This is a slippery novel if, indeed, that is what it is. It might also be auto-fiction or autobiography! Who knows?

Julian Barnes is ruminating on his life and impending death while telling a story about, or providing multiple anecdotes about, his own past life. So, the narrative element concerns a couple met at University, Stephen and Jean, and his part in their relationship over a number of years. This has the whiff of fiction which allows plenty of comment on university life but this is interspersed with his contemporary account of an unusual leukaemia which will kill him eventually – unless something else does first. The reader has no idea which bits are real and which are false, although several of the minor characters and people mentioned obliquely are definitely alive and kicking or recognisably dead.

There are a few things to say about it. First off, it is amazing how Oxford graduates are influenced by their alma mater! He’s nearly eighty and slightly traumatised by what happened there and it is a thread which runs through the book as he encounters old students and well-known graduates. Hasn’t anything else significant happened in his life?

Secondly, the book is about the miserable topic of getting old, being ill and facing death and it is a real achievement to keep the book light and entertaining while discussing impending doom! There’s a nice dog which helps as a contrast to the human condition!

Thirdly, the story of Stephen and Jean and Julian’s part in their relationship as dating agent, agony aunt and adviser is incidentally marred by the admission, rather undeveloped, that Julian and Jean did it, ahem, and Stephen has never known. He, Stephen, seems quite unfortunate by the end.

Anyway, it is an enjoyable novel, if that is what it is. It is also masterful in the way it keeps its balls in the air, draws in any number of sideways issues and observations, and is beautifully written. I listened to the audio version with Julian Barnes doing the reading and that was additionally pleasurable, it is highly recommended.