While I was intrigued at first, in the long run this novel dragged out far too long and ended up for me like a British yuppie version of No Exit. Add to it, the ending was a complete letdown.

Julian Barnes has tremendous ability as a writer, as I discovered in The Sense of an Ending and currently now in The History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters. Unfortunately, I feel this would be one of his weaker novels and would not recommend it to anyone but a completist who loves everything else Barnes has ever done. This is not to say that it's toss away garbage but there are others one should definitely read first surely (the other two I mentioned, for instance). I'd also love to receive further recommendations about Barnes' novels if anyone has them!

So, while this novel does not put me off completely from Barnes, aside from a little bit at the end and the way the perspective switches back and forth between mainly two male protagonists and the female caught in the love triangle (with guest appearances by the female's mother and a couple of other axillary characters), the novel is largely formulaic. The plot, especially, is trite, and Barnes almost half-heartedly admits it at one point that the love affair with the best friend is predictable and overdone...so why did he do it? I'm really not sure about all of that. I think he thought he was setting up interesting characters. Gillian is an art restorer who peels away layers after layers of paint to reveal what is underneath. Stuart is a low on confidence banker and Oliver is an educated and posh sort of person who has difficulty telling the truth and has been involved in other scandals involving teaching English (and another less verbal language) to those who are learning it as a second language. The novel is set mainly in England with a little bit of it in America and a little bit in France. It was interesting hearing the different perspective of sometimes all three main characters on one event but the unfortunate thing is that even usually wasn't all that amazing to read about the first time. But, Barnes does indeed charm just a little bit with his active voice and his characters acknowledging they have a captive audience and try to win the reader over to his/her side of thing. That is definitely one strength of the book.

But again, the plot for the most part is largely predictable and the biggest loss I felt was for Gillian, who in the end makes a decision that is perhaps the more common one but I still didn't agree with it. This also gets back to why I love my favorite books-it's usually because I love the characters. The writing style and plot help, sure...but most of the time even if something is well written and unpredictable, I still have to love the characters. I have to share in their sadnesses and joys. I have to believe in their selves and adventures. If a writer explores only despicable characters (which I admit many great novels have done), I generally find the reading a harrowing experience and don't enjoy it too much.

That said, I didn't really enjoy Talking It Over very much. It was trite and I just didn't like any of the characters. I could sympathize with Stuart a bit but that's where it ended. There are many novels in this world and we're all short on time. Go read something else!

Quotes I liked.


pg. 11 "Imagine the organ of recollection as a left-luggage clerk at some thrumming terminus who looks after your picayune possessions until you next need them. Now consider what you're asking him to take care of. And for so little money! And for so little thanks! It's no wonder the counter isn't manned half the time. My way with memory is to entrust it only with things it will take some pride in looking after."


17 "If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it.
...

They say that as you get older, you remember your earliest years better. One of the many tank traps that lie ahead: senility's revenge. Have I told you my Theory of Life by the way? Life is like invading Russia. A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient dispatches as the enemy falls back; then the beginning of a long, morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes upon your face. The enemy burns Moscow and you yield to General January whose fingernails are very icicles. Bitter retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually you fall beneath a boy-gunner's grapeshot while crossing some Polish river not even marked on your general's map."

pg. 64 "I was also gone in the sense that I was transformed, made over. You know that story of the man who wakes up and finds he's turned into a beetle? I was the beetle who woke up and saw the possibility of being a man."

pg. 175 "You've got to be responsible for your own happiness-you can't expect it to come flopping through the door like a parcel. You've got to be practical in these matters. People sit at home thinking Some Day My Prince Will Come. But that's no good unless you've got a sign up saying Princes Welcome Here."


pg. 247 "I';; tell you something you haven't heard before. Pravda is Russian for truth. No, I guessed yo knew that. What I'm going to tell you is this: there is no rhyme for pravda in Russian. Ponder and weigh that insufficiency. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your mind?"

