Love, Etc.

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
When last we met Stuart, Oliver, and Gillian in Julian Barnes's 1991 Talking It Over, Stuart had met and fallen companionably in love with Gillian, who loved him in return. Alas, on the very day of their nuptials, Oliver, Stuart's superurbane best friend, declared the depths of his not-so-companionable, deeply passionate love for Gillian as well. Gillian, who at first denied her feelings, soon found herself likewise head-over-heels for Oliver, so she left Stuart, and she and Oliver moved abroad.

Now, ten years later, Barnes returns to the scene of the crime in Love, etc. Ten years older, and ostensibly ten years wiser, this desperately entangled threesome resume their tale.

The narrative structure of Love, etc., following that of Talking It Over, allows the reader direct access to the inner thoughts of the characters; each, in turn, speaks directly to the reader, as to an old friend, attempting to explain their version of the inexplicable ways of the heart. Stuart, Oliver, and Gillian are joined in this enterprise by a host of secondary characters -- Gillian's mom, Stuart's second ex-wife, Oliver's former landlady, etc. -- each of whom serves to reflect a piece of the story that the others either aren't privy to or just aren't willing to share.

The story they tell is this: Stuart, devastated by Gillian's betrayal ten years ago, moves to the United States where, in the way of Americans, he prospers, working at a number of professions and ultimately finding himself in the organic food distribution business. Sensing a demand back home, he returns to England and builds a small chain of organic food stores. For their part, Oliver and Gillian set up housekeeping in France, have a daughter, undergo a series of marital crises, and have another daughter, all before returning to England, where Gillian thrives as a picture restorer while Oliver tinkers with various projects.

Now Stuart reenters their lives, determined to help them escape the somewhat reduced circumstances in which he's found them. He hires Oliver, rents the couple the house that he and Gillian so briefly occupied, and is generally helpful -- throwing the threesome into another potential crisis.

The questions that linger for the three of them, the questions that Barnes so beautifully captures in this spare novel, are whether life can accurately be described as "love, etc." -- love in the center, with all of life's other stuff relegated to the et cetera -- or whether love is merely one among many of life's experiences. And can love survive those experiences? Are there people who are destined to love only one person, while others can love many, whether serially or simultaneously? And is there any way to know the truth of our emotions, or are we doomed to hide that truth from ourselves?

The characters that Barnes crafts, using their voices and the voices of others, are vivid and passionate, characters whose lives will resonate with the reader long after the novel has been put down.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick is assistant professor of English and Media Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

James Schiff

Conversely cynical and optimistic about romance, Barnes gives yet another dazzling literary performance, which—through its sheer intelligence, word play and wit—reminds one of Vladimir Nabokov and John Updike.
— Book Magazine

From The Critics

In Barnes' 1991 novel Talking It Over, flamboyant Oliver Russell steals and marries his best friend's wife, Gillian, then moves with her to France. End of story? Not quite; Ten years later Barnes has returned to his triangular cast. Barnes' new novel begins with all parties back in England after time spent abroad. Betrayed husband Stuart has become a successful grocery entrepreneur. The more impecunious Oliver and Gillian, with two growing daughters, are in the midst of a marriage that, like their sex life, is unexceptional albeit "friendly." Initiating contact with his old friends and pretending to hold no grudge, Stuart assumes the role of benefactor. He provides Oliver with a job and offers Oliver and Gillian the same house in which he and Gillian once lived. Yet Stuart, we assume, has ulterior motives. As in Talking It Over, Barnes' characters speak directly to the reader through a series of monologues that deal mostly with love, marriage and betrayal. Barnes is a shrewd observer of marriage; he understands how couples interact. Conversely cynical and optimistic about romance, Barnes gives yet another dazzling literary performance, which—through its sheer intelligence, word play and wit—reminds one of Vladimir Nabokov and John Updike.
—James Schiff

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's 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 love--as 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 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Barnes introduced the love triangle of wife Gillian, ex-husband Stuart, and current husband Oliver in his 1991 novel Talking It Over, in which Gillian leaves Stuart for his best friend, Oliver. This sequel (which can stand on its own) picks up a decade later with Stuart returning from a successful business sojourn in America and insinuating himself into Gillian and Oliver's life. Stuart uses his wealth as a foothold for his secret goal of winning Gillian back, cloaking it as a temporary stopgap for the family's privation under unpublished writer Oliver. Reminiscent of a radio play, the plot unfolds through soliloquies, often providing conflicting versions of the same incidents. Read with British accents and theatrical nuance by a cast with theater, TV, and radio credits, this is a case where audio surpasses the printed page. The lilting and witty dialog knit into a compelling tale that is highly recommended for adult fiction collections.-Judith Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

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.