Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnesis an English writer. Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of an Ending, and three of his earlier books had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1946
stupid selfish requirements
To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.
selfish good-love writing
Poets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible ‘I’…. Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love – selfish, shitty love – into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us of love.
disappointment bridges piers
A pier is a disappointed bridge.
past differences age
It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.
agreed eyes grew opinion
You grew old first not in your own eyes,but in other people's eyes;slowly,you agreed with their opinion of you.
castle constantly mines picasso smoke solid time
Braque was like some hilltop castle that Picasso was constantly besieging. He invests it, bombards it, mines it, assaults it - and each time the smoke clears, the castle is as solid as ever.
boy holmes moment sherlock
I did read Sherlock Holmes as a boy but I never thought for a moment that I'd ever write about Doyle,
book considered fact few george left matter
I briefly considered writing it as a non-fiction book but the fact of the matter is that George left few traces,
adventure against ambiguous assume brought case confuse final invent people popular quite relationship solve sort successful turn writer
I think he had a quite sort of ambiguous relationship to Holmes. It made him rich, it made him famous, but as often the case with these things, a writer can turn against his or her most successful creation; hence, he killed him off (in 'The Adventure of the Final Problem') and brought him back by popular request. And, of course, people did sort of confuse them and assume if he could invent these complicated mysteries, then he could also solve them.
account apart ground invented left local papers trace
He left no trace apart from the local papers and Doyle's own account of the case. He really had to be invented from the ground up.
chief force interested london police racial resistance side trying white
I was also interested in the racial side of it. Even today, the Chief of the London Metropolitan Police is trying to make the force more representative of London and there's a lot of resistance from the predominantly white force.
historical luxurious oyster sides sixties throat touching
The Sixties were an oyster decade: slippery, luxurious and reportedly aphrodisiac they slipped down the historical throat without touching the sides
happiness happy secret
The secret of happiness is to be happy already
happens historical novel regard
I don't regard it as a historical novel, I regard it as a novel of now, which just happens to be set when it is set,