The Lemon Table : Stories

Rating:
Summary: More reflections from a senior impersonator
Review: As in FLAUBERT'S PARROT, the stories in this collection are Barnes's speculations on what someone at the end of his (or her) life might think or do. In "The Things You Know" he presents a pair of rival widows who continue their friendship in spite of what they know and resent about each other. In "The Revival" Barnes speculates on the late-life thoughts of the accomplished novelist, but failed playwright, Ivan Turgenev. In "Vigilance" he slowly reveals the key to the deep remorse (rage?) of a curmudgeony gay man with a personal mission to suppress (or evict) coughers at concert recitals. The scenarios in these eleven stories are diverse, and the characters' dilemmas and their responses to those dilemmas are plausible. It is uncanny that Barnes (who presumably wrote these stories in his early and mid fifties) can project himself so easily forward into old age. Unlike some other reviewers, I don't find these reflections morbid. I find each of his aged characters to have some sort of enobling characteristic. Often, they seem to have an amazing ability to continue to negotiate with life, as when the wife in "Appetite" discovers that she can get some spark of life from her senile (Alzheimer stricken?) husband by reading to him from cook books, in spite of his failing mental abilities and his propensity to break out in obscene ramblings.

Perhaps my personal favorite in the collection is "Knowing French," which consists of putative correspondence to the author from Sylvia Winstanley, an inmate in an "old folkery." It would be easy to enjoy this story for its surface charm, the vanity of an old woman trying to impress a published author, who tosses off French phrases while misspelling simple English words. But the fact that this is one-sided communication gives their progression an eerie quality. It makes one wonder (in an existential sort of way), if our own understanding of our life is enough. Can a life's meaning be discerned by one person's version? The story concludes with two letters to the author from the old folkery's warden, in which he twice calls her "the life and soul of the party," a far cry from her self-perception as a misunderstood and under-appreciated trouble-maker. It is in touches and turns like this that make Barnes's stories so rich and worth reading (and re-reading).

Rating:
Summary: Squeeze my lemon, Jules
Review: From THE SILENCE by Julian Barnes: "All the other arts aspire to the condition of music. What does music aspire to? Silence ... The logic of music leads eventually to silence."

This is of a piece with Barnes's scenario (in 10 1/2 WEEKS) in which a heavenly afterlife leads eventually to suicide. What a blahzay world-weary nihilist this guy is. Forget yer Philip Larkin. Barnes really is anti-life.

From A SHORT HISTORY OF HAIRDRESSING by Julian Barnes: "The boys took off all their clothes, had a shower for lice or verrucas or something, or being smelly in the case of Wood, then jumped into the pool ... Everyone in the class was the same age, but some were still bald down there ... At least he had *some* hair, not like Baldy Bristowe and Hall and Wood."

Baldy Wood. Hmm. I'm almost inclined to suspect that Barnes is referring to a real-life person. (And not necessarily to the big-nosed guitarist in The Rolling Stones with the obligatory diseased-crow hairstyle.)

Rating:
Summary: Superb Short Stories of Wide Range and Impeccable Style
Review: I have little to add to the previous reviews except to call attention for those of you music-lovers who may read my and others' reviews of classical music CDs to the story 'Vigilance.' It is a hilarious and ultimately unsettling story of a Londoner who has made it his life's work to shame and quiet those people who cough during performances at classical music concerts at the Barbican, Festival Hall and the Royal Albert. One initially sympathizes with his irritation but becomes more and more aware that his bête noire has made him just the least little bit unhinged.

One can also add a commendation for what is probably the best story here, praised liberally by previous reviewers, 'Knowing French.' Barnes is a superbly informed, superbly polished writer whose works have never one word too many and are very much worth getting to know.

Scott Morrison

Rating:
Summary: A Somewhat Plodding Collection about Death & Aging
Review: I would actually give this book 3 1/2 stars if that was possible.

Julian Barnes's 'The Lemon Table' is a collection of stories examining death and aging. Each story features a character or characters who are facing growing older or dying. Some face it with confusion, some with resignation, some with rebellion, and some with disappointment. Barnes skillfully presents a variety of characters: octogenarian women, a male Russian playwright, a middle-aged Englishman, an aging WWII vet, and many more. His characters are believable and their lives and emotions are palpable.

My mediocre rating stems from the effort it took for me to get through the collection. There are some gems in the collection, such as "The Things You Know," "The Story of Mats Israelson," and "Hygiene," but several of the stories had potential to be more fascinating or developed than they were. This mainly seemed to be a result of Barnes's writing being tinged by arrogance or the desire to be more clever than the reader. This quality isn't as overt in Barnes's work than in that of other authors, but it sometimes crops up nonetheless. The result is a somewhat plodding quality to some of the stories (such as "The Silence"), where the reader feels left out of "the know."

Regardless of these criticisms, Barnes's writing is witty, skillful, and polished, and he does a fantastic job of not turning the book into a depressing or morbid collection. Instead, the stories take mundane people and situations (I constantly had the feeling as if each could be the personal story of a next-door neighbor or coworker) and use them to add another valuable and unique perspective to the book's examination of death and aging.

Rating:
Summary: A Most Eloquent Collection of Stories About Life's Cycle
Review: Julian Barnes is an elegant, profound, humorous, sensitive, intelligent, and incredibly gifted writer! THE LEMON TABLE is a collection of eleven short stories that probe the concept of aging and death in an endlessly inventive fashion. Each of these well-crafted stories is unique: rarely have the concerns of the elderly been verbalized with such insight. The way these characters who populate this variety of tales embody mental deterioration, illness, frustration of waning body functions, coping with changes imposed by the cycle of friends and loved ones dying - these are the insights that in Barnes capable hands are never cloying but revelatory. In 'Knowing French' an eighty something lady in a 'Old Folkery' corresponds with the author: "Main reasons for dying: it's what others expect when you reach my age; impending decrepitude and senility; waste of money - using up inheritance - keeping together brain-dead incontinent bad of old bones; decreased interest in The News, famines, wars, etc.; fear of falling under total power of Sgt. Major; desire to Find Out about Afterwards (or not?)." Yet a later letter: "I suppose, if you are Mad, and you die, & there is an Explanation waiting, they have to make you unmad first before you can understand it. Or do you think being Mad is just another veil of consciousness around our present world which has nothing to do with any other one?" Or in another story 'The Fruit Cage' a son is trying to understand the problems his aging parents face when after fifty years of marriage the husband wants to live with another woman; "Why make the assumption that the heart shuts down alongside the genitals? Because we want - need - to see old age as a time of serenity? I now think this is one of the great conspiracies of youth. Not just of youth, but of middle age too, of every single year until that moment when we admit to being ourselves. And it's a wider conspiracy because the old collude in our belief."

Even though Barnes' subject of age and death may seem a morbid topic, these beautifully written stories have a wealth of humor and warmth and dreamy substance. The final story relates a composer's inability to finish his 8th symphony (?Sibelius?) and uses symbols of death (the lemon, flying cranes) in a most poetic way. This is one of the finest collections of short stories I've read this year. Highly recommended on every level.

Rating:
Summary: Another elegant collection from Julian Barnes
Review: The eleven stories that comprise THE LEMON TABLE share two things: the theme of growing old and Julian Barnes' trademark wit. These mostly traditional tales explore characters as they age, or come to terms with approaching death, or look back from old age to a younger, more confusing time. In the marvelous "A Short History of Hairdressing," a trilogy of numbered sections lets the reader in on the haircutting sessions Gregory has experienced during three distinct stages of his life, from youthful helplessness to adult insolence to elderly obstinacy. "The Story of Mats Israelson," with its Old World feel, tells of unrequited love and its ultimate disappointment. "Knowing French" is perhaps the most clever and playful of the stories, as an elderly woman in a nursing home, Sylvia, writes to "Julian Barnes" after discovering his book FLAUBERT'S PARROT in the B section of the library. Told only through Sylvia's words, the reader can only guess at the "author's" end of the correspondence, and the result is a fond, often hilarious, exchange that grows in meaning. Likewise "The Silence" has its laugh-out-loud moments in the flash scenes and comments revealed by the aging composer Sibelius: "A French Critic, seeking to loathe my Third symphony, quoted Gounod: 'Only God composes in C major.' Precisely." The only story in this collection that I found lacking was "The Things You Know" where two catty widows try to jockey for mental advantage over the other by what they know. Here, the characters are less distinct and the execution of the premise not as controlled as in the rest of the stories. Despite this lag, this collection shows Barnes at top form.

Barnes' voice is decidedly British, with sentences that harbor both formality and sly wit. "Droll" is an adjective often used to describe Barnes' work, and it is an appropriate one for many of these stories. American readers especially will get a kick out of the British/Barnes colloquialisms in "Hygiene" where there's "no excuse for playing argy-bargy with the kerb."

Lovely, mannered, astute - these stories will not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: Another elegant collection from Julian Barnes
Review: The eleven stories that comprise THE LEMON TABLE share two things: the theme of growing old and Julian Barnes' trademark wit. These mostly traditional tales explore characters as they age, or come to terms with approaching death, or look back from old age to a younger, more confusing time. In the marvelous "A Short History of Hairdressing," a trilogy of numbered sections lets the reader in on the haircutting sessions Gregory has experienced during three distinct stages of his life, from youthful helplessness to adult insolence to elderly obstinacy. "The Story of Mats Israelson," with its Old World feel, tells of unrequited love and its ultimate disappointment. "Knowing French" is perhaps the most clever and playful of the stories, as an elderly woman in a nursing home, Sylvia, writes to "Julian Barnes" after discovering his book FLAUBERT'S PARROT in the B section of the library. Told only through Sylvia's words, the reader can only guess at the "author's" end of the correspondence, and the result is a fond, often hilarious, exchange that grows in meaning. Likewise "The Silence" has its laugh-out-loud moments in the flash scenes and comments revealed by the aging composer Sibelius: "A French Critic, seeking to loathe my Third symphony, quoted Gounod: 'Only God composes in C major.' Precisely." The only story in this collection that I found lacking was "The Things You Know" where two catty widows try to jockey for mental advantage over the other by what they know. Here, the characters are less distinct and the execution of the premise not as controlled as in the rest of the stories. Despite this lag, this collection shows Barnes at top form.

Barnes' voice is decidedly British, with sentences that harbor both formality and sly wit. "Droll" is an adjective often used to describe Barnes' work, and it is an appropriate one for many of these stories. American readers especially will get a kick out of the British/Barnes colloquialisms in "Hygiene" where there's "no excuse for playing argy-bargy with the kerb."

Lovely, mannered, astute - these stories will not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Collection: Real People, Real Funny
Review: THE LEMON TABLE by Julian Barnes is a immensely enjoyable collection of short stories. The vast majority of these tales display Barnes' plentiful and deliciously wicked wit. For me the connection to these pieces was a result of his knack for expertly crafted characters with very real reactions to very real (and sometimes mundane) situations. Filled with delightful idiosyncrasies and true genuineness, these folks truly (pardon the cliche) come alive on the page. Themactically THE LEMON TABLE primarily concerns time, love, death and the intertwining of the three. Hence the book's title..."Among the Chinese the lemon is the symbol of death". This is the work of a jolly master craftsman whose concise (and quite often inventive) wording, narrative eye, and use of voice make it all seem soooo easy. Bravo!