Metroland (1980, this
edition 2009) is set in the suburbs of London in 1963 when the narrator is 16
years old; Paris in 1968 when he is 21; and London in 1977 when he is 30. The
narrator is Christopher Lloyd, and this is his transition from schoolboy to
university student to working man.
The novel starts and
ends in Metroland – Christopher’s word for home – named after the Metroland railway
line: ‘a thin corridor of land’ with ‘no geographical or ideological unity’ but
with the billboard slogan urging people to ‘Live in Metroland.’ It symbolizes
the beginning and the end. It symbolizes the boredom of suburbia.
The novel begins with
two 16-year-old school boys, Christopher Lloyd and his best friend Toni
Barbarowski. They love foreign words, especially Latin and French words. They
conduct mini-studies, such as a pilot study on lying and plot a Mendacity Curve
(the subjects are parents and adults). They spy on people and take notes. They,
of course, know more than everyone else, and smirk at people’s suburban
attitudes. But a lot of the time they are just two young bored school boys.
I love the description
of Christopher’s mother’s coat: reversible, pillar-box red on one side, and
black-and-white checks on the other, with very large pockets. All the better
for hiding things.
At 21, Christopher
travels to Paris while Toni goes to Morocco. May 1968 is the time of ‘the
burning of the Bourse, the occupation of the Odeon, and the Billancourt lock-in’
… but he can’t remember any of those events because he is infatuated with his
first girlfriend, the French Annick, and everything French. It is also a time
spent in Paris with new-found art-lovers Dave, Mickey, and Marion from England.
At 30 in 1977,
Christopher is back in London, older, wiser, less cynical – and married. He is
in suburbia, living the suburban life he scoffed at when he was sixteen.
Sections 1 and 2 in
this first novel by Julian Barnes are superbly witty and comical, insightful
and honest, profound and thought-provoking. His popular novel, Flaubert’s
Parrot (1984) continues the themes of Metroland – parents, religion, French
theatre, girls, influences, loyalty, love, insecurity, and the fear of death.
Some of his later novels are better, but this is an excellent account of cynical
teenagers, first love, male angst, and an ordinary suburban life.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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