Pulse by Julian Barnes
The stories in Julian Barnes' long-awaited third collection are attuned to rhythms and currents: of the body, of love and sex, illness and death, connections and conversations. Each character is bent to a pulse, propelled on by success and loss, by new beginnings and endings. In 'East Wind' a divorced estate agent falls in love with a European waitress, but is tempted, despite his happiness, to investigate her past; in 'The Limner' a deaf painter discovers his patron's likeness after spending time among his staff. Anchored off the coast of Brazil, Garibaldi spies his future wife through a telescope, and in 'Marriage Lines', a widower returns to a remote Scottish Island to relive a favourite holiday. These are also lives in flux - in the 'stages, transitions, arguments; incompatibilities which grow' - as in the title story, where a man reflects on the break-up of his marriage, brought into new perspective by the actions of his parents; two writers, a 'good team', return from an event rehearsing familiar arguments; in 'Gardener's World', a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches. Positioned in between are a series of evenings at 'Phil & Joanna's', where among the topics of conversation - the environment, politics, the Britishness of marmalade, toilet graffiti and the perils of smoking - we witness the guests' lives shift in sections over the course of a year. Ranging from the domestic to the extraordinary, from the vineyards of Italy to the English seaside in winter, the stories in Pulse resonate and spark, each imbued with the humour, poignancy and perception that marks all Julian Barnes' work. This is an imaginative and expertly-constructed new collection from a master of the form.
Pulse is Barnes’s 17th book and is a masterclass in the shorter form-- Elizabeth Day * Observer *
Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and The Man in the Red Coat, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Duff Cooper Prize. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780224091084 |
| ISBN 10 | 0224091085 |
| Title | Pulse |
| Author | Julian Barnes |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2011-01-06 |
| Number of pages | 240 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |