The Noise of Time, by Julian Barnes

A full house met at the Coeur de Lion in Bath, 7^th September 2017.

The group came to this book having surprisingly not read any Julian Barnes as one of our choices, though some did indulge in an off-piste assignment when he came to the Bath Lit Festival a few years ago. We were all to a greater or lesser degree familiar with his work – some more with his earlier books such as Metroland, others with more recent novels.

The response was broadly pretty positive. It’s a book about the Russian composer Shostakovich – a kind of ‘novelistic biography’ as one of us had it. Well-structured, well written and therefore pretty easy to engage with. One or two did find the early sections harder to connect with, and only felt some kind of momentum was achieved later in the book as the narrative gained some kind of life of its own.

With one exception none of us was on more than nodding terms with Shostakovich’s work. Some took the opportunity to investigate and the comment was made that it was interesting that he ranges from pomp and bombast (his 5^th Symphony) to much more avant gard stylings in his maligned ‘Lady Macbeth’ opera, and that the latter, while initially wildly popular, became reviled under the influence of the Party (‘Power’), before being restored to grace in his later years.

We found interesting insights into the life of a self-confessedly flawed character: Eager to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with his early liaisons we see a man increasingly beset by self doubt, torn between achieving the best expression for his artistic output and, basically, toeing the line. His questioning of the nature of courage, of whether man is a coward if he does what he needs to do to save his life, of the concept of engineering of the soul – these uncertainties were pitched against an apparent sureness that he was best off in Russia, that his former friend and ally Stravinsky has more or less’ sold out’ by setting in America and was to be afforded no sympathy, nor extended the hand of friendship later in life. Bridges were burned.

A comparison was drawn with Dostoyevsky. Lest we should give the impression that we all spend our days with our noses in one gigantic Russian novel or other, it should be pointed out that no-one else in the group was in a position to support or indeed contradict this, but it’s recorded for what it is worth – was Barnes deliberately drawing a comparison with Crime and Punishment, which similarly features a protagonist who, over the course of the book, becomes increasingly introspective?

Several of us were most engaged by the overview of life in Soviet Russia that the book afforded. It’s a compelling ‘biography’ – much more worthwhile than the usual rather tedious shopping lists of all kinds of information that no-one really need to know. Here, Barnes weaves the facts into a narrative that, without ever lapsing into ‘Then he did this, then he did that’, succeeds in painting a vivid and fascinating picture of someone that we really didn’t know too much about.

The book wasn’t without its flaws for some but no-one really took against it.

We gave it an average score of 7.5 out of 10. The conversation progressed across and round Soviet Russia, travel in general and heaven knows what else.

The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes

Meeting at: Forester & Flower, August 30th
Well, as a last-minute appearance by Chris W boosted the numbers for the evening from 4 to 5 and Mark Th has already read the book too, we felt the meeting deserved a write up, although Chris B clearly got impatient with me to do this and went ahead and put his notes up here anyway, so my unreliable re-telling of his comments won't be required at least.

Four of us chose the book by mutual consent having agreed that despite there being a small number of us available to meet in August we would meet up anyway. Sense of an Ending is a relatively short book at under 200 pages, but was nevertheless winner of the 2011 Man Booker prize, something a couple of people found surprising. Despite this most of us there seemed to have enjoyed it to a greater or lesser degree.

I found the easy style of the book engaging and it was a nice fluid read, although I hadn't found the back cover synopsis that appealing.  I found it to be an excellent example of storytelling even if, similar to Chris B, I did find the plot structure lacked some credibility at times and it seemed to me that certain elements were mere plot devices which were somewhat contrived, but were nevertheless extremely well used once established.  So I agreed with Chris B that the reasons for Adrian's suicide were questionable and for Veronica's obtusity, but I put them down to being essential for the plot to work.  I found some of the scenarios entertaining and so convincingly described that they became very vivid in my minds eye, and despite being somewhat the anti-hero, I found myself empathising with our protagonist.

Mark T loved the book and also liked the central character a good deal.  The book raised lots of questions for him, none more so than what relationship Adrian or Tony had with Veronica's mother. Overall he found it clever and enjoyable.

Richard found the book to be one of two halves to borrow a footballing pharse. He really enjoyed the first half with such a detailed account of someone's life but was then frustrated that given how well that had been done we were denied any detailed explanation of what had happened in the intervening 30-odd years.  It had echoes for Richard of Chesil Beach and even the Magus (which Mark T also related to) and he was impressed by Barnes' understanding of the way memory works and how memories change over time with sometimes startling impact.(Could this be a theme we come back to as memory plays such a key part in our next two books as well?).

Chris W had not long started reading the book and had some way to go, but was not put off by the fact that we had in effect told him the key elements of what was going to happen later on.  He found Barnes' style to be very perceptive of people and very evocative of the era described in the first part and which he was nearly old enough to remember himself.  He described the prose as "meaty" and often found himself re-reading passages because he took pleasure from how they had been written.

Chris B has added his own comments:

What a suitable book for me and perhaps all of us. The thoughts and adventures of a man in his early sixties  He looks back on his life as a schoolboy, student, worker, lover, husband, father, divorcee and pensioner.  And his student relationships come back to haunt him.

I liked the chatty style and the wry observations on life and relationships, on growing up and on coming to the other end of one's life. The detective story element is intriguing and Tony's differing interpretation of events as he discovers more about the past is very true to life. It is clever to make interesting a character who by his own admission is not the most exciting in the world. Things I didn't like were not being clear by the end on why Adrian (senior) had committed suicide: because he came to a logical conclusion that life wasn't worth living (not just for him but for anyone) or because he had made his girlfriend's mother pregnant? Or Tony's horrible letter? Or all three? Why should it have been so terrible for the latter to have happened? And why is Veronica so obtuse? We know she can behave unexpectedly and is a woman of more mystery than clarity, but why would she not have explained some of the history to Tony, even if she had done so with anger and grief? It makes an interesting personal detective story but seems a bit far fetched. Also, if the main character is 60, I find it odd he is already planning for his own death. But maybe that is just me denying the advance of age.

Though I really liked the reflections on life at and from the perspective of 60, in the end, I found this rather a slight book. So I am not sure why it won the prize. I give it a score of 6.2. 

We know that Mark TH has read the book so we would welcome his comments on it and indeed if others want to read this it is only a short affair so if time allows we can then give it a score reflective of the whole group.

The evening continued with a discussion that ranged from how the authorities are able to study patterns of drug use by analysing household waste water for entire geographical areas, or by analysing individual hairs for individual people, to whether or not the group should start meeting earlier to allow more time for such leisurely chat. Indeed other rather controversial suggestions were brought up as to whether or not meetings could not only start earlier in future, but might even include food and eating.  I shall leave the co-ordination of such radical ideas to our esteemed chairman once he returns from his holiday, but first step might be to see if we could bring forward the meeting time to 8pm or earlier? Finally the kitty was emptied on the evening so there is none to carry forward.

Happy Reading!  Neil