"Arthur & George"

[fiefoe]

Julian Barnes almost reads like a different author this time. His "Talking It Over" is quick and sharp, "A&G" is far more leisurely though no less astute.

• By the time he came to describe it publicly, sixty years had passed. How many internal retellings had smoothed and adjusted the plain words he finally used? .. "The door, the room, the bed, and what was on the bed: a "white, waxen thing."
• A grandchild who, by the acquisition of memory, had just stopped being a thing.
• ... his story no longer divergent but now consolidated into legal fact, his character no longer of his own authorship but delineated by others.
  

Victorian attitudes: (There was also a line about children being defective adults somewhere.)

• It was rather, he felt, that he had his silences - and his obvious thoughts.
• Two white lies are allowed to a gentleman: in order to shield a woman, and to get into a fight when the fight is a rightful one.
  
• The fundamental mystery of women can, he thinks, be encompassed and held at bay as long as he is allowed to explain things to them.
  
• Noble blood, hard times, restored fortunes. She was happy enough to believe such themes in a library novel, but when confronted by a living version was inclined to find them implausible and sentimental.