot), he reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, various women and wives, his daughter--all of those hanging in the balance of his fate. And though a stroke of luck prevents him from becoming yet another casualty of the Great Terror, for years to come he will be held fast under the thumb of despotism: made to represent Soviet values at a cultural conference in New York City, forced into joining the Party, and compelled, constantly, to weigh appeasing those in power against the integrity of his music. Barnes elegantly guides us through the trajectory of Shostakovich's career, at the same time illuminating the tumultuous evolution of the Soviet Union. The result is both a stunning portrait of a relentlessly fascinating man and a brilliant meditation on the meaning of art and its place in society.

As Julian Barnes writes in the introduction to his superb translation of Alphonse Daudet’s La Doulou, the mostly forgotten writer nowadays “ate at the top literary table” during his lifetime (1840–1897). Henry James described him as “the happiest novelist” and “the most charming story-teller” of his day. Yet if Daudet dined in the highest company, he was also “a member of a less enviable nineteenth-century French club: that of literary syphilitics.” In the Land of Pain—notes toward a book never written—is his timelessly resonant response to the disease.

In quick, sharp, unflinching strokes of his pen, Daudet wrote about his symptoms (“This is me: the one-man-band of pain”) and his treatments (“Mor-phine nights . . . thick black waves, sleepless on the surface of life, the void beneath”); about his fears and reflections (“Pain, you must be everything for me. Let me find in you all those foreign lands you will not let me visit. Be my philosophy, be my science”); his impressions of the patients, himself included, and their strange life at curative baths and spas (“Russians, both men and women, go into the baths naked . . . Alarm among the Southerners”); and about the “clever way in which death cuts us down, but makes it look like just a thinning-out.”

Given Barnes’s crystalline translation, these notes comprise a record—at once shattering and lighthearted, haunting and beguiling—of both the banal and the transformative experience of physical suffering, and a testament to the complex resiliency of the human spirit.

PAR LA FENETRE - BARNES JULIAN - Sodis

Tony Webster ha alle spalle un'esistenza ordinaria, al riparo dalle emozioni e da qualsiasi stravaganza, un discreto rapporto con la ex moglie e con la figlia, e si avvia a una tranquilla vecchiaia. Ma a scompigliare la sua vita arrivano 500 sterline e il diario di Adrian, brillante compagno d'università morto suicida. Un'inattesa e misteriosa eredità che lo costringe a rivedere radicalmente le sue memorie del passato e l'immagine di sé.

La mattina del 29 gennaio 1936 la terza pagina della 'Pravda' commentava la recente esecuzione al Bol'soj della 'Lady Macbeth del distretto di Mcensk' di Dmitrij Sostakovic titolando 'Caos anziche musica' e accusando l'opera di accarezzare 'il gusto morboso del pubblico borghese con una musica inquieta e nevrastenica'. Non si trattava solo della recensione negativa capace di rovinare la giornata di un artista. Neppure della stroncatura in grado di distruggergli la carriera. Nell'Età del terrore del compagno Stalin un editoriale del genere, e il conseguente stigma di nemico del popolo, poteva interrompere la vita stessa. E dunque puntuale, per il celebre Sostakovic, giunge il primo di una serie di colloqui con il Potere. È una trappola senza vie d'uscita, quella che gli si tende - piegarsi alla delazione o soccombere -, e Sostakovic si dispone all'attesa dell'ineluttabile. Al calar della notte, per dieci notti consecutive, esce dall'appartamento che divide con la moglie Nita e la figlioletta Galja e si sistema accanto all'ascensore che presumibilmente portera i suoi aguzzini, meditando fino all'alba sul suo destino e quello del suo tempo. Ma le vie dei regimi sono imperscrutabili, l'interrogatore può facilmente trasformarsi in interrogato e il reprobo salvarsi, addirittura essere 'perdonato'.

An extraordinary collection—hawk-eyed and understanding—from the Man Booker Prize–winning, best-selling author ofThe Sense of an Ending and Levels of Life.

As Julian Barnes notes: “Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting . . . But it is a rare picture that stuns, or argues, us into silence. And if one does, it is only a short time before we want to explain and understand the very silence into which we have been plunged.”

