England the theme park

Andrew Marr reviews England, