Synopsis: |
In these seventeen essays, and one short story, the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant the most to him, as well as the cross-currents of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes in his preface, 'Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.' |