This is the exact dynamic that informs his new book. In his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Barnes had a chapter on Géricault’sThe Raft of the Medusa, and since then he has written about many great masters of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, including Delacroix, Manet, Fantin-Latour, Cézanne, Degas, Redon, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vallotton, Braque, Magritte, Oldenburg, Lucian Freud and Howard Hodgkin. The seventeen essays gathered here help trace the arc from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism; they are adroit, insightful and, above all, a true pleasure to read.

Al professore che lo interroga, Christopher Lloyd ama rispondere 'J'habite Metroland', adoperando il nome di una fermata della storica Metropolitan Line di Londra, 'meglio di Eastwick, più esotico di Middlesex', per indicare la sonnacchiosa periferia urbana in cui vive. 'Uno abitava in quella zona perché da li era facile andarsene', osserva Chris, che ad andarsene, insieme all'inseparabile amico Toni Barbarowski, come lui sedicenne, come lui francofilo e arrabbiato, come lui appassionato di arte e ragazze, si prepara con metodo. Nel frattempo i due aspiranti flâneurs, fedeli ai dettami dei loro numi tutelari Baudelaire, Gautier e Nerval, cercano modi casalinghi per 'épater la bourgeoisie': condurre arditi esperimenti sensoriali alla National Gallery, occhieggiare le donne attraverso un binocolo, elaborare pretenziose teorie esistenziali, farsi gioco di chiunque capiti a tiro, 'gli scemi, i capiclasse, gli insegnanti, i genitori, mio fratello e mia sorella, la Terza divisione nord, Molière, Dio, la borghesia e l'uomo della strada', e attendere che cominci la Vita Vera. Chris se la va a cercare, qualche anno più tardi, a Parigi, con un inutile progetto accademico postlaurea ma, risucchiato nel vortice di Lawrence Durrell e i caffè sui boulevards, il cinema di Bresson e le lenzuola del suo primo amore Annick, quando la Vita Vera gli corre incontro non la riconosce...

La 'pura e semplice storia' di questo romanzo è quella di un vedovo, Geoffrey Braithwaite, medico inglese, in viaggio nei luoghi del suo autore di culto: Gustave Flaubert. Una sorta di pellegrinaggio fisico, ma soprattutto intellettuale alla ricerca di un frammento di verità possibile sulla vita, gli amori, gli amici, i vizi, le meschinità e la grandezza dell'impareggiabile maestro francese. Ma può mai essere pura una storia, e può forse essere semplice? A complicare ogni vita e perfino ogni biografia, vale a dire il preteso riassunto oggettivo di un'esistenza è la miriade di dettagli, il moltiplicarsi degli sguardi, l'affievolirsi e la costante fallacia della memoria. E il caso che, nella modesta avventura di Braithwaite, si presenta sotto forma di un pappagallo impagliato custodito nel museo di Rouen, forse proprio lo stesso esemplare che accompagnò la stesura di 'Un coeur simple'. Forse proprio Loulou, che la morente Félicité trasforma, nell'ultima pagina del racconto, in una visione mistica, salvifica, struggente e grottesca dello Spirito Santo. Ridimensionando fino al ridicolo le proprie ambizioni, e costeggiando da presso il confine del maniacale, Braithwaite si mette perciò sulle tracce del 'pappagallo di Flaubert', avanzo impagliato di una verità inattingibile. Frattanto lo scintillante tesoro di splendori e miserie di Gustave Flaubert è offerto al lettore in una varietà di generi e stili...

L'ambizione del Pedante è semplice. Vuole cucinare cibi saporiti e nutrienti, evitando di avvelenare gli amici. E ampliare, in modo graduale e piacevole, il suo repertorio culinario. Critico severo di se stesso e degli altri, sa che non inventerà mai nessuna ricetta (anche se in qualche occasione potrebbe, in un accesso di entusiasmo, aumentare le dosi di un ingrediente che gli piace). Perché, a dire il vero, segue pedissequamente le ricette altrui. Quando si interroga su queste ricette e su chi le ha create, ecco farsi strada la vera pedanteria del Pedante. Quanto è grande un 'tocchetto', a quanto corrisponde un''innaffiatina' o un 'goccio', a che punto una 'spruzzata' diventa una pioggia? E qual è la differenza tra sminuzzare e tritare? Lungo il percorso Barnes si lascia sedurre da Jane Grigson e se la prende con Nigel Slater. È affascinato dalle ricette di Édouard de Pomiane e rassicurato dalle virtù vittoriane di Mrs Beeton. Il 'Pedante in Cucina' è il racconto della ricerca della precisione gastronomica o, come ha scritto l'Herald Tribune, 'un piccolo capolavoro di arguzia descrittiva' che risolleverà gli animi di tutti quelli che si sono lasciati prendere dallo sconforto davanti a un libro di ricette.

