Pulse

I was hesitant in picking up 'Pulse' by Julian Barnes. I wasn't sure if I'd appreciate the premises the book is based on. Many short stories which are some kind of supposed reflection of the author's take on middle-class values and all its angst and neurosis, and a lot of focus on couple-dom or the lack of. All these, spells stereotyping. (Read reviews from The Guardian, Los Angeles Times and The New York Times,)

In the left corner of the photo, sat a piece of the friend's mom's homebaked fruit cake. It was excellent! The sugar was very controlled and while a tad sticky as most fruitcakes are, it wasn't cloying. I ate it really slowly. The last bite was taken as I flipped the last pages of the book. A rather nice tidbit to go along with a lovely grade of oolong steeped hot in the pot.

Barnes is an excellent observer of the human psyche. He understands what drives it, and all of its emotions. This keen insight comes through in his writing. The stories are genuine, painful and the scenes are kept real. At the interwoven stories of 'At Phil & Joanna's' from 1 (60/40) to 4 (One in Five), they contain a lot of chatter about politics, current concerns, bankers' bonuses, etc; nameless guests postulating their opinions and each trying to profess the 'right' and the 'smart' view. We, as readers, are simply looking on at scenes of the lives at random evenings of the year.

'Because that's the whole point. If you can't see, if I have to explain - that's why we're not getting married.''You're not being logical.''I'm also not getting married.'Forget it, forget it, it's gone. On the one hand, she liked you making the decisions; on the other hand, she found you controlling. On the one hand, she liked living with you; on the other, she didn't want to go on living with you. On the one hand, she knew you'd be a good father; on the other, she didn't want to have your children. Logic, right? Forget it. 

~ from 'Trespass'. (Also found online at The New Yorker 2003, November 24.)

I'm not entirely sure I like the stories. They flow, as social observations are wont to do. The writer is succinct, clear and puts across his ideas and concepts in the contemporary brevity expected of this decade. I wasn't bored. The stories are well paced, as short stories are wont to be. However, I'm just not particularly inclined to this genre, and reading stories about coupledom. This is the argument I always have with the friends. Humans are about relationships, and if a book or a movie doesn't take a look at that, then there won't be any story to tell. Whereas my argument leans towards something like, 'talk about something else!' Needless to say, I'm not taken by 'East Wind', 'Carcassonne' or 'Marriage Lines'.

You would think, wouldn't you, that if you were the child of a happy marriage, then you ought to have a better than average marriage yourself - either through some generic inheritance or because you'd learnt from example? But it doesn't seem to work like that. So perhaps you need the opposite example - to see mistakes in order not to make them yourself. Except this would mean that the best way for parents to ensure their children have happy marriages would be to have unhappy ones themselves. So what's the answer? I don't know. Only that I don't blame my parents; nor, really, do I blame Janice. 

~ from the title story 'Pulse'.