Like the character in Sense of an Ending there's something about Julian Barnes that I just 'don't get'. He writes beautifully and the writing is always compelling, I never want to just leave the book half finished, but when I read newspaper reviews they seem to find the writing so much more profound than I do.

So the plot of this novel is fairly straightforward - a teenage boy meets and falls in love with a married woman of 48. They are together for around 15 years on and off. Now in his 60s he is looking back on his life, moving in the narrative from first to second to third person - an interesting device as ordinarily our younger selves feel more distant than our current selves but I suspect this is to illustrate where the experience is more powerful and immediate.

There is much musing along the way about the nature of love (as well as good sex, bad sex, sad sex) and it is a poignant read certainly. But I really didn't get it - I'm sure in a month I'll read a lot of reviews in the papers describing this as sublime and I hope they help me see things I haven't at the moment, but as of now it isn't showing me anything revealing about the nature of love (either at a gut or intellectual level) that feels fresh. I'll be interested to see what other Netgalley readers think.

Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there’s only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.

Everyone has their love story. Everyone. It may have been a fiasco, it may have fizzled out, it may never even have got going, it may have been all in the mind, that doesn’t make it any less real. Sometimes, it makes it more real. Sometimes, you see a couple, and they seem bored witless with one another, and you can’t imagine them having anything in common, or why they’re still living together. But it’s not just habit or complacency or convention or anything like that. It’s because once, they had their love story. Everyone does. It’s the only story

The book is narrated by Paul some 50 years after, as a 19 year old, he commenced an affair with a much older, woman Susan, after the two are picked as mixed doubles partners (“chosen by lot” as the two remark at intervals later) and consists of her memories of their lengthy relationship.

But here’s the first problem. If this is your only story, then it’s the one you have most often told and retold, even if –as is the case here –mainly to yourself. The question then is: do all these retellings bring you closer to the truth of what happened, or move you further away?

You understand, I hope, that I’m telling you everything as I remember it ……. I think there’s a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer …..

Immediately then we recognise that Barnes is returning to some of the same themes and ideas as in his novel “Sense of An Ending” – which of course, won the Booker prize, against an infamouslonglist picked by Stella Rimmington and her fellow jurors to be “readable”. Perhaps ironically, Sense of An Ending failed to win the Costa Prize in the same year (the prize explicitly designed to rewardbooks which make reading enjoyable) despite being shortlisted.

That book featured a narrator with unreliable memory and self-delusion, and an apparent resolution of a mystery at the end of the novel (albeit with the reader believing the actual truth may still differ). This novel is very different – the narrator is well aware of the subjectivity of his own memories and the ways in which he lied to himself over time, the only realy mystery here is in the narrator trying to understand his true views on his experiences, and there is no resolution to be had there by narrator or reader.

The initial affair commences in a village in respectable, middle class, suburban Surrey, in the early 1960s (Paul one of the first intakes to Sussex University).

At first Paul comments

The time, the place, the social milieu? I’m not sure how important they are in stories about love. Perhaps in the old days, in the classics, where there are battles between love and duty, love and religion, love and family, love and the state. This isn’t one of those stories. But still, if you insist. The time: more than fifty years ago. The place: about fifteen miles south of London.

But the reader realises that the social conventions of the time are key to the novel – in particular a certain type of English resolution to avoid addressing difficult situations, and later Paul reflects

Another thing he had come to understand. He had imagined that, in the modern world, time and place were no longer relevant to stories of love. Looking back, he saw that they had played a greater part in his story than he ever realized. He had given in to the old, continuing, ineradicable delusion: that lovers somehow stand outside of time.

And in those two paragraphs something else changes – the first is in the second person, the second in the third person, and this is another important and distinctive aspect to the novel – as Paul looks back on his only story, the story of his first love, his tale changes over time in person – broadly starting in the first person (in the flush of the lengthy initial affair – carried out with Susan’s husband’s clear knowledge but also disgust), moving to the second person (as the relationship matures and Susan leaves her husband and becomes more difficult as Susan begins to drink) and then to the third person (as Susan lapse into complete alcoholism can no longer be denied or ignored), before poignantly returning to the first person. This progression is not entirely smooth and is mixed up with a much more irregular variation in tense between present and past.

Two crucial passages address this directly:

And first love always happens in the overwhelming first person. How can it not? Also, in the overwhelming present tense. It takes us time to realize that there are other persons, and other tenses.

And

For instance, he thought he probably wouldn’t have sex again before he died. Probably. Possibly. Unless. But on balance, he thought not. Sex involved two people. Two persons, first person and second person: you and I, you and me. But nowadays, the raucousness of the first person within him was stilled. It was as if he viewed, and lived, his life in the third person. Which allowed him to assess it more accurately, he believed.