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2011

The powerful, unsettling, and beautifully crafted new novel from one of England's greatest contemporary writers.

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour, and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is retired. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove.

The Sense of an Ending is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity, and insight, it is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers.

A complete and unabridged reading by Richard Morant.

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2011

The powerful, unsettling, and beautifully crafted new novel from one of England's greatest contemporary writers.

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour, and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is retired. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove.

The Sense of an Ending is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity, and insight, it is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers.

A complete and unabridged reading by Richard Morant.

Man Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot deals with Flaubert, parrots, bears and railways; with our sense of the past and our sense of abroad; with France and England, life and art, sex and death, George Sand and Louise Colet, aesthetics and redcurrant jam; and with its enigmatic narrator, a retired English doctor, whose life and secrets are slowly revealed.

Selected as one of the Telegraph's 50 Best Summer Reads, 2009.

This audiobook is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with Julian Barnes' brother (a philosopher), a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and homage to the French writer Jules Renard.

Though Barnes warns us that 'this is not my autobiography,' the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.

Selected as one of the Telegraph's 50 Best Summer Reads, 2009.

This audiobook is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with Julian Barnes' brother (a philosopher), a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and homage to the French writer Jules Renard.

Though Barnes warns us that 'this is not my autobiography,' the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.

An NPR Best Book of the Year
A Daily Candy Best Book of the Year

Julian Barnes, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel The Sense of an Ending, gives us his most powerfully moving book yet, beginning in the nineteenth century and leading seamlessly into an entirely personal account of loss—making Levels of Life an immediate classic on the subject of grief.

Levels of Life is a book about ballooning, photography, love and loss; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart. One of the judges who awarded Barnes the 2011 Booker Prize described him as “an unparalleled magus of the heart.” This book confirms that opinion.

“Spare and beautiful...a book of rare intimacy and honesty about love and grief. To read it is a privilege. To have written it is astonishing.” —Ruth Scurr, The Times of London

“A remarkable narrative that is as raw in its emotion as it is characteristically elegant in its execution.” —Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

From the Hardcover edition.

'You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.…'

Julian Barnes's Levels of Life is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart.

One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described him as 'an unparalleled magus of the heart.' This book confirms that opinion.

"You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.…"

Julian Barnes's Levels of Life is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart.

One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described him as "an unparalleled magus of the heart." This book confirms that opinion.

Clare Higgins, Alex Jennings, and Steven Pacey read Man Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes's "he said, she said" novel.

Introducing Stuart, Gillian and Oliver. One by one they take their turn to speak straight out to the camera—and give their side of a contemporary love triangle. What begins as a comedy of misunderstanding slowly darkens and deepens into a compelling exploration of the quagmires of the heart.

In his widely acclaimed collection of stories, Julian Barnes addresses what is perhaps the most poignant aspect of the human condition: growing old.

The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of their lives—some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and others still with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied as their responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversations provide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, a retired army major heads into the city for his regimental dinner—and his annual appointment with a professional lady named Babs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments) her ailing husband by reading him recipes.

In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it one way or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever, and profound—a writer of astonishing powers of empathy and invention.

Man Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes' debut novel.

The adolescent Christopher and his soul mate Toni had sneered at the stifling ennui of Metroland, their cosy patch of suburbia on the Metropolitan line. They had longed for Life to begin—meaning Sex and Freedom—to travel and choose their own clothes.

Then Chris, at thirty, starts to settle comfortably into bourgeois contentment himself. Luckily, Toni is still around to challenge such backsliding.

As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife–their fates become inextricably connected.

In Arthur & George, Julian Barnes explores the grand tapestry of late-Victorian Britain to create his most intriguing and engrossing novel yet.

As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife–their fates become inextricably connected.

In Arthur & George, Julian Barnes explores the grand tapestry of late-Victorian Britain to create his most intriguing and engrossing novel yet.