England, England

Written by Julian Barnes ⭐ Published by     Vintage; 01 edition (24 April 2008) Genre Literary Fiction, Parody, Humorous Fiction Pages 272 ASIN B0038AUYDM ISBN-10 0099526549 ISBN-13 978-0099526544

The blurb:

As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of Wight. Grotesque, visionary tycoon Sir Jack Pitman takes the saying literally and does exactly that. He constructs on the island 'The Project', a vast heritage centre containing everything 'English', from Big Ben to Stonehenge, from Manchester United to the white cliffs of Dover. The project is monstrous, risky, and vastly successful. In fact, it gradually begins to rival 'Old' England and even threatens to supersede it...

One of Barnes's finest and funniest novels, England, England calls into question the idea of replicas, truth vs fiction, reality vs art, nationhood, myth-making, and self-exploration.

Parody    Literary Fiction    Humorous Fiction

My thoughts:

I'm afraid I did not finish this book. It starts well enough, with a short section introducing Martha Cochrane as a child, and talking about memory and accuracy of memory.

The next section I found less interesting. Here we meet Sir Jack Pitman, who wants to turn the Isle of Wight into a theme park representing all things English, and Paul Harrison, an ideas catcher, who becomes Martha's lover.

Not one for me, it was chosen as this month's book club read, and I discovered at the meeting that I was not the only one who had not finished it. I gather by not finishing it, I have missed some funny and interesting bits, so I've put it to one side to revisit at some point.

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