Love, etc. (Paperback)

by Julian Barnes (Author) "Stuart Hello!..." (more)
Key Phrases: Oliver Stuart, Mme Wyatt, Frank Ifield (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Oliver, Stuart, and Gillian have been friends and lovers. But it's been 10 years since this backbiting trio, which Julian Barnes first introduced in Talking It Over, last met--and a lot has changed. For starters, Oliver has married Gillian, and Stuart, his erstwhile best friend, hates him for it. Not just because Stuart was once married to Gillian, but because he still loves her and has never ceased to regard himself as her savior. Under the guise of repairing old friendships--"all blood under the bridge"--this mild-mannered third wheel insinuates himself into the couple's life by offering advice, providing support, and even giving Oliver a job. Once he's maneuvered his nemesis into a crippling depression, Stuart unveils his master plan.

In Love, Etc. Barnes adopts the same technique he used in the earlier installment, allowing his characters to speak their innermost thoughts and secrets directly to the reader--and just about everybody gets some good lines. (Oliver: "Yes, everything went swimmingly, which is a very peculiar adverb to apply to a social event, considering how most human beings swim.") But the book is also a bewitchingly intimate excursion into betrayal and jealousy. With painstaking detail, Barnes creates a vibrant portrait of a modern love triangle--as funny as it is cruel, as absurd as it is deep. Few contemporary writers can portray Middle England, with all its temptations, so darkly. --Matthew Baylis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
The ever-brilliant Barnes concocts a mordant sexual comedy for his latest novel, taking over the later lives of three characters he introduced in the earlier Talking It Over. Straight, rather stuffy organic-food kingpin Stuart; his former best friend, the ebulliently witty layabout Oliver; and Gillian, whom Oliver stole from Stuart, address the reader in turns about just what happened (or in Oliver's case, show off for the reader in a dazzling display of verbal pyrotechnics that would bring down the house if this were a play). There's no doubt that in most ways Stuart deserves Gillian more than Oliver does, and the latter's attraction for her seems odd. On the other hand, Oliver is, unexpectedly, quite a good father, and there are hints of obtuseness and brutality about Stuart's bluff self-satisfaction. Poor Gillian, whose French-born mother also comments on the proceedings from a cynical distance, seems quite unable to decide between the two men when Stuart forcibly reenters her life. Out of their often self-serving, sometimes touchingly self-aware accounts of a handful of encounters emerges a funny, occasionally poignant look at the strange confusion between friendship and loveAas well as more than a hint that nobody truly knows just who they really are and what they are capable of. It's slight but telling and, except for Oliver's wonderful and witty set pieces, oddly subdued for Barnes, but it would make an excellent play, in the Tom Stoppard vein. (Feb. 13) Forecast: Although Barnes's succession of clever novels have won him a following here, the strongly English domesticity portrayed in Love, Etc. seems unlikely to gather him many new adherents. For connoisseurs of brilliant invective, however, it's a treat, and Knopf is anticipating that interest with a 40,000 first printing.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375725881
• ISBN-13: 978-0375725883
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #226,662 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Recycled But Recreated, March 15, 2001

By	taking a rest - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Love, etc. (Hardcover)

I have read and enjoyed all of the work that Mr. Barnes has published. There are works that stand out and distinguish themselves better than another, but overall he writes at a skill level that most contemporary writers only dream about. Based on, "Love, etc", a book written 10 years after, "Talking It Over", with events taking place 10 years later as well, is one of the best of his works I have read.

Mr. Barnes could have taken the road already successfully traveled and just recycled the same primary characters of the first book. They were all very well done, and the resulting second work would have been good as well. However 10 years is a long time, and just as his characters have changed and become more complex through experience, I believe Mr. Barnes probably spent a good deal of time bringing not just the next installment of these lives to us, but raising the level of his writing, and greatly expanding the number of players. Some new voices are only cameos, others as integral to the plot as the original trio of Stuart, Gillian, and Oliver.

I may be in the minority, but I did not see the original work as being unfinished. Many books could have additional chapters or sequels, and the first was not any type of cliffhanger. That said this continuation is excellent, and I hope he does not wait another decade to expand this to a triptych.

Without spoiling anything, Stuart has progressed, Oliver has become too clever for even himself, and Gillian is Gillian albeit a bit more of an enigma that serial marrier as in the first book. This piece is certainly darker than the first; some may even find it violent. However as with the first work the events that unwind are shared with the reader by those involved, so the accounts must be weighed. It is probably a bit like being a juror, who do you believe?

I enjoyed the first book, I loved this one, and I believe the Author will be hard pressed not to continue the saga. He has now established that the end is not that at all, and further, that he can take material that appears complete, expand it, and give it new life. Extremely well done, and worth the time to read.

On a final note Mr. Barnes added children to this book, and they added immeasurably to the work.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A unique and ingenuous read, February 7, 2001

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love, etc. (Hardcover)

Although married and proud of his wife, the successful businessman Stuart never forgot the betrayal in which his witty friend Oliver stole his wife Gillian. Over the past few years, Oliver and Gillian seem to have forged a happy life together while Stuart, though successful, never found happiness. Oliver and Gillian have had children and shockingly he is a good father.

However, that does not stop the "partially Americanized" upper crust Englishman Stuart from obsessing over paradise lost and his plan to regain paradise. Stuart covets Gillian and he will be as methodically successful with regaining her as he has been with the organic food distribution business. The cost to others no longer matters.

LOVE, ETC., the sequel to TALKING IT OVER, is a strange relationship tale because the characters (including support players) talk in asides to the reader and not to each other. Thus the entertaining and often humorous (especially when Oliver provides a soliloquy) story reads more like a play than a novel. Julian Barnes invites the audience to come inside the heads of the cast to see varying perspectives on the same events. This ingenious book is for those fans of relationship dramas that like their literature a bit different as Mr. Barnes shows why he is so amusingly good.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and acute social observation, September 19, 2001

By	A. Peel (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love, etc. (Hardcover)

Julian Barnes always impresses me with his accurate character portrayal of both the British and the French, as well as with his generally poignant social commentary.
"Love Etc", for me, was a literary drug as addictive as his previous works, though I was left with a greater sense of sadness than I have felt when reading past Barnes' masterpieces. Perhaps it is my memory playing tricks on me, but it seems that the ten years that passed between this work and "Talking it Over" in the lives of both the characters and Mr. Barnes himself, have paid a toll. The work starts with the same ironic and captivating humour of the past, but as it unfolds, the sadness of reality overwhelms the humour. The general lack of optimism left me feeling very numb at times. Whilst captivating, and easy to read because it is in dialogue form; a slightly bitter accuracy of the character portrayal makes it painful to digest the work at times.
This is not to say that the overall impression created by this novel is any less intelligent, measured or fascinating than former works of Barnes. "Love Etc" is a fabulous and thought-provoking reflection of many marriages and friendships through these well-developed, now matured characters whom we met ten years before in "Talking it Over".