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Metroland

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About this listen

Man Booker Prize-winning author Julian Barnes' debut novel.

The adolescent Christopher and his soul mate Toni had sneered at the stifling ennui of Metroland, their cosy patch of suburbia on the Metropolitan line. They had longed for Life to begin - meaning Sex and Freedom - to travel and choose their own clothes.

Then Chris, at thirty, starts to settle comfortably into bourgeois contentment himself. Luckily, Toni is still around to challenge such backsliding.

©1980 Julian Barnes (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

"Barnes writes like a dream." ( Village Voice Literary Supplement)
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A well performed journey through the minds of adolescent self obsession into middle age. How much you enjoy it may depend on your ability to recognise your own self l and laugh?

The intensity of youthful ignorance

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This was an amazing book (never mind "first book"). It felt quite similar to The Sense of an Ending, though it didn't quite have the weight of that in the end. The audio performance was understated, excellent.

Superb; proto-SOAN

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Not very good. Usual thing about middle-class boys thinking they’re jolly clever because they know French, Latin and can quote twentieth century French intellectuals. These type of books tend to perpetuate the notion; if you don’t know old European art and literature then you’re not very bright. Most, if not all the characters are pretty unlikable and I just wasn’t invested in them. Alan Hollinghurst does this stuff much better.

Quite boring and unnecessary

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