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Review
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A New York Times Editors' Choice
"One of our most consistently deft short-form stylists.... Quietly remarkable, elegant."
—Daily Telegraph
"Barnes can do more in a single story than many lesser writers can accomplish in a whole novel."
—Toronto Star
"Among the most adventurous writers--in style, versatility and narrative
structure."
—The New York Times Book Review
"A moving and truth-telling work of fiction."
—The Boston Globe
"Barnes's erudition is in full display.... Combines mordant humour, perspicacity and invigoratingly crisp writing."
—The Independent
“[A] perfectly weighted collection. . . . Affecting.”
—The Observer
“Julian Barnes is one of those confident literary decathletes, proficient at old-fashioned storytelling, dialogue-driven portraiture, postmodern collage, and political allegory and farce. He’s a true literary professional whose most compelling work showcases his musical prose, his ear for the chattering class’s chatter (Talking It Over), his ability to create narratives with both surface brio and finely calibrated philosophical subtexts (Flaubert’s Parrot, The Porcupine).”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
A New York Times Editors' Choice
"One of our most consistently deft short-form stylists.... Quietly remarkable, elegant."
—Daily Telegraph
"Barnes can do more in a single story than many lesser writers can accomplish in a whole novel."
—Toronto Star
"Among the most adventurous writers--in style, versatility and narrative
structure."
—The New York Times Book Review
"A moving and truth-telling work of fiction."
—The Boston Globe
"Barnes's erudition is in full display.... Combines mordant humour, perspicacity and invigoratingly crisp writing."
—The Independent
“[A] perfectly weighted collection. . . . Affecting.”
—The Observer
“Julian Barnes is one of those confident literary decathletes, proficient at old-fashioned storytelling, dialogue-driven portraiture, postmodern collage, and political allegory and farce. He’s a true literary professional whose most compelling work showcases his musical prose, his ear for the chattering class’s chatter (Talking It Over), his ability to create narratives with both surface brio and finely calibrated philosophical subtexts (Flaubert’s Parrot, The Porcupine).”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Product Description
From a writer who's on a roll, fourteen stories that range freely through the historical past and contemporary life, touching on longing and love, loss and friendship, and a great many passions in between. It's the strongest collection yet from Julian Barnes.
From an imperial capital in the eighteenth century to Garibaldi's adventures in the nineteenth, from the vineyards of Italy to the English seaside in our time, Julian Barnes finds the "stages, transitions, arguments" that define us. A newly divorced real estate agent can't resist invading his reticent girlfriend's privacy, but the information he finds reveals only his callously shallow curiosity. A couple comes together through an illicit cigarette and a song shared over the din of a Chinese restaurant. A widower revisiting the Scottish island he'd treasured with his wife learns how difficult it is to purge oneself of grief. And throughout, friends gather regularly at dinner parties and perfect the art of cerebral, sometimes bawdy banter about the world passing before them. Whether domestic or extraordinary, each story pulses with the resonance, spark and poignant humor for which Barnes is justly heralded.
From an imperial capital in the eighteenth century to Garibaldi's adventures in the nineteenth, from the vineyards of Italy to the English seaside in our time, Julian Barnes finds the "stages, transitions, arguments" that define us. A newly divorced real estate agent can't resist invading his reticent girlfriend's privacy, but the information he finds reveals only his callously shallow curiosity. A couple comes together through an illicit cigarette and a song shared over the din of a Chinese restaurant. A widower revisiting the Scottish island he'd treasured with his wife learns how difficult it is to purge oneself of grief. And throughout, friends gather regularly at dinner parties and perfect the art of cerebral, sometimes bawdy banter about the world passing before them. Whether domestic or extraordinary, each story pulses with the resonance, spark and poignant humor for which Barnes is justly heralded.
Inside This Book
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Somerset Maugham reprised,
By
This review is from: Pulse (Hardcover)
Somerset Maugham lives on in Julian Barnes, both superb crasftsmen of the short story. He is at the top of his game in Pulse and one hopes there is more to come. In The Lemon Table and Nothing to Declare he explored ageing and mortality in a rather meloncholy tone. That tone is necessarily found in a couple of the current collection of short stories. In the story of the title piece, a sad reflection on married love in the description of his parents' lives and deaths. In Marriage Lines, a grieving husband seeks solace by visiting a Hebredean island where he and his wife spend holidays. There are four pieces entitled At Phil and Joanna's in which we eavesdrop on conversations among couples attending dinner parties at that couple's home. The converstion of the fify-something participants wanders among such topics as: politics; the potential for terrorist attacks at the London Olympics; global warming; the problems of aging bodies and inevitably sex. One would love to attend such parites just to listen since most could not keep up the appropriate level of acerbic wit.Other stories are set in different countries and eras. The story of a deaf portrait painter in America who gets his revenge on an arrogant patron in an O'Henryesque ending. Every story is a gem, a remarkable collection. He once mused about his last reader. With his novels and other story collections and with writing like this, there will never be a last reader of Julian Barnes.
3.0 out of 5 stars
From Excellent to Not So Thrilling Stories . . . Read the Better Ones at the Library,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Pulse (Hardcover)
"Moreover the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 'Also take for yourself quality spices--five hundred shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much sweet-smelling cinnamon (two hundred and fifty shekels), two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet-smelling cane, five hundred shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil.'" -- Exodus 30:22-24 (NKJV)At their best, Julian Barnes' stories in this collection are better than the best of his novels that I've read. His sense of irony can be devastating in the smaller confines of a short story. "East Wind" is such a story and powerfully opens the collection. "The Limner" is almost as good, but in a quite different way . . . emphasizing that the meek can get the upper hand. "Pulse" was my least favorite story . . . but it's certainly well written. I also wasn't thrilled by the four-part cocktail hour entitled "At Phil & Joanna's." I strongly suspect that Julian Barnes could produce a much better volume of stories, but that would require choosing them for their quality . . . rather than for their fitting into a theme. I would be glad to read another set, but I'd be tempted to check first to see which stories other people liked best and to just read those. See what you think.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
By my favorite author, "Pulse" not quite up to his standard ...,
By
This review is from: Pulse (Hardcover)
I have sought out and now own every book Barnes has written under his own name. All are first-rate. Many are spellbinding. "Pulse," his third collection of short stories, opens with the heartbreaking "East Wind," which tells of a middle-aged over-inquisitive lover who discovers too late that there was a boundary he should not have crossed. The book ends with the sad title story, a superb account of a son (again middle-aged) witnessing the deterioration of this elderly parents. The stories between these two bookends vary. A few are excellent; more are not. Overall, it is not my favorite book of Julian Barnes, but I nevertheless look forward to his future output.
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