Julian Barnes' playful new book is also his 'official departure'

"In Departure(s), Julian Barnes' playful new novel about several of his lifelong obsessions mortality, memory, and time the author announces that after publishing 27 books over the past 44 years, "this will definitely be my last book my official departure, my final conversation with you." Surely, he jests? Barnes, who describes himself as a "cheerful pessimist," turned 80 this month. He also has a longstanding interest in endgames both endings and games."

"Writing, he says, is still "one of the times I feel most alive and original," but he worries about repeating himself, or going stale, or "lapsing into the easy garrulity of autobiography." Self-determined retirement has the advantage of assuring against being cut off mid-project and worse, of having someone else clumsily complete his orphaned book. Still, he backslided rather quickly after swearing off interviews some 10 years ago lasting only until the publication of his very next book."

"This narrator, like the author, was devastated by the sudden death of his wife (literary agent Pat Kavanagh) to brain cancer in 2008, and has since lost many friends, including fellow writers Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis, to other forms of the disease. He relays his own medical saga, including his diagnosis in early 2020 with an incurable but manageable form of leukemia, which is kept in check with daily chemotherapy pills. He comments wryly: "'Incurable yet manageable,' that sounds like...life, doesn't it?""

An eighty-year-old narrator named Julian ("Jules"), a self-declared agnostic, confronts mortality, memory, and time while contemplating finality after decades of creative work. He prepared for COVID lockdown by ordering a 30-DVD Ingmar Bergman set. He endured his wife's sudden death from brain cancer in 2008 and subsequent losses of friends, including fellow writers. He recounts a 2020 diagnosis of an incurable but manageable leukemia controlled with daily chemotherapy, wryly calling it "incurable yet manageable." The narrative returns to a long-ago Oxford connection and a promise not to portray a particular couple.

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