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thomasgoddard's review against another edition
4.0
Got told that I'd love Barnes and I wasn't disappointed.
This is a fantastic collection of short stories that revolve around the themes of old age and death. That's pretty standard for me. I'm bound to love a collection if it's about mortality.
The stories are smart, sharp and dry-humoured.
His writing is a little old-guard, so his characters are quite repugnant. Just watch out for that if you're not a fan of realism. Me... I like characters that feel real. Warts and all.
I think more collections like this should exist. Picking a theme and really digging into it is hugely rewarding for a reader. A novel tackles a theme from a few perspectives, maybe. But so many short stories mean that you're tackling it from so many different directions that you get this sense of pace and clarity.
And, of course, they bump into each other in your brain. It forms connections. Relationships.
Best stories:
✒️ A Short History Of Hairdressing
✒️ Hygiene
✒️ Knowing French
There's a lot of skill demonstrated here. Highly recommended.
This is a fantastic collection of short stories that revolve around the themes of old age and death. That's pretty standard for me. I'm bound to love a collection if it's about mortality.
The stories are smart, sharp and dry-humoured.
His writing is a little old-guard, so his characters are quite repugnant. Just watch out for that if you're not a fan of realism. Me... I like characters that feel real. Warts and all.
I think more collections like this should exist. Picking a theme and really digging into it is hugely rewarding for a reader. A novel tackles a theme from a few perspectives, maybe. But so many short stories mean that you're tackling it from so many different directions that you get this sense of pace and clarity.
And, of course, they bump into each other in your brain. It forms connections. Relationships.
Best stories:
✒️ A Short History Of Hairdressing
✒️ Hygiene
✒️ Knowing French
There's a lot of skill demonstrated here. Highly recommended.
margotrizzi's review against another edition
2.0
The second story in here is soooo good I wrote down so many quotes. A lot of the rest of them just went over my head I think.
marthaos's review against another edition
3.0
This book of short stories by Julian Barnes was both entertaining and mildly melancholic. Barnes has a way of writing about death, with gravitas and insight, but also with levity and humour. Such was the writing in “Levels of Life” and “The Sense of an Ending”.
These stories were written from various voices, some female, some male, mostly English, but also American and European; but the common thread seemed to be people who were aging. As such, questions of mortality, illness and death prevailed, and if not always blatantly addressed, lurked darkly overhead. The tone was overwhelmingly middle class, and there was much attention given to food, another theme that linked the stories.
However I felt that the author’s voice was too present in these stories, and the stories themselves were too similar to one another to make a satisfying collection. Read independently of one another, they are all strong stories, but read as part of a collection, none really stood out for me. Even the clever “Knowing French”, where the fictional protagonist addresses Barnes, the author in a series of letters, failed to stand apart as an excellent piece, despite its clever premise. The theme, voice and tone was too similar to the other stories to endure in lasting memory, in my opinion.
Overall this collection was very readable. The writing, as always, was distinguished and stylish. Each story was incisive and well crafted. However, I would have really liked to see more variety within the collection, I would have liked Barnes to tackle the subject of aging from far more wide-ranging voices and backgrounds and to venture outside of his comfort zone as I think this would have made for a more exciting read and stand-out stories that persist for longer.
These stories were written from various voices, some female, some male, mostly English, but also American and European; but the common thread seemed to be people who were aging. As such, questions of mortality, illness and death prevailed, and if not always blatantly addressed, lurked darkly overhead. The tone was overwhelmingly middle class, and there was much attention given to food, another theme that linked the stories.
However I felt that the author’s voice was too present in these stories, and the stories themselves were too similar to one another to make a satisfying collection. Read independently of one another, they are all strong stories, but read as part of a collection, none really stood out for me. Even the clever “Knowing French”, where the fictional protagonist addresses Barnes, the author in a series of letters, failed to stand apart as an excellent piece, despite its clever premise. The theme, voice and tone was too similar to the other stories to endure in lasting memory, in my opinion.
Overall this collection was very readable. The writing, as always, was distinguished and stylish. Each story was incisive and well crafted. However, I would have really liked to see more variety within the collection, I would have liked Barnes to tackle the subject of aging from far more wide-ranging voices and backgrounds and to venture outside of his comfort zone as I think this would have made for a more exciting read and stand-out stories that persist for longer.
whogivesabook's review against another edition
4.0
Got told that I'd love Barnes and I wasn't disappointed.
