Julian Barnes

Vanessa Guignery, ed. Worlds within Words: Twenty-first Century Visions on the Work of
Julian Barnes. Special issue. American, British and Canadian Studies 13 (Dec. 2009).
Sibiu: Lucian Blaga University Press, 2009. 169p.
The essays collected in this volume were partly drawn from the contributions to the 2008
international conference “Julian Barnes and the European Tradition” held at Liverpool Hope
University. They cover a large part of Julian Barnes’s literary output, including his novels,
short stories and non-fiction. Several essays examine Barnes’s early novels in the larger
context of the writer’s persistent pursuit of truth in a postmodernist world which has lost its
faith in the reassuring stability and teleology of grand narratives. Another recurrent concern in
Barnes’s novels which is analysed here pertains to the complex issue of Englishness and the
definition of a national identity. Finally, contributors propose a thorough examination of
Barnes’s recent production and more particularly his preoccupation with death, illness, old
age and religion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Criss-crossing Lines
VANESSA GUIGNERY
Alternatives to Metanarrative in the Work of Julian Barnes
BIANCA LEGGETT
Truth Takes a Holiday: Julian Barnes’s England, England and the Theme Park as Literary
Genre
GREGORY J. RUBINSON
Competing Narratives in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George
ANA-KARINA SCHNEIDER
The Erosion of Victorian Discourses in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George
BOZENA KUCALA
“A peculiarly English idiosyncrasy?” Julian Barnes’s Use of Lists in England, England
CHRISTINE BERBERICH
Constructions of Englishness in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George
ELSA CAVALIÉ
Conversations about Death: Julian Barnes’s The Lemon Table
FREDERICK M. HOLMES
Beneath a Bombers’ Moon: Barnes and Belief
PETER CHILDS
“I don’t believe in God but I miss Him”: Religion and Nostalgia in the Work of Julian Barnes
WOJCIECH DRAG
Why Julian Barnes Couldn’t Possibly Miss God
DANIEL CANDEL BORMANN
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