Many themes, phrases (“a washed out generation”, Susan’s husband hitting a ball as though he hates it) and ideas which Paul remembers (or in some cases imagines/dreams) recur throughout the book - for example an “indelible image which had pursued him down his life: of being at an upstairs window, holding on to Susan by the wrists”.

Paul also collects in a notebook famous sayings on love, deleting or adding them as his ideas on love change – over time he realises that many concepts about love, and their exact opposites, apparently are equally true, and perhaps, and one of his favourite phrases is:

In love, everything is both true and false; it’s the one subject on which it’s impossible to say anything absurd

And ultimately, reflecting on his life-defining, joyous but impossibly difficult relationship with Susan, he reflects on the profound lines from Tennyson, which are so well known as to be almost banal, but which nevertheless get at the heart of the great unresolvable in Paul’s story:

One entry in his notebook was, of course: ‘It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ That was there for a few years; then he crossed it out. Then he wrote it in again; then he crossed it out again. Now he had both entries side by side, one clear and true, the other crossed out and false.

I did find a small number of false notes – which seemed out of place in what is otherwise a meticulously crafted novel (just as we would expect from Barnes) - - a football terrace chant and most oddly of all (if acknowledged as such by Paul) a crassly obscene suggestion to Susan involving root vegetables. Other odd notes seem to have been randomly lifted from other writers. For example there is a passage on an interesting but rather detailed list of reasons on why people do crosswords (with various sub-bullets added) – which almost reminds me of Magnus Mills; a concept taken from a Formula One race commentary which stands out for its specificity (with the location of the race and the driver and commentator involved) in a book of generalizations, and perhaps reminds me more of Ian McEwan; and an obsession with Susan’s “precious ears with their elegant helices” which can only have been lifted straight from Murakami.

But much of the imagery is very memorable – I particularly enjoyed

To remember her back to what he still thought of as her innocence: an innocence of soul. Before such innocence became defaced. Yes, that was the word for it: a scribbling-over with the wild graffiti of booze.

And the book contains much wisdom on love in particular, my favourite:

Nowadays, at the other end of life, I have a rule of thumb about whether or not two people are having an affair: if you think they might be, then they definitely are.

Overall an excellent book – and one which poses already a quandry for this year’s Booker committee. Do they short/longlist it and get accused of conventionality (Barnes has been shortslisted for the Booker three times before winning it) or do they omit and thus ignore what is already I think likely to be one of the deservedly widest read literary books of 2018.

My thanks to Penguin Random House UK for an ARC via NetGalley.

“Would you rather love more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.”

Paul looks back at his life and the love of his life, Susan. He met her when he was only 19, she, at the time, was almost 30 years older, but fascinated by the boy. She was married, had her place in society, was experienced and could teach him how to love. For years they had an affair, then they ran away, and then their life crumbled and fell apart. Susan fell apart. Taking her away from her well-settled life-style did not do her good, but Paul was in love. As he had always been. She was the love of his life. His only love. His only love story. Until he couldn’t go on anymore. But loving her he never stopped, until the very end. And he could never and didn’t ever want to find another woman to love in the same way.

After writing certain kinds of biographies about Shostakovich and Sarah Bernhardt, Julian Barnes returns with a novel about the greatest topic in literature: love. And it is not meant to end well, like most of the great love stories; neither Romeo and Juliet nor Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary found the love they dreamt of and could live it.

The story is told from elderly Paul’s perspective. Many decades have passed when he remembers how it all began, but he does not judge his younger self, nor smile at his naiveté. He takes young Paul just like he was: innocent, inexperienced and with great expectations. There were adults around him telling him that he was just dreaming and naive – but this did not keep him from falling for the elder woman. His unconditional love and admiration for Susan are compelling, but the reader senses that this will not end well. However, it does not turn out as expected since Susan is not the woman she seemed to be. Taken from her natural surroundings, she is completely lost. Her roots are cut and she does not get a grip on the new life.

It is a sad story, but Paul doesn’t regret it:

“What he did regret was that he had been too young, too ignorant, too absolutist, too confident of what he imagined love’s nature and working to be.”

Julian Barnes is a great writer, he knows how to tell a story, how to pace it perfectly and he finds the right words to have his characters express themselves. What I liked especially throughout the novel was the search for a definition of what the big four-letter-word ultimately means. He concludes that it can be happy or unhappy but it surely will be “a real disaster once you give yourself over to it entirely”. Well, that’s it maybe, surrendering yourself, come what may and adhering to it.

A wonderfully told novel, sad but enchanting.

"Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there’s only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine."

In The Only Story, Barnes revisits a subject he explored in [book:The Sense of an Ending|10746542]: the unreliable narrator, an older man looking back on his youth and trying to make sense of it. In the former book, we as readers worked out the inconsistency in the narration. Here, Paul, our narrator, is clear from the beginning that he cannot claim to be accurate:

"I'm not necessarily putting it down in the order that it happened. I think there’s a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer. Do we have access to the algorithm of its priorities? Probably not. But I would guess that memory prioritises whatever is most useful to help keep the bearer of those memories going."

What we are presented with, then, is Paul’s attempt to collect his thoughts and feelings about events from 50-or-so years ago when, as a 19-year-old, he was involved in an affair with a much older woman. The events he is remembering, for the main part of the book, took place in England in the 1960s and social commentary plays an important part in the story alongside the events Paul is recollecting:

"…what might the neighbours think, and who might subsequently refuse to come for sherry?"

And

"The fact that it would never come to court, that middle-class England had a thousand ways of avoiding the truth, that respectability was no more shed in public than clothes…"

But, primarily, related in the first person, we read of Paul's meeting with and then affair with Susan. Then, related in the second person, we read about it starting to fall apart. Then related in the third person, we read about Paul's life afterwards. That’s a simplification, and there is actually a mixture of first, second and third person narration at times, but it gives you an idea. There is perhaps a clue about this in the following:

”Sex involved two people. Two persons, first person and second person: you and I, you and me. But nowadays, the raucousness of the first person within him was stilled. It was as if he viewed, and lived, his life in the third person. Which allowed him to assess it more accurately, he believed.”

It is as if Barnes is seeing youth as a time of self-centredness, all about me, with middle-age then bringing a sense of reflection and older-age leading to the third person, more detached assessment mentioned in the quote.

The three ages of man: me, you and he.

It would not be right to discuss the events of the book as that would spoil it. But Barnes is writing from his position as a man in his 70s who has observed life and has a gift to be able to write things down in a way that makes them sound obvious even if you haven’t especially thought them through. He writes a lot about love and a lot about the ageing process (there are many similarities with The Sense of an Ending, I think).

On love, he borrows a quote from elsewhere more than once:

"'In love, everything is both true and false; it’s the one subject on which it’s impossible to say anything absurd.'"

On ageing, he makes comments such as:

"Strange how, when you are young, you owe no duty to the future; but when you are old, you owe a duty to the past. To the one thing you can’t change."

And

"Back then, it had sounded like a counsel of despair; now, it struck him as normal, and emotionally practical."

This is a book filled with observations that could only really come from an older person. Sadly, I am getting to the age where I can relate to far too many of them (although I am about 10-12 years younger than Paul in the book). A sad story of love that goes wrong and the impact of that on the people involved. It is beautifully written - it is not often I sit and read over 200 pages with barely even a comfort break.

My thanks to Penguin Random House UK for a free ARC via NetGalley.

The bitter-sweet reminiscences of a transgressive love affair also create an evocative depiction of 1960’s Home County middle-class society, with its repressive sexual mores and restrictive expectations. As Paul recollects his past life, the immediacy and intimacy of the account varies as the narrative voice shifts between first, second and third person.
Paul scrupulously analyses the accuracy of his memory, and muses on the 'familiar question' of its nature, recognising that memory is unreliable and biased, ‘but in which direction?… an optimistic memory might make it easier to part from life, might soften the pain of extinction.’
A poignant and beautifully nuanced meditation, from a master of fiction, on what love is and can do, over time.

In 1963, a 19 year old student starts an affair with a 48 year old woman: a relationship that starts easily, which he believes is love...

This is very easy to read with some gentle humour in the first half, as well as indicators of the cruelty of lovers (Susan's nickname for her mild, dull husband is Mr Elephant Pants because of his vast grey trousers!), but ultimately I found it more telling for the social history, the sexual mores and expectations of the 1960s than especially insightful about love.

The narrative switches subtly through 1st, 2nd and 3rd person as our narrator distances himself from his own story before returning to it at the end. A quick read, cleverly written but not one which will linger in my mind - 3.5 stars.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.

The Only Story is a novel about love told by a narrator who is remembering how a youthful passion turned into something far more demanding that reverberates throughout his life. Paul is nineteen and meets a woman at his local tennis club. She’s not who his parents want for him, but Paul doesn’t care. As he gets older, their love stays complicated, and Paul’s life takes an unexpected route.

The narrative is being told from memory by the narrator Paul, with a fifty year long gap and numerous musings on telling stories and ways of remembering detail. This style gives it a clever, literary tone and a sense of being a reflection on love and how it fits into a person’s life or takes it over. The story itself strikes a depressing chord, dealing with alcoholism and elements of domestic abuse, but also how love isn’t always enough of a tie to somebody.

The focus is on the writing and the ideas of love and memory rather than on a fast or exciting narrative, so this is one for literary fiction fans who enjoy that kind of book. It can be a little uncomfortable at times, but the writing style stands out.