Talking it over deals with 3 characters, childhood friends Stuart and Oliver, and the lady in their lives, Gillian. From the outset it's not very hard to establish where the story is going to go, or what is going to happen, but the structure and tone that Barnes uses is what draws you in, and what indeed, seems to be the point of the book.
The 3 characters (and a few peripheral ones), take their turns in 'speaking' to the reader, with each of their 'talks' with us, the reader, helping us to picture the situation and more importantly, their characters. Such a structure of course means that Barnes can use the unreliability of his narrators, presenting the same incidents from different points of view and leaving it to us to establish what *actually* went on. Personally I felt that this was used just to the right amount, adding enough tension and intrigue to make it a page turner. However what's also crucial here is the amount of thought Barnes puts it in making these accounts from the trio pertinent to a study of their characters. Very quickly we are able to establish and place these people with certain traits into boxes that define their personality, which helps Barnes to make any 'reveals' or 'betrayals' to these traits more striking. He also handles the placing well, juxtaposing an exuberant verbose character with a contained reserved one, and again reversing this at key junctures to mark the importance of certain events, or certain ideas.
Barnes is able to very carefully add layers to all of his characters and make their interactions important towards understanding them, but also towards understanding life. Despite the peculiarity of the incident that takes place one is able to picture and place aspects of their reactions and philosophies as rooted in their experiences, one that is born organically.
What's the best part is how seamlessly Barnes is able to switch from one character to the next and occupy what are completely different narrative voices perfectly, and maintain this throughout. It seems a fairly simple thing to do, but that's only because Barnes makes it seem so.

I’ve never read a Julian Barnes book I didn’t enjoy. I’ve also never read with a decent ending. Even A Sense of an Ending didn’t have a good one. Talking it Over also ended rather weakly but there was a great deal to enjoy before that.

It tells the story of Stuart, Ginny and Oliver, the love triangle that forms between them and the it affects them. What elevates the book from this pretty mundane plot is the style, each character tells their story to the reader and each one has a carefully constructed voice. There are other voices introduced later but I feel adding them was probably something of a miss-step.

Stuart caught my attention initially. He has the first sentence in the book, “My name is Stuart, and I remember everything.” He is detail orientated and prides himself on accuracy, fond of routine and order. He caught my attention because I am also writing a novel narrated by a Stuart with those qualities and I was struck how readable and entertaining the Stuart in this book is. His vocabulary is the most repetitive and his sentences the shortest but he is the character whose voice changes most throughout the book.

Ginny is the least distinctive of the three main voices. She starts off giving very tidy, short answers but gives more details as she goes on. As well as having the least distinct voice, she is the blandest of the main personalities. However, it is possible that, between the lines, she is the cause of all the drama.

Oliver is the third main personality and has the most distinctive voice. He’s a show-off who uses elaborate language to create a more interesting world for himself and hide his sensitivities. I can easily imagine some people finding him very irritating, a ranting snob who clearly likes the sound of his own voice but having know a lot of those people, he wasn’t the worst that could be - he at least usually made sense.


There were many examples of this careful language choice in action. One example from the first chapter had each of the characters recalling Stuart and Ginny’s marriage. They all describe the cushion the ring was presented on; one as a ‘plum-coloured cushion made of velvet’, another as ‘fat burgundy cushion’ and the third as a ‘damson pouffe’. The the fact that Stuart needs to say it is ‘plum-coloured’ instead of just plum, that Ginny is so straightforward with hers, that Oliver uses the word ‘pouffe’ - all conveys subtle differences in their personalities. I’m not sure if this attention to detail lessons as the book goes on, or I grew used to it but I noticed it more in the earlier parts of the book.

The ending was, of course, a disappointment. I wasn’t quite sure what the intentions of the characters were in the last few moments of the book. I think Ginny provoked Oliver so Stuart would leave them alone under the notion they were unhappy, but I’m not all that sure. Ending aside though, this is a very enjoyable book with a lot of care put in.

Parts of the story seemed a little far fetched, and there were huge patches of time which were jumped over. The ambiguous ending makes me want to read the sequel.