The Lemon Table

This is a book to be read carefully without distraction. It was published when Barnes’s was 48, which is significant because several times in the stories Barnes gives the age of physical and mental aging as starting at the age of 40. The Lemon Table is said to be a place in Chinese culture where people can sit to discuss decline and death. There are 11 stories in total, the first three “A Short History of Hairdressing”, “The Story of Mats Israelson” and “The Things You Know”, form the sentinels . The stories are connected by themes rather than by space time. The book needs to be read as a whole. It’s about life, renunciation, memory and death, but mostly about aging.

The first story, “A Short History of Hairdressing”, show more although historically accurate mainly serves to introduce the physical and thematic structure into which subsequent stories expand. The. story starts in the 1950s when its main character Gregory get his first haircut at a barbershop. After describing his experience Gregory goes on to describe how barbershops evolved from the short-back-and-sides one room shops to extravagant hairstylists with music and cafés. It can be seen as a structure for a human’s travel through life, from childhood to aging. As a child, while looking at himself in the mirror, Gregory finds lubricant in his parents’ medicine cabinet. He is disgusted but works out how to use it on himself. Along with generational changes that affect individual lives and approaching death, Gregory goes from the innocent boy through the cool guy wearing about his hair, to the old man who could not care less, and does not like looking in the mirror when he can only see decay, missed opportunities, regret, renunciation, and old-age.

The second two stories move from adulthood to the final years. But they are not chronological in style. All sentinel stories need the other eight stories, long vignettes, for the whole book to be complete.

I particularly like some “minor “ storiies, such as “Knowing French”. This is. an epistolary story of letters written by a fictional character, Sylvia to Julian Barnes. She’s in a nursing home, her body decaying but her mind alert. Sylvia is raging against the “dying of the lightt”. In her letters refers to published books by various writers including Barnes himself, Austen,Flaubert and Proust. She keeps Barnes’ answers in a locked fridge in her unit - in the freezer section. This physical detail is typical of Barnes’ story collection . This, when the theme is about death, memory, love and decline and mirrors the experience of other main characters in the stories. There is Barnes’ usual irony as his letters are later found to have been thrown away by cleaners, damaged by the melting refrigerator ice, dissolved after Sylvia’s death.

In “Appetite” an elderly woman reads to her elderly lover who is in end-stage memory decline. They were once avid lovers. Long ago the man’s physical ability for sex and interest in food had declined, but not his appetite. He cannot focus on anything, exept when the elderly woman reads. He begins to remember details of when he may have eaten the food, the cultural contexts, and the restaurant names. She reads aloud to to make him happy, and whole sections of this story are recipes. I loved this short story. I even enjoyed the recipes which seemed to go on for pages. The descriptions of age and memory, and physical discomfort ties with the first story with Gregory’s passage of time in the first story. The physical mirroring the mental.

Throughout the book sexual attraction, and sexual acts align with the aging process. "Hygiene", "Appetite", "The Fruit Cage", and “I A Short History of Hairdressing" all refer in part to sexual desire continuing into old age though the body is unable to consummate desire. In “Appetite” elderly man suddenly, and out of character starts to ask his old lover also elderly to do sexually weird things to him using course language, things and words he would have never voiced during their love-making days. We get the point.

An amazing book; so amazing that I find it difficult to describe. I can only say it’s well worth the read, especially for those middle-aged and older. Or over forty as Barnes saw the turning point when he was in his sixties. show less

A disparate collection of short stories, connected by considerations of ageing, though the settings (geographical and historical) and style vary considerably. The other common themes are secrecy, lies and self-delusion.

Some contrast different life stages, whereas others focus on someone already getting on. It's not exactly uplifting, but it's not gloomy either.

Why this, why now?
My book acquisition is largely accidental, or rather, I browse second-hand bookshops for authors that I want to read, books I've heard of, or titles that catch my eye. Having bought a book, it might be days, weeks or years until I read it, triggered by a mix of what I've just read (whether I want something similar or contrasting) and what I've seen here on show more GR.

When I came across this book, I had read a recent Barnes that I loved (The Sense of An Ending, reviewed here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/309538011) and a very early one that showed promise, but was not great (Staring at the Sun, reviewed here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/326236744). However, the fact I picked this, when short stories are not my usual fare, rather than one of several of his novels at the same stall, was perhaps a subconscious acknowledgement of my looming half-century. Turning 30 and 40 meant nothing much, but much as I hate to admit it, I think 50 may feel a bit different. These stories are more about old age than middle age, but they chimed somewhat for me.

A Short History of Hairdressing
The stages of a contemporary British boy/man's life, encapsulated in his different experiences and thoughts about having his hair cut. It's subtle and poignant, and the thoughts of the child are particularly convincing, such as musing that "Things you didn't know about, or weren't meant to know about, usually turned out to be rude".

On the cusp of puberty, he makes his first solo trip to the barber. He is scared of perverts, and, to some extent, the barber: "He didn't like not being allowed to be afraid" (in contrast to the dentist) and is anxious because "you were never sure of the rules", even though he's confident that boys aren't expected to tip. He's also worried about being electrocuted by the clippers, but is reassured when he notices the barber's rubber shoes. "He submitted to the cold smoothness of the scissors - always cold even when they weren't."

As a young adult, Gregory's anxieties are different. He still doesn't tip, but now it's because "He thought it a reinforcement of the deferential society". Rather than thinking the barber's pole "rude", he's fully aware of the history of surgeon-barbers. When he accedes to "buy something for the weekend", he is "complicit at last with the hairdresser".

As an old man, "He still... couldn't slide easily into the posture", but "He could do this stuff, customer banter... It had only taken him 25 years to get the right tone". He is relaxed (and prepared for) tipping and finally has the confidence to decline to see the rear view of his haircut.

The Story of Mats Israelson
The social structure of a small, remote, nineteenth century Swedish town is delightfully and wryly described. People gossip about nothing, but when there IS something, "Gossip noted... Gossip suggested... Gossip wondered... Gossip decided that the worse interpretation of events was usually the safest and, in the end, the truest."

In church, some pews are "reserved from generation to generation, regardless of merit", whereas the horse stalls outside cannot be bequeathed and are "for the six most important men in the neighbourhood". The stalls bear not labels, "but even so, we know our places. There is no other life.".

So it's no surprise that this is a story of forbidden longing and lost opportunity for happiness, lived out by the protagonists, but paralleled in the mythologised story of Mats. A woman is "divided between not loving a man who deserved it, and loving one who did not... Though she took no account of legends, she had allowed herself to spend half her life in a frivolous dream."

Anders Boden manages the sawmill, has a horrid, sarcastic wife, and falls in love with an incomer. She is drawn to him, but falls pregnant by her husband, and realises she is stuck with him. They occasionally meet on a ferry and, knowing she prefers true stories (she says she has no imagination) he polishes the story of Mats Israelson,so he can take her to the mine where it happened. When she says she'd like to go there one day it "had been a much more dangerous remark than 'At night I dream of Venice'.") Years later, she is summoned to his deathbed near the mine. They misunderstand each other, all their planned words are unsaid, and both are hurt.

The Things You Know
Set in contemporary USA, two elderly ladies chat at their monthly meetup in a restaurant. One "talked far too much about getting old" and had undyed hair "so natural it looked false". The other's hair "was an improbably bright straw, and seemed not to care that it was unconvincing". Each silently criticises the other and avoids saying what she really means: it's almost two separate conversations, with each woman quietly trying to outdo or undermine her fellow diner

Each knows a secret about the other, that the one affected does not. Merril does not know, or is in denial about, her late husband being the "campus groper", and Janice does not know that hers was gay. "Knowing this gave Merril a sense of superiority, but not of power."

Are they really friends, or just allies?

Hygiene
Back to 20th century Britain and a retired soldier says goodbye to his wife to go on his annual trip to London for a regimental dinner, organised like a military campaign and a rendezvous with his mistress. He considers his life and gradually changing abilities in a detached way.

When he turns up at his mistress' house, he discovers she was a prostitute and has died. He can't perform with the substitute As he had given money to his "mistress", coupled with some of the things she'd said, he surely knew - at some level.

The Revival
An old playwright is surprised when his once-banned play is about to be staged. A young actress is the driving force, but she wants to play one of the minor characters.

Gradually, he feels the actress really IS the very embodiment of his creation and falls in love with her.

However, the story is cloudy. The unnamed narrator is unsure of the facts, saying "letters have not survived" and "his diary was later burned" - not that they'd have helped because apparently they weren't accurate anyway!

"He was a connoisseur of the if-only. So they did not travel. They travelled in the past conditional." Time does not always heal pain, but "a trip back in the painless past conditional... anaesthetizes pain." His final gift is "a false memory".

Vigilance
This first-person narrator could almost be one of Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads".

He has always enjoyed going to London concerts, but now his pleasure comes from getting angry with noisy or unappreciative audience members, so that his partner will no longer come too. Incidents escalate in a rather comical way.

The balance is that his partner is a cyclist who takes similar pleasure at berating bad car drivers.

Bark
A wealthy French man who is a gambler and food-lover gives up gambling, and he and his wife get fat. She chokes on her food, he feels guilty, and loses interest in life.

He is rejuvenated by a fundraising scheme to build public baths in which the last survivor of the 40 original donors gets a good pension. The gambling instinct kicks in, and he takes great care of his own health (diet of fruit and bark), and a morbid interest in the declining health of the others - even though many are friends. But "what is the reason for living if it is only to outlive others?"

There is a cycle of fate and revenge: he pays for weekly sex sessions with a young woman at the baths, allegedly for his health. He tells a friend, who tells him to break it off, but not why. It turns out, she is the friend's illegitimate daughter, but she is now pregnant, with her own illegitimate child.

Knowing French
A strangely self-referential story: in 1986, and old woman writes a series of letters to Julian Barnes about co-incidences and literature.

She also writes about the tyranny of living in an old people's home, where everyone else is mad, deaf or both. Looking forward, rather than back, gets harder as you age.

We never see his replies, though she refers to them. When she dies, he asks for his letters to be returned, but is told they've already been disposed of. Is this pure or partial fiction, and does it matter?

Appetite
A terminally ill dentist with dementia is read cookery books by his second wife. It's almost erotic, but really to trigger related memories. He makes occasional uncharacteristic crude sexual demands, but she doesn't take it personally, quietly loving him and easing his passing for them both.

The Fruit Cage
A middle aged son airs his worries about his parents. Their health seems OK, but their are tensions in their relationship.

It turns out to be a story about an adult coping with parents splitting up, in part, because one has been having an affair. But this echoes back to awkwardness about their relationship, going back many years. She has been abusing him for years, and even after he moves in with his mistress, she still has the power. A final assault leaves him brain damaged. The women visit on alternate days, and he seems to think each is his wife.

The Silence
Back to Sweden at the custom of the 19th and 20th centuries, for the memories of an old composer who knew all the greats of classical music, but was not himself a great. He is lonely and confused, "Nowadays, when my friends desert me, I can no longer tell whether it is because of my success or my failure."

"Music begins where words cease. What happens when music ceases? Silence." Yet his wife and five daughters are banned from making music at home. "My music is molten ice. In its movement you may detect its frozen beginnings, in its sonorities you may detect its initial silence."

Meaning of the title
According to one of the stories, "Among the Chinese, the lemon is the symbol of death", and a character ends up "calling for a lemon" when he's had enough of life.

Quotes
* "A glutinous whine from the radio."
* Unattainable love, "She was unprepared for the constant, silent, secret pain."
* "Were you as young as you felt, or as old as you looked?"
* "Pleasures not as strong as they had once been... so you drank less, enjoyed it more."
* "Every love... is a real disaster when you give yourself over to it entirely."
* "After the age of forty... the basis of life: Renunciation." and then talks about "the voluptuousness of renunciation".
* "If we [21st century] know more about sex, they [20th?] know more about love."
* "The village shop is 'good for essentials' which means that people use it to stop it closing down."
* "The Four Last Things of Modern Life: making a will, planning for old age, facing death, and not being able to believe in an afterlife."
* "A brisk woman... who gave off a quiet reek of high principle."
* "Geese would be beautiful if cranes did not exist."

Worst, and lastly, "Cheer up! Death is round the corner." show less

This is my introduction to Julian Barnes's short stories and I was delighted, overall, with the presentation. A few of the stories left me a little less than impressed, but as a sum it was much greater than all its parts. I am teetering on the edge of being a great fan. (It wouldn't take much.)

A Short History of Hairdressing - 3 stars

A creepy, self-obsessed, neurotic child turns into a creepy, self-obsessed, neurotic man. I didn't much care for any iterations, with their disturbing little thoughts, but can concede that Barnes has captured that sort rather well. So the dilemma is: do I rate this on the story, or the writer? Let's split the difference, and say 3 stars. (I wouldn't read an entire novel of his, for instance, on this show more repellent little rotter: would have abandoned it 50 pages in because it would have depressed me to the core; not to mention I would have needed a series of showers to get rid of the stink.)

The Story of Mats Israelson - 3 stars

"Gossip about gossip" is a good way to sum this one up, and Barnes does it beautifully, but once again, I found myself not caring a whit for these less-than-likeable characters. These are wasted lives predicated on the inability to follow through, with honesty, on anything in life.

The Things You Know - 3 stars

Two little old ladies -- allies, rather than friends, Barnes suggests. I would suggest that they are neither. They are merely acquaintances with personal agendas. "Allies" suggests that there is support, in time of need; neither of these old biddies strikes me as being that way. More, they strike me as people who will be there for you, if and when the situation suits or meets their own personal agenda at the time. Their monthly meetings suggested to me they were no better off than if they had stayed at home, talking into the mirror.

Hygiene - 4 stars

A retired soldier has been "stepping out" on his wife for years, with "another woman". This is a nice spin on an old, oft-told tale, with some keen insights into the constructs of love and desire.

The Revival - 5 stars

What is real, and what is not, in love? Is the imagination bigger and better than reality? What does it matter in the end: does it matter if love is fictional? If one gets the same fulfillment from a perceived emotion, is it any less valid? A beautiful story.

Vigilance - 4 stars

What is bad behaviour? And who defines it? A nice spin on the niceties of nice society.

Bark - 3 stars

"What is the reason for living if it is only to outlive others?" A bizarre tale of meaningless revenge. I could not connect to these people in any way, nor understand them. They were small-minded and absurd.

Knowing French - 5 stars (at least)

A lovely, funny, sad, heartwarming tale: the ultimate in elderly fangirling. Too precious, delightful for words!

Appetite - 3 stars

Blech! A spouse reads a series of cookbooks to her hubby who has dementia, in the hope of triggering his memories. All it seems to do is trigger his past (perverted?) sexual urges. Is that all that's left in the end? The nature of his recalled memories suggests it wasn't the healthiest of sex lives, and therefore not the healthiest of relationships.

The Fruit Cage - 5 stars

An abused spouse puts up with his harpie of a wife for years, until he leaves her -- but a little too late. Sad, poignant, disturbing, heartbreaking.

The Silence - 3 stars

"My music is molten ice." Yes. So is this story. Silence would have been preferable.

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Thanks to both Netta and Ilse for recommending this one! show less

Collection of 11 short stories examining the aging process and contemplation of the end of life. A Short History of Hairdressing: frightened youth, insolent young adult, complacent mature adult. The Story of Mats Israelson: unrequieted love in 18thC Sweden (referencing a true story of a body of a man identified by his fiancee after missing for 40 years) as two people who cannot speak openly and who are already married, ponder a life not chosen (although never offered, really); how the right/wrong word at a specific moment can set in motion events which come to signify a larger meaning in one's life. Best two stories are The Silence and The Revival.

Lots of really lovely prose, often about pretty unpleasant things. Barnes confronts aging with a variety of treatments. You'd think such a collection would start to feel a little one-note, but it didn't. Will read again.

This little collection of short stories by Barnes is all centred around characters in the twilight years of their lives. The stories vary enormously, but they have elements in common; loss of independence, fond reminiscences of past events, decline in health and well being, love lost and gained and inevitably death. They tales are set in barbers shops, old people’s and family homes; some concern family secrets, one is letters between a reader and a writer and the tragic theft of a mind from Alzheimer's.

Barnes writes with a light touch for subjects that are quite deep and poignant. The prose is brief, almost clipped at times, giving us the barest of plot elements and outline sketches of the characters in each story. As with any short show more story collection, some work better than others, and even though it is a tough subject to write about, and could be depressing, Barnes does it with humour and wit at times. It is a good introduction to the quality of Barnes writing, and even though it can be a tad depressing, it is not bad overall. show less

Listened to by the magic of downloading to my phone and connecting the phone to the car to play it through the speakers while driving. And I managed that all by myself. Very proud!
And it was worth the effort.
If there is a theme, this is remembrance and loss. Most of the stories have a air of sadness about them with the characters either remembering times past, or pondering the end of life and the complications that brings. Whgich doesn;t sound very cheery, but I would not say that this is a sad colleciton. Wistful, maybe. In a couple of stories there are several segments that are told at diifferent times, with a common theme. The first takes this form, with the key being the trip to the barber's for a haircut. It's all very show more understated, but nonetheless enjoyable for that. show less