The Review of Contemporary Fiction

England, England, by Julian Barnes
reviewed by Philip Landon

Knopf, 1999. 288 pp. $23.00.

In this satire set in the twenty-first century, a business magnate creates the ultimate tourist destination by constructing a replica of England on the Isle of Wight, outdoing the original to the point where even the Royal Family is persuaded to relocate. For all the half-affectionate laughter at “Old England’s” expense, however, England, England is a novel of downright Swiftian darkness and ferocity. A modern-day counterpart to the island of Lilliput, the slickly run theme park that Barnes imagines in the English Channel is a stinging caricature of contemporary England’s spiritually void heritage industry.

The crux of Barnes’s narrative is the elusive search for something “real” to replace the vapid offerings of the leisure market. Of course, “the real” is nowhere to be found. The best we can have is “seriousness,” the book’s protagonist reflects, because “If life is a triviality, then despair is the only option.” The “entirely local and the nearly eternal” are where we should look for answers, she concludes.

Whether we read it as a lament for Old England, or a jeremiad against deracination by worldwide market forces, England, England chills with the bleakness of its cultural panorama.