I read nothing to be frightened of several times. Barnes always mixed together philosophical aspects with enigmatic humor, very British. 🔝

Such a pleasure to be able to see and hear this amazing man speaking.

Do yourself a favour and read the books of Julian Barnes. One of the best writers of his generation

I’ve just read ‘A sense of An Ending.’ Beautifully written and now one of my favourite books x

What an authority! I enjoy his books, his sense of humour, and my goodness, his voice is divine :)

Been enjoying his books for many years. Great writer. Just re-read “nothing to be frightened of’ and his fear of death is very deep rooted and disturbing.

He is a legend, such satisfaction to hear him muse on life dilemmas -- in addition to reading him

Thanks for posting, just started reading the book. Brilliant interview

I love him as a writer!!!!

Alive classic! Thank you.

greetings from Kathmandu...such a witty novel.Love it greatly

Excellent interview. Buying the 'The Noise of Time' now. One question I'd like to ask him: who decides what 'hate speech' is, and who invented the term?

one of the greats. thank you, Julian!

What a beautiful mind he has! Lovely interview!

Brilliant and amazing man. Thank you!

I enjoyed the book and this very professional interview.

Great stuff! Thank you.

An extraordinary book.

One of the most intelligent fiction writers alive.

Great interview with a great writer, but I must protest at Messieur Barnes' soft-spoken riposte to the issue of the Cecil Rhodes statue which relied on the fact that (at the time of the interview) there are only 2 persons "of colour" at the Oxford college (Oriel) where the statue stands and that energies should thus be more centred on increased "diversity" at the college in question, whilst Mr Barnes advances the cause of free speech, so long as it does not stray into "hate speech". There is an ironic hypocrisy at the heart of Mr Barnes' position: firstly it must be presumed that the reason Oriel college had only two black students was not because Oriel were deliberately employing a racist agenda to keep the student population almost entirely white, but rather there were insufficient numbers of black students able to meet the doubtless exacting academic standards required to gain entrance to the college. It must therefore follow that in order to comply with Mr Barnes' stance that the college should become more "diverse", the college should employ positive discrimination, ie a racist agenda, by refusing access to the college to white students in favour of black ones, even or especially in cases where the white students had superior qualifications to the black ones. By the same token (no pun intended) if Mr Barnes were advocating the same policy to Olympic athletes, whereby those who represent Britain in some categories (like the 100 metres) are almost entirely black, should be replaced by white runners in the great cause of "diversity", not only would Mr Barnes have been universally vilified as being racist and possibly even charged with "hate speech", but Britain would have less chance of winning medals in forthcoming championships. Not only would Barnes' enforced diversity policy be definitively racist against white students, but it seems to be covertly racist against black students into the bargain, as it clearly implies that they would be unable to access elite colleges like Oriel by way of excelling at academically, but by virtue of their skin colour (albeit why any person of colour would wish to attend a college that had a "brute" like Rhodes on its campus is beyond me...it is unlikely that would-be christian theologians would be queuing up to enter a college that had a statue of Pontius Pilate or Judas Escariot heroically postured in its main square). Also I do not quite understand how intellectuals like Mr Barnes can talk so glibly and sweepingly of no-platforming those who indulge in "hate speech" on any basis, as this presumably includes those who incite others to hate those who engage in hate themselves. It is fairly hateful, surely, for Mr Barnes to advocate replacing white students with black ones not on the basis of academic prowess, but in the cause of "diversity", not only because of the glaring injustice and racism that is implicit in such a policy, but because demoting white students on the basis of colour will surely engender resentment and hatred from themselves individually and almost certainly, in the long run, white people collectively, and thus the great cause of diversity becomes the monster one assumes intellectuals like Barnes seeks to fight. This PC version of "free speech" is surely just another version of Orwell's "some are more equal than others" paradox, in that individuals like Barnes (and less dulcet-toned and erudite versions in the form of Frankie Boyle et al) advocate the cause of and profit handsomely from the legal principle of free speech, so long as it does not stray into the quintessentially subjective territory of what they personally class as hate speech, as is if the dividing line between the two is as clear as crystal, when everything about the post-colonial, PC brow-beating, Trump-thumping, socially mediated modern world, in and out of the university campus, makes it crystal clear it is anything but. It was presumably the case with those who protested against Ms Greer that they were doing so on the basis that they regarded her position that men remained men even after having their penises surgically removed as a form of hate speech, and ergo should be no-platformed; again the irony and hypocrisy in Mr Barnes' sanctimonious agreement that hate speech should be no platformed is glaring, given there is self-evidently a glaring chasm between what he and Ms Greer regard as "hate speech" and those who advance the transgender agenda, to the extent that what amounts to "hate speech" is in the eye of the beholder and it is not the preserve of the millionaire intelligentsia to determine on the public's behalf what is or is not "hate speech" and ergo what views should or should not be no-platform. Hate speech is not interchangeable with "incitement to violence", and Mr Barnes should know better than to imply that it is, not least as to do so amounts to a lie not dissimilar to the USSR commissars of old.

Kirsty Wark attempted to execute a Nabokov manoeuvre on him in attempting to get him to publicly denounce/embrace Putin, which he deftly side-stepped! Kirsty to hear. Julian to remember. The (possibly transgender) cameraperson to drink. A fantastic interview and a truly wonderful book.

Love Julian Barnes. He's down to earth, a son of the soil writer. Kidding, he's not that. He's intelligent.

I do not think that the dispatch of statues of oppression and what they mean to oppressed can be so easily conflated with focusing on improving the now, as Mr Barnes suggests.

8:34

Julian Barnes wasn't very helpful when I contacted him via his publisher. I told him about the condition Retroactive Jealousy and asked what had informed his portrayal of this in his novel -'Before She Met Me'. I also suggested he could take a role in helping people with this condition who identified with the character. He really didn't want to know. A great opportunity for helping people was wasted.

My God. CAN a western person actually live A DAY without taking Russia and Mr. Putin to pieces? As a Russian, I'm offended and humiliated. Otherwise, would have a been a great interview!

Never cared for Barnes. Too snooty, too cerebral.

I'm sorry, but this seems to be an assortment of effete tosh. Perversely, an interviewee pandering to the opinions mooted by the interviewer ("trans" etc.?). Julian Barnes, "as a child of the Cold War", cannot have had the remotest idea of life in Stalin's Soviet Union, much less memories of the repression imposed and suffered there - if only because he didn't live there and was indeed only a child at the time. However, the thing that really gets me, having read his "novel", is how he can dare to invent what are supposed to be the most intimate thoughts and attitudes of a very specifically defined historical person, within the lifetime of his direct descendants, as a spurious insight into the state of a society undergoing the most troubled of social experiments. What, in fact, is the distinction between biography and fiction? Is it even legitimate to choose verifiable events from the life of any person and use them as one sees fit, and to leave others out, because "one" is a "novelist"? I have severe doubts about this, and Barnes does not help to dissipate them in this interview. When the case in point centres on the life of one of the most important composers of the 20th century, and no mention whatsoever is made of the music itself of the effect it had on Shostakovich's contemporaries (both in the USSR and outside it), the ultimate impression I have is that this "novelist" has made dishonest use of his rather poorly researched material. Very disappointing.

Thanks for posting. Wonderful interview; great book too.