England, England by Julian Barnes

England, England

Julian Barnes

For his final project, confrontational and combative Sir Jack Pitman decides to create a massive theme park on the Isle of Wight with replicas of famous English buildings. This novel is highly amusing in places, obviously tongue in cheek, but I couldn't help feeling that I might have missed the point at times.

Extract
It is well established and indeed it has been incontrovertibly proved by many of those I have earlier cited that nowadays we prefer the replica to the original. We prefer the reproduction of the work of art to the work of art itself, the perfect sound and solitude of the compact disc to the symphony concert in the company of a thousand victims of throat complaints, the book on tape to the book on the lap.
Parallels
  • The Missing Postman by Mark Wallington
  • Little Sister by Carol Birch
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Explicit sexual content