This is a fantastic collection of short stories that revolve around the themes of old age and death. That's pretty standard for me. I'm bound to love a collection if it's about mortality.
The stories are smart, sharp and dry-humoured.
His writing is a little old-guard, so his characters are quite repugnant. Just watch out for that if you're not a fan of realism. Me... I like characters that feel real. Warts and all.
I think more collections like this should exist. Picking a theme and really digging into it is hugely rewarding for a reader. A novel tackles a theme from a few perspectives, maybe. But so many short stories mean that you're tackling it from so many different directions that you get this sense of pace and clarity.
And, of course, they bump into each other in your brain. It forms connections. Relationships.
Best stories:
✒️ A Short History Of Hairdressing
✒️ Hygiene
✒️ Knowing French
There's a lot of skill demonstrated here. Highly recommended.
This is a fantastic collection of short stories that revolve around the themes of old age and death. That's pretty standard for me. I'm bound to love a collection if it's about mortality.
The stories are smart, sharp and dry-humoured.
His writing is a little old-guard, so his characters are quite repugnant. Just watch out for that if you're not a fan of realism. Me... I like characters that feel real. Warts and all.
I think more collections like this should exist. Picking a theme and really digging into it is hugely rewarding for a reader. A novel tackles a theme from a few perspectives, maybe. But so many short stories mean that you're tackling it from so many different directions that you get this sense of pace and clarity.
And, of course, they bump into each other in your brain. It forms connections. Relationships.
Best stories:
✒️ A Short History Of Hairdressing
✒️ Hygiene
✒️ Knowing French
There's a lot of skill demonstrated here. Highly recommended.
rysiaczek's review against another edition
4.0
Nie przepadam za opowiadaniami. Tym razem jednak Barnes mnie kupił - już wiem, że opowiadania kończące się śmiercią są idealne.
keepreadingbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
“One feeling at least grows stronger in me with each year that passes – a longing to see the cranes. At this time of the year I stand on the hill and watch the sky. Today they did not come. There were only wild geese. Geese would be beautiful if cranes did not exist.”
I like reading about old age, and about life from an old-age perspective. I’m not sure why – preparation for that stage of life, knowing that it’s something that I will (hopefully) experience eventually? It’s a thing that will probably always feel alien to those who haven’t reached old age yet, yet it’s something most of us will experience, which makes it more intriguing to me than many other topics/perspectives that are not inevitable in the same way. Julian Barnes’ The Lemon Table is a collection of short stories that address the topic of growing old, and I had high hopes but was left feeling a bit dissatisfied.
I’m not sure it’s the collection’s fault – it’s mainly a case of not matching my expectations. Only one story (Appetite) gave me the feeling I was searching for, but at least that story was really spot on. It might be in the top 10 of my most memorable and moving stories. A few others were closer, but most of them were not. I had the feeling that they were mocking the follies of old age, and I was probably looking for something more moving instead. Maybe I got the intended tone wrong, but that’s how they came across to me. Barnes is a highly intelligent writer too, and a number of the stories were too erudite, in my humble opinion.
I like reading about old age, and about life from an old-age perspective. I’m not sure why – preparation for that stage of life, knowing that it’s something that I will (hopefully) experience eventually? It’s a thing that will probably always feel alien to those who haven’t reached old age yet, yet it’s something most of us will experience, which makes it more intriguing to me than many other topics/perspectives that are not inevitable in the same way. Julian Barnes’ The Lemon Table is a collection of short stories that address the topic of growing old, and I had high hopes but was left feeling a bit dissatisfied.
I’m not sure it’s the collection’s fault – it’s mainly a case of not matching my expectations. Only one story (Appetite) gave me the feeling I was searching for, but at least that story was really spot on. It might be in the top 10 of my most memorable and moving stories. A few others were closer, but most of them were not. I had the feeling that they were mocking the follies of old age, and I was probably looking for something more moving instead. Maybe I got the intended tone wrong, but that’s how they came across to me. Barnes is a highly intelligent writer too, and a number of the stories were too erudite, in my humble opinion.