Before She Met Me

Rating:
Summary: How quickly does sexual culture change?
Review: A novel about sexual jealousy and manners that made me wonder whether the world was really a different place 20 years ago.

In one of Isaac Asimov's novels (The Robots of Dawn), the main character visits a planet where everyone, subject to conventions of politeness, is available sexually to others on a non-exclusive basis, and the one socially unacceptable emotion is jealousy. Our world isn't like that, but equally it seems hard to imagine today the level of jealousy, arising from sexual escapades before Graham had even met his wife, that could unhinge him to the extent portrayed in this story.

And would anyone now believe in a character, of apparently normal sexual appetites, who gives up solo activity at 18 and doesn't engage in it again for 22 years?

Julian Barnes' writing style is such a delight. The light wit, the vivid dream sequences, the evocative and totally believable way he describes the everyday highs and lows of married life, the precise descriptions of emotions, the elegance of his style and vocabulary ... all these make the book a pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Great British Humor
Review: Before She Met Me is a book filled with the great British humor of Julian Barnes. It has its flaws, to be sure, but they are minor ones. One of the characters is truly reprehensible, but his appearances are so few and far between that I think his horrid behavior can easily be overlooked.

What bothered me more, with this book, were the female characters. One of them seems quite true to life but the other one did not. She seemed wooden, a cardboard cutout. Barnes is a terrific writer, but in my opinion, he has yet to create a believable, good, female character.

The writing in this book is really first rate British humor (I expect it may be too British for some). It is an escapist book but I don't think that should lessen its importance. After all, don't we all need to escape now and then?

If you want to laugh and have a little fun, if you want to forget your troubles for awhile, then try Before She Met Me. It might do you a world of good. It did me.

Rating:
Summary: Cliched, predictable, unbelievable
Review: I thought this book was a pretty formulaic male cliche-ridden rant. Let's start with the wife who does nothing but shop. Professors in the making usually have an aversion to such idiots, and I can never believe they would have got together in the first place. Second, the girlfriend. Decides to stop being an actress because she was only so-so. I've never met an actor who didn't act because he or she was fundamentally driven to it, never met one who walked away from it this easily either. And by the way, you don't just drop out of one career and then have a mid-level, established job in a totally different and unrelated field. She would have had to start at the bottom, with its accompanying humiliations, self-doubts, etc. Girlfriend has no complexes or faults? Don't buy it. Beautiful young blond would be hopelessly in love with a fat-assed wimpy professor? Just doesn't ring true. This is very standard poor-me male stuff of the sixties, seventies, etc. There is nothing intertextual or new here.