Review by Booklist Review
In a blur of fact and fiction, the protagonist in Barnes' latest novel is Julian, a character who bears a striking resemblance to the author himself. The supposed heart of the story is the relationship between the awkward Stephen and the much more worldly Jean. Having first become an item at university via Julian and then broken up for decades, the couple are later brought back together, once again by Julian--a romantic rekindling the narrator finds delightful, though he did promise never to write about them. However, Julian's retelling is frequently interrupted by long, fascinating digressions on love, death, and the connection between death and memory. Proustian in both focus and scope, Barnes' philosophical flights are, as in his most recent work of fiction, Elizabeth Finch (2022), reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, but with a warmth, humanity, and humor that are distinctly his own. Indeed, this novel is a wonderful blend of Barnes' illuminating essays and his much-lauded and era-defining fiction; the final section in particular is an outstanding example of Barnes' supple and thoughtful prose as he contemplates his own death. This is a rewarding and profound exploration of the human condition from a deeply captivating writer.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this revelatory meditation on love, death, and memory from Booker Prize winner Barnes (The Sense of an Ending), the narrator, a writer named Julian Barnes, claims this is his "last book." The novel is, in large part, concerned with how a writer treats people and the relationship between literature and life--Barnes reveals how he once manipulated a pair of college friends into rekindling their romance four decades later. When they announced their wedding, he was happy that his "investing" in them yielded a "satisfying conclusion to a story in a way that life rarely does." Elsewhere, the narrator touches on the indignities of chronic illness and aging and reflects on losing one's closest friends (Barnes writes with fondness of his late companions Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis). as In its closing pages, the slender and introspective novel explores the peculiar relationship between reader and writer: "Side by side, we look out at the many and varied expressions of life that pass in front of us." There's not much plot, but it's also not much missed--instead, Barnes dives headlong into the slippery nature of memory and what one forgets through time or necessity. It's an understated but graceful valediction by a writer whose work won't soon be forgotten. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Booker Prize winner Barnes (Elizabeth Finch) explores memory, identity, and aging in this elegiacal and witty metafictional novella about a fictional Booker Prize winner named Julian Barnes who is completing his final novel. That novel's main plot is the bifurcated romantic relationship of two university friends, Stephen and Jean, whom Barnes introduced at school before facilitating their reunion 40 years later; now, the fictional Barnes looks back, 15 years after the reunion. The fact that Barnes promised never to use Stephen and Jean's story in a novel indicates the fun that drives the storytelling. That central relationship ultimately is a small part of this novella, which the author uses as a launching pad to reflect on the limits of memory and to discuss the life of the novel's Julian Barnes as he grapples with chronic blood cancer and the loss of friends as he nears age 80. If this proves to be the real Barnes's final work, it will be a fitting coda, but the novella's acuity and cleverness will have readers hoping that this particular aspect of the plot is fictional. VERDICT Barnes remains in top form. Readers with a penchant for the precise prose of Ian McEwan or the collage metafiction of Sigrid Nunez will love his latest.--Jon Jeffryes
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An autofictional remembrance from the Booker Prize winner, keeping an eye on the exit. "This will be my last book," writes Julian Barnes, the narrator of this novel, early on. Age and illness are deciding factors; diagnosed with a manageable but incurable blood cancer, he fills many of the pages with matters of mortality and the deaths of his literary friends Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis. But he's also questioning the merits of novel-writing as an endeavor, the way it prompts the writer to exaggerate and betray. As Exhibit A, he points to his role in the relationship of two friends, Stephen and Jean, classmates at Oxford who would later split and then (with Julian's assistance) reconcile. "You fucking novelist, couldn't resist, could you?" Jean snaps when she's ambushed by the two men, resentful of his determination to turn life into a story. Julian had also promised not to use their relationship as novelistic fodder, but his life is a trail of "your harsh forgettings, your dissimulations, your broken promises, your infidelities of word and deed." Late Barnes has been a mix of tart domestic dramas (The Only Story, 2018) and gentler, Proustian reminiscences (Elizabeth Finch, 2022); this shades closer to the latter, intensified mainly by the pressure created by death's inevitable approach. The story, such as it is, meanders, but it's clear that Barnes is writing with a certain urgency, not to take a victory lap but to quit on his own terms, though even his cheer is cut by darkness. ("Let me thank you for your sturdy presence--invisible yet lurking, like my cancer," he writes to the reader.) Does he mean it when he says he's done? A book so concerned with a novelist's urge to lie and betray suggests it's at least an open question. If it's indeed the end, Barnes has closed his career gracefully. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
