TONIGHT 9-10PM! Come and meet the marvellous JULIAN BARNES, multi-award winning author of our February Book of the Month, THE NOISE OF TIME.

[TillyMumsnetBookClub]

JULIAN BARNES is the author of twenty previous books, including The History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters, Flaubert’s Parrot, Metroland, England, England, Arthur and George and Levels of Life. The New York Times described him as ‘a literary decathlete’ – he is a master of a hybrid form of fact blended with fiction, equally happy writing novels or essays, endlessly inventive and consistently erudite and elegant. The Noise of Time, his first full-length work of fiction since the 2011 Booker Prize-winning The Sense of an Ending, is set in 1930s Russia. The composer Shostakovitch has begun sleeping outside his apartment door so that when Stalin's men arrive to take him to the Big House, they will not abduct his wife and daughter too. Pravda’s review has denounced his latest opera as ‘a muddle’; it only took a short while to graduate to ‘enemy of the people’. Power has begun to take an interest in him and Power will now hold the balance of his fate. As Shostakovitch reflects on his career, his family and his various mishaps and misdemeanours, the relationship between art and society is explored and uncovered. The Noise of Time is a brilliant reflection of one man’s consciousness, amid the fear and terror of authoritarian rule. Completely gripping and informative and entertaining, it is a classic Barnes concoction.

You can find an excellent, detailed profile on Barnes and all his books in The Observer

Random House have 50 copies of The Noise of Time to give to Mumsnetters: to claim your copy please fill in your details on the book of the month page. We’ll post on the thread when all the copies have gone. If you’re not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a Kindle edition or hardback copy here

We are honoured and delighted that Julian Barnes will be joining us to answer your questions about The Noise of Time, his previous award-winning novels and his exceptional career on Tuesday 23rd February, 9-10pm. Please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month and then come and meet Julian on the night, and ask him a question or simply tell him what you thought of the book. It’ll be a fascinating chat, very much hope you can make it…

@SlinkyVagabond

I'm going to lower the tone. Whilst I really admire and love your main body of literature, I have a secret liking for the Duffy books. They, along with other British crime writers in the 80s sparked a decades long love affair with the genre, particularly the hard-boiled type. I know our copies are in the depth of the attic, but I couldn't resist buying the reissues, which stood the test of time. Can't wait to read your latest "proper" book, but just to say thanks for Duffy, Dan.

Dan is very pleased to hear this. He has had writer's block for 30 years, and who knows, your praise might just unlock it. There was a plan to make Duffy into a TV series quite recently, but unfortunately it collapsed at the last minute. This sent Dan into a further downwards spiral. Also, he is darkly (and sometimes drunkenly) envious of my success.

@LadyIsabellaWrotham

I didn't get a MN copy but am looking forward to reading this eventually.

I have a complete set of Shostakovich symphonies on CD which I bought, bizarrely, for a tenner in Superdrug (yes, Superdrug, this is not an autocorrect) many years ago - I listened to them while going through a Shostakovich phase, but not for ages. Would you recommend listening to them on headphones while reading the book, or not?

I'd prefer you not to, because the rhythms of prose and the rhythms of music are contradictory. But of course I can't stop you.

You are always so inventive and ambitious with form in your books. I agree with CheeseEmouse's earlier post that the fragmented nature of this book worked beautifully and suited the subject so well. Did you play around a lot with the structure and tone of The Noise of Time, before settling on the final form? Do you find the form usually gradually reveals itself during the writing, or that you have to try different costumes on, as it were, till you are happy?

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

You are always so inventive and ambitious with form in your books. I agree with CheeseEmouse's earlier post that the fragmented nature of this book worked beautifully and suited the subject so well. Did you play around a lot with the structure and tone of The Noise of Time, before settling on the final form? Do you find the form usually gradually reveals itself during the writing, or that you have to try different costumes on, as it were, till you are happy?

You make different mistakes with each book. With The Noise of Time I was foolishly optimistic and started writing it when I didn't have enough of the story. I compounded the error by writing an initial four-page section in the first person. I then looked at it and realised I couldn't go on for two different reasons. I went back to it 9 months later, realising that it had to be in the third person - but a kind of mobile third person, which at times approaches first person - and by which time I'd done more research and more thinking, and had enough of the book in my head.

As a general rule, a book only becomes a book when form and idea meet. Flaubert once said, 'There is no idea without a form, and no form without an idea.' He didn't mean that they both arrived at the same time, but that until an idea finds its most suitable form, it can't become a book.

I'm glad to have quoted Flaubert at last, having held back for 50 minutes.

@MermaidAvenue

Another question from me:

As one of the vanishingly few academics interested in the genre of magical realism, I can assure you your stinging aspersions on its output in Flaubert's Parrot have not been forgotten.

I just wondered whether your scorn applies to non-Latin American texts? That opinion was published in the same year as the luminous Nights at the Circus - surely you couldn't charge Carter with being formulaic? How about the other magical realist texts which emerged in the '80s, by Salman Rushdie, or Toni Morrison?

You have to remember that those testy literary opinions were voiced by one Geoffrey Braithwaite, who was a much more curmudgeonly person than the author of the novel. He was just being provoking, but I am glad to see that his pepperiness is still having its effect 32 years on.

Bother, that hour went far too fast...

Thank you everyone for all your excellent questions and for being here tonight, it has been such a fascinating discussion.

Julian, thank you very very much indeed for joining us. You have given such generous and insightful answers, and your intelligence and talent are hugely inspiring. We're massively grateful not only for your time and energy tonight but also for all the brilliant books. I hope you enjoy your well deserved rest, but please don't leave us waiting too long for the next project...

Many thanks again.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you for all your questions. JB

Thanks Julian it was very interesting and The Noise of Time was very enjoyable.

Thanks Julian.
Properly star struck.

I didn't really know what to expect from this book, having sadly never read anything else by the author (which I will now be rectifying!) and also it being a different genre of novel to what I normally go for, but thankfully I won a copy from Mumsnet, and I can honestly say I am glad I did as otherwise I might have missed out on this. I loved the writing style, and couldn't wait to find out what happened in the end.

Thank you for my copy of The Noise of Time, which I found to be fascinating and thought provoking book, and one I would never have read, as the cover is so uninviting.