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The Lemon Table
Stories
by Julian Barnes
A collection of stories about getting old.
Knopf, 241 pages
07/06/2004
$22.95
ISBN: 1400042143
Fiction
Short Stories
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Booklist Donna Seaman
Crisp pacing, keen dialogue, and sudden reversals render Barnes' stories playlike, while he finds just the right object, habit, or myth to embody the aging process and allude to death's encroachment. [1 June 2004, p. 1697]
New York Review Of Books Diane Johnson
There are no verbal antics here. Some of the vigor of the writing comes from the absence of descriptive ornament; each phrase is instrumental, an occasional surprising adjective the only indulgence.
Publishers Weekly
Polished and classically structured, the 11 exquisite stories in this collection are as stylish as any of Barnes's creations, while also possessed of a pleasing heft.
San Francisco Chronicle Martin Rubin
Throughout the book there is a sense of a master at work, a writer in absolute control of his material, able to pack a short story with a range of perceptions and insights that would put many full-length novels to shame by comparison.
The New York Times Book Review Thomas Mallon
'The Lemon Table,'' in ways both modest and grand, helps sustain a reader's faith in literature as the truest form of assisted living.
Library Journal Barbara Love
This is Barnes at his best. Don't miss this collection. [1 June 2004, p. 118]
Los Angeles Times Jane Ciabattari
Barnes' novels rely upon pyrotechnics, lexicographer's puns and postmodernist devices; these new stories are filled with emotional resonance and hard-won wisdom. "The Lemon Table" is a virtuoso performance of remarkable clarity and insight.
New York Observer James Hunter
Readers who dislike the narrative interruptions of short story collections should know that the Lemon table is no miscellany of short fictions; because Mr. Barnes customarily plays with form, the collection's cohesive variations will seem scarcely more disjointed, cumulatively, than his novel-writing or essay methods.
The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
While some of the tales in this volume are nothing but smartly crafted throwaways, the strongest ones attest to Mr. Barnes's growing depth as a writer, his newly embraced ability to create stories that are as affecting as they are cunning, as emotionally resonant as they are prettily fashioned.
The Independent Ian Irvine
Subtle, perceptive and thoroughly enjoyable.
The Spectator Jane Gardam
The best stories are those where the aged make discoveries about themselves, usually about their inconsequent lives.
Wall Street Journal Merle Rubin
Mr. Barnes handles his somber material with compassion, verve, shrewd intelligence and a sharp sense of irony that never degenerates into mere cynicism. Mortality itself is ever present and truthfully confronted, as are the necessary and not-so-necessary lies that mortals tell one another to protect themselves from knowing too much about their own limitations.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Andre Alexis
Barnes is a mature and great writer who has written a collection filled with consideration for what passes.
The Guardian Frank Kermode
It is quite funny but not at all cheerful. This is a book about old age and disappointment, among other things... The Lemon Table leaves one in no doubt as to Barnes's virtuosity.
The Independent Peter J. Conradi
Wise, funny, clever, and moving says the jacket blurb. The Lemon Table is clever, certainly; and elegant, laddish, efficient. And largely free from grief.
Boston Globe Jodi Daynard
With their underlying classicism, their commitment to truth and beauty, Barnes's stories also harken back to a pre-existential time in which hope was still, in a tragic sort of way, possible. The greatest hope being, of course, that the fruits of your life's work would still be gleaming, fresh and pungent on the table, after you had gone. [11 July 2004, D6]
Daily Telegraph Carolyn Moore
In other hands, these tales could have been depressing indeed. Nearly all end in dribbling physical incapacity or death. But the clean, acidic accuracy of Barnes's writing is supremely enjoyable.
Daily Telegraph Ann Wroe
The Lemon Table... is a compelling series of vignettes of old age, executed with great skill. By the last story, we are almost desperate to be back in the company of the young, beautiful and hopeful again. But we realise, too, that we are ending in a place of silent and resigned resolution.
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Sex, old age, and death haunt these chilly tales by eccentric virtuoso Barnes.
Kirkus Reviews
Eleven old-fashioned stories that take their time but are riveting, muscular, and real.
LA Weekly Brendan Bernhard
The Lemon Table is an extraordinarily good collection.
The New Republic Ruth Franklin
He dreams up some nicely unconventional figures and puts them in provocative scenarios, but he fails to discover any emotion richer than a condescending pathos.
Washington Post Carolyn See
These particular stories suffer from an overwhelming disadvantage (and I don't care if Julian Barnes is a very skillful writer and gets published in the New Yorker all the time). You can't condescend to your characters, scorn them even, and expect to leave the reader with much more than a bad taste.
 The average user rating for this book is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
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