The first chapter is perhaps the best and most insightful. It focuses on the childhood of Martha, the main character, and everything in Martha's life appears to be rosy. Except it isn't... The language and tone used by Barnes is sublime and he manages to satirise the way people romantise their childhoods, without the reader losing empathy for Martha.

The second chapter is the setting up of the Theme Park and Barnes' manages to hit a lot of satiric targets.

The third chapter is the weakest. Barne's prophesises an apocylaptic Britain and seems to lose his general message.

A book which adds to the current debate of Englishness but is not up to the Postmodern satire of Jonathan Coe's "What A Carve Up!"


Contrived, self-important, wannabe-intellectual muddle   October 3, 2001
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Take one great, great idea (England as a themepark). Take another great idea (a Baudrillardian take on said themepark). Add cardboard characters with no other purpose than to further a plot (which in turn only exist in order to further the two great ideas that the author cannot get to work in his context). I actually really wanted to like this - as I said: two great ideas - but it just ended up being a contrived, self-important, wannabe-intellectual muddle. It would've made a nice newspaper essay.


Julian   March 21, 2001
 0 out of 4 found this review helpful

Julian Barnes... you have managed to capture the spirit of the English in one novel. I won't say if that is a good thing... or a bad thing!


An interesting satire and social commentary   December 11, 2000
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Barnes's "England, England" is a humorous novel about historical and personal identity, and how both can be lost through overidealization of the past. Sir Jack Pitman, an egomaniacal tycoon, decides to build a theme park in which English history comes alive, and which subsequently becomes more popular than England itself. Caught up in this scheme are cynical Martha Cochrane, who is trying to find love, happiness, and personal identity among the mess, and Paul Harrison who is torn between his love for Martha and his loyalty to Sir Jack. The book itself is clever, but almost too clever at points, as Barnes sometimes sacrifices a decent plot line or character integrity in order to crack a cheap joke. The characters themselves, with the possible exceptions of Martha and Paul, are bland stereotypes, but since this is a satirical book, that can be forgiven. Barnes's writing style is easy to read, but some of the historical references can be lost on those unfamiliar with some of the finer points of British history. All in all, this is an entertaining, but not excellent book.


Nice cover   December 5, 2000
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

"a reader from scotland" sums this tiresome book up well, and I have just given up after 50 pages. This is seemingly attempting to be a clever clever satire and the writing and dialogue is actually very irritating. It is getting frustrating wasting time trawling through novels like this and overhyped rubbish from other "modern UK literary figures" (Tony Parsons, Martin Amis etc etc), which have lovely blurbs from their mates on the back covers. I think ill just stick to american novels from now on