Barbarians

by Tim Glencross

It is 2008, late capitalism is in crisis, and the great and the good are gathered at an Islington house party. Hosting proceedings are waspish Sherard Howe, scion of a publishing dynasty and owner of a left-wing magazine, and his wife, Daphne Depree, whose feminist work The Third Sex is seen - to her increasing discomfort - as an intellectual cornerstone of the Blair era. The guests include cabinet ministers, celebrated artists and peers of the realm; but somehow it's doubtful that any number of grandees would overshadow Afua, the Howes' beautiful and supremely ambitious adopted daughter, already a rising star of the Labour Party.

Into this world arrives twenty-four-year-old Elizabeth "Buzzy" Price, an aspiring poet only too aware of her suburban background. Moral support is at hand from shy but devoted Henry, the Howes' biological son - though perhaps Buzzy is most grateful for her friend's connection to her own unrequited love, Afua's boyfriend, the worldly Marcel.

As the years pass and a coalition government takes office, Buzzy's fortunes rise and the elder Howes' lives threaten to unravel. But do the civilising possibilities of art involve enlarging Buzzy's romantic ambitions, or revealing their moral complacency? And could meek and gentle Henry, having angered his family by going to work for the political enemy, turn out to be steelier than anyone thought - as steely, even, as his formidable adopted sister?

Barbarians is a debut of extraordinary scope and confidence; a fresh, contemporary novel about love, art and politics, told with a 19th century sensibility.

Genres: Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published May 22, 2014

Reviews

[Matthew Marcus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uniformly unlikeable characters (snobs and love cheats every last one), comic vignettes that sound good in precis but always fail to bring about an actual smile, unwarranted literary pretensions (Becky Sharp and Casaubon are name-dropped as often as Damien Hirst and Tony Blair)... it's actually fairly readable but also quite terrible. Damningly, I didn't know who or what the book was about until the final chapter, where we're suddenly meant to care if an apparently randomly selected pair of the awful characters are going to get together or not. It seems as though there has been a massive campaign to give away free copies of this novel to get people talking about it: be careful what you wish for, eh?

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given an advance copy of this book & thank the publishers for this. The synopsis was promising & I was looking forward to delving into this book.
Bridget Jones meets Jilly cooper with characters peppered with artwork, literary & political references that loosely are connected to the main characters. Initially characters are tossed together like a mixed salad & it takes some time for the reader to sort out who’s of interest & relevance. Few are initially likeable or fleshed out & superficiality is the name of the game here. A female equivalent of Jilly Coopers Rupert Campbell-black is in the form of a female character called Afua who can do no wrong & every man craves. The first few chapters introduce a hoard of characters that lack depth or elicit any sympathy from the reader. Henry apparently is smitten by ‘Buzzy’ but there is no mention as to why. Many readers may be lost at this stage especially if the references are irrelevant & meaningless to them. However do persevere as by page 90 the characters are starting to be fleshed out.
Half way through I struggled to keep going as Buzzy lusts after the irresistible Marcel who clearly does not reciprocate her feelings. Following Buzzy acting like the class idiot wasn’t fun but maybe readers of Bridget Jones may enjoy it.
Maybe if readers are au fait with all the machinations of politics this book will resonate with them but unfortunately I found this book very disappointing.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am surprised that Barbarians is rating so low on Goodreads (2.75 at time of writing); I really enjoyed it.

I'm not sure if the plot, which follows friends Buzzy, Marcel, Afua and Henry, and Henry's parents, through the financial crash of 2008 until the autumn of 2011, will stand the test of time. It's very particular to its political circumstances and may not read so well in eight or so years when Blairites, Brownites and the early days of coalition have faded. But I really like Glencross's style. He has an ability to form characters who are not incomplete on the page despite being so incomplete in their lives, and his prose is witty and elegant. I was surprised this was a debut novel - I have found debuts to be a bit lacking, particularly in dialogue - but not at all surprised that his previous writing was in political speeches. I will look him out for future novels, but maybe not the speeches...

[Kath · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've got to be honest, this was an absolutely terrible book. I would never have picked it up in the first place if not for it appearing on a reading list for a course I was doing, but even so, I felt it highlighted everything you're NOT meant to do when writing a novel. Characters awful, shameful amounts of tell over show, little to no plot to speak of, lots of the author intruding with their viewpoint... In fact I found the latter intrusive and offensive. This would have been a far better book told from Afua's point of view. I wonder why the author didn't even bother to attempt her viewpoint at all when she is the most interesting character?

[Duncan McLaren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretentious tosh, filled with characters that were simultaneous too real to laugh at their misfortunes, but too false to empathise with ...

[Sean Egan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of the society satire really sparkle. It's send up of the British business,.political and cultural elite is a lot of fun. Unfortunately the more character driven sections can drag.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book bored me silly. No particular story line. Unlikable characters. But I finished it anyway.

[Maya Panika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cultural references abound in this clever (or trying to be) novel about relationships, politics and art. I enjoyed the story well enough when it got moving, but there are so many over-long sidesteps and digressions; we have to know every tiny detail of what's happening in the character's heads at ALL times. It's especially tiring and annoying during dialogue: a 5 line conversation can take up most of a chapter because the author tells us every shade and flicker of thought and emotion passing through each character's thoughts as they speak. Add to that the lengthy digressions on art, politics and literature (to show us how clever these people are. Or maybe just to show us how cultured the author is)... It gets pretty annoying when you're simply trying to follow the plot and make sense of what these dreadful people are trying to say to each other - no easy task, when the characters are so thinly sketched and lacking in depth; at times they become so completely interchangeable, I had to keep flicking back through the pages to find out who was speaking to whom.
As a look at the lives of the leftist Islington elite, the story has the veracity of being written by an insider, and simply confirms everything one ever believed about the insincere and self-obsessed ghastliness of the champagne socialists who kept Blair in power. All the characters are almost entirely hateful, only Henry has any humanity or dignity at all. He's the only one I could feel sorry for, the rest deserved each other.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from a goodreads giveaway, having found the blurb intriguing. I found this book relatively easy to read, although I would not say it was unputdownable. I found that many of the characters did not really have enough background to them, meaning I didn't really have any sympathy for them. Whilst they are plainly meant to be flawed, not always likeable people, I was not really invested in them. I would really have liked a little more insight into Afua and Marcel, particularly as the ending of the book seems to assume that the reader should have sympathy for Marcel.
I also found some of the characters to not be woven in to the storyline enough - the time jump halfway through was a bit confusing and it would have been interesting to follow Sherard's story in a little more detail. Having said all that, being a similar age to the main characters meant that I understood some of their predicaments, particularly regarding starting out in their careers and I did enjoy following their trajectory over the years.

Overall, this was a reasonably enjoyable read, but not a book that I think I would read again.

[Anne Goodwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s 2008, and the financial crisis signals the death throes of New Labour; what’s the millionaire head of a publishing dynasty to do, but throw a party? Sherard Howe’s proclivity to entertain enables author Tim Glencross to assemble a wide cast of characters under one roof whose love and work trajectories the reader follows over the ensuing three years. While Philip Devereux, partner at a prestigious law firm that “advised the banks while they were getting into a mess, and now … [advises] them on how to finish themselves off” (p143), commissions his former fag (a word whose meaning I did know, but wish I didn’t), Sherard to curate a modern art exhibition on the theme of the crisis, fittingly entitled Turmoil, and the minister, Alec Merton, escapes a tedious family Christmas to defend the government to the news media, Sherard’s wife, the feminist philosopher Daphne Depree, is having second thoughts about the pending publication of her book, The Prodigal Sister, a “virtuosic deconstruction of third-way politics” (p121).
Continues at http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd call this a pseudo political comedy about graduates finding their way and an entertaining satirical novel, but I could be completely wrong. If you aren't part of a North London literary elite you may find it hard to get in to this novel much like awkward outsider Buzzy, you might read it on the fringes looking in not quite sure you're getting what you're "supposed" to be getting from it. Literary references abound in Glencross' debut. The tough thing about writing about people with no "real problems" from a very specific world to which the reader has little access is it can be hard to care about the characters. Glencross' mixing of 19th century sensibility with modern day content is a bold concept for storytelling.

[Laura]

Finding this really hard to read and I'm hardly any of the way in; the characters are unlikeable (as I think they're meant to be) but the prose just floats about like it's some throwaway comment and that does not a good narrative make. I'm going to try to read it, because I think there may be some snide satire in there at some point, but this is clearly a book for the insiders, a comedy of errors for the political classes. And that's painfully ironic for a book based on how out of touch politicians are.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

This was surprisingly enjoyable. I found it all strangely fascinating, you sort of get to see how the rich people live. Though most of the time it makes fun of the Oxbridge, art-collecting, well-read, lawyers and political types. It was a very easy book to read, the type of book you would want to take on holiday with you. I would definitely recommend if you are into art or modern day politics.

[Karen Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent debut. Beautifully written. Full of magnificently unlikable characters, astutely observed. Perhaps a little short of plot, and a rather rubbish endings. The fact I nonetheless enjoyed it very much indeed shows how good a writer Tim Glencross is. Will definitely look out for his next one. Eight out of ten.

[Helen Hutchings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with this book. In some places, the writing was beautiful and, in others, it was so subtle and nuanced that I missed the point. The characters are unlikeable but the story is quite interesting. A very difficult book to rate which is why I'm sitting on the fence with three stars.

[James Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminded me of Zadie Smith.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was strange to come across a book that was difficult to summon the desire to pick up, yet was so utterly engrossing when I did.

[Jo Coleman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very silly, but exactly the distraction I needed from the real world last week. Bit annoyed at what a two-dimensional character Afua was, though.

[TheLlamaReads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed this as I live in the neighbourhood and it was a catchy holiday read, but it tried a little too hard and I didn't completely relax into the world it created.