Before She Met Me
by Julian Barnes
List Price:
Our Price: $8.61
You Save: $6.39 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.60 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Julian BarnesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-10-27
ISBN: 0679736093
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Before She Met Me
Book Review: Obsession
Summary: 4 Stars
Julian Barnes must be one of the most various of English novelists writing today. FLAUBERT'S PARROT is virtually a piece of literary history in novel form. A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10½ CHAPTERS is just that, a very peculiar history starting with Eden and moving on from there. ARTHUR AND GEORGE is a linked biography of two contrasting but real figures from the late 19th century. Each of these uses a totally different narrative form, and none is exactly what you would call a normal novel. By contrast, BEFORE SHE MET ME is closer to conventional fiction in containing made-up characters and having a beginning, middle, and end. It is a kind of Bluebeard story in reverse, in which it is now the husband who becomes jealous of his wife's former lovers.
Graham Hendrick is an academic historian, used to uncovering the relics of the past and teasing out their meaning; in this case, however, his training leads him only into trouble. While caught in a stale marriage, he falls for a younger woman called Ann, and divorces his wife in order to marry her. Ann is open and devoted, and Graham discovers new life under her influence. But he has had little experience other than with his first wife, and finds it hard to accept that Ann has had a much more varied romantic life (and a perfectly usual one for 1980; in exploring the attitude of different generations towards sex, the book is in some ways an extension of Ian McEwan's ON CHESIL BEACH, twenty years on). For a short time, Ann had a career as a B-movie actress; Graham happens to catch one of her films, and begins to wonder about her liaisons, onscreen and off. As he persists with his misapplication of the historical method to Ann's past, Graham's interest becomes an obsession, and eventually spills over into speculation about her present, leading to the dramatic climax with which the book ends.
I cannot say that the ending feels entirely right, but this is a book where the journey is much more important than the destination. Along the way, Barnes offers marvelous insights about divorce and the dynamics of marriage, in and out of the bedroom. There is a lot of genuine love, even among the craziness. Parts of the book are hilariously funny, especially the characterization of Graham's friend Jack Lupton, a philandering novelist of the back-to-the-soil school, who has developed farting to a fine art. And there are quite brilliant passages such as this, where Graham is looking through Ann's bookshelves and comes upon some maps: "All of Ann's maps had been put away as if they'd been interrupted in mid-use. This made them more personal and, Graham suddenly realized, more threatening to him. A map, for him, once folded back into its proper order, lost its user's stamp: it could be lent or given away without touching on any feelings of attachment. Looking at Ann's awkwardly squashed maps with their overruled creases was like seeing a clock stopped at a certain significant time; or -- and worse, he realized -- like reading her diary. Some of the maps (Paris, Salzburg, Madrid) had biro marks on them: crosses, circles, street numbers. The sudden particularities of a life previous to him." This is at once an historian's insight and a novelist's. In another situation, such discoveries would add to the attraction of the other -- but under the irrational but relentless grip of jealousy, they lead only to disaster.
Summary of Before She Met Me
At the start of this fiendishly comic and suspenseful novel, a mild-mannered English academic chuckles as he watches his wife commit adultery. The action takes place before she met him. But lines between film and reality, past and present become terrifyingly blurred in this sad and funny tour de force from the author of Flaubert's Parrot.Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.74
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $4.60
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Pulse: Storiesby Julian Barnes
Knopf; Published: 2011-05-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
Metrolandby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 1992-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.13
Price in other shops:
Nothing to Be Frightened Of (Vintage)by Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 2009-10-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
A History of the World in 10 1/ 2 Chaptersby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 1990-11-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.27
Price in other shops:
Arthur & Georgeby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 2007-01-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.48
Price in other shops:
Flaubert's Parrotby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 1990-11-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.63
Price in other shops:
Talking It Overby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 1992-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
The Lemon Tableby Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 2005-04-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Love, etc.by Julian Barnes
Vintage; Published: 2002-06-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.93
Price in other shops:
The Sense of an Ending (Borzoi Books)by Julian Barnes
Knopf; Published: 2011-10-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.86
Price in other shops: