Julian Barnes: Contemporary Critical Perspectives: Contemporary Critical Perspectives

Foreword \ Series Editors' Preface \ Acknowledgements \ Contributors \ Chronology of Julian Barnes's Life \ Introduction: Julian Barnes and the Wisdom of Uncertainity Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs \ 1. The Flâneur and the Freeholder: Paris and London in Metroland Matthew Taunton \ 2. Inventing a Way to the Truth: Life and Fiction in Flaubert's Parrot Ryan Roberts \ 3. 'A preference for things Gallic': Julian Barnes and the French Connection Vanessa Guignery \ 4. 'An Ordinary Piece of Magic': Religion in the Work of Julian Barnes Andrew Tate \ 5. Crossing the Channel: Europe and the Three Uses of France in Julian Barnes's Talking it Over Merritt Moseley \ 6. 'Stranger Than Fiction': an epistolary essay on The Porcupine Dimitrina Kondeva \ 7. England, England and Englishness Richard Bradford \ 8. Matters of Life and Death: The Short Stories of Julian Barnes Peter Childs \ 9. 'All Letters Quoted are Authentic': The Past after Postmodern Fabulation in Julian Barnes's Arthur & George Christine Berberich \ Afterword Andrew Lycett \ References \ Further Reading \ Index

This welcome new assessment of Barnes's ground-breaking work and achievement takes scholarly analysis of his oeuvre to a new level, offering insights into the genesis of some of his novels and a new perspective on his complex uses of historical and biographical fact and fictional invention.