Despedidas

Julian Barnes turns eighty and celebrates with a beautiful exploration of memory and the past, the unpredictable paths our decisions lead us down, the search for happiness—at any age—and, of course, love, friendship, and writing. What holds more truth: our memories, our diaries, the anecdotes told a thousand times, or the image others reflect back to us? How can we compose, toward the end of our lives, a reliable account of who we are? Barnes reflects on all of this against the backdrop of old age, the inevitable approach of an end, before which we can do nothing but learn to say goodbye. But at the heart of this work there is also a story—"or a story within a story"—and its protagonists are two people to whom Barnes promised he would never write about them—let's call them Jean and Stephen—and a Jack Russell Terrier named Jimmy. The young Barnes met Jean and Stephen when the three of them were students at Oxford. He introduced them, they fell in love, they separated, and each went their separate ways, far from each other and also from Barnes's life, who never forgave them for ending that friendship. Until nearly forty years later, they met again, once more through his intervention, and life continued its twists and turns, filled with joy, betrayal, and disappointment. From the life story of these two "new old" friends, the author delves into the mysteries and truths of life in this moving book that, in Barnes's characteristic style, blends fiction, memoir, and essay. With his characteristic mastery, he crafts a seemingly playful and lighthearted text that inevitably contains a profound meditation on the meaning of existence.