
The Man in the Red Coat
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Narrated by:
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Saul Reichlin
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By:
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Julian Barnes
From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending - a rich, witty, revelatory tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the remarkable life story of the pioneering surgeon, Samuel Pozzi.
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life who was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. In this vivid tapestry of people (Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Proust, James Whistler, among many others), place, and time, we see not merely an epoch of glamour and pleasure, but, surprisingly, one of violence, prejudice, and nativism - with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.
The Man in the Red Coat is, at once, a fresh portrait of the Belle Epoque; an illuminating look at the longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France; and a life of a man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time.
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Terrible reader. I couldn't continue.
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Sublime
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Barnes writes in paisley prose, curving off into one colorful digression after another. He informs us about the uses of dueling, the nature of portrait painting, the sympathy of French courts for crimes of passion, the mysteries of conjugal love (Dr. and Mme. Pozzi had a deeply troubled marriage yet produced a late-in-life baby) and the difficulty of biography (ultimately, as Barnes repeatedly notes of the historic questions, “we cannot know.”) His style is erudite but amusing. My only hesitation is the obscurity of many of the prominent figures in the book, people whose names I did not recognize and whose lives did not especially interest me.
I found the narration excellent. Saul Reichlin spoke with bemused interest, and unlike other reviewers here, I had no problem with his French pronunciation. His reading increased my enjoyment of this likeable historic survey.
The Sense of an Era
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Interesting but rambling story
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History through a painting's subject
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Mr Barnes style is witty, elegant and personal. The book gave me an overview of the period which I knew in its fragments. All the people are household names but I never knew the connection between them.
I will look for other J B books.
Superbly enjoyable book
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shocking mispronunciations, just shocking
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Will Recommend This Book to Friends
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Good pronunciation
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Julian Barnes should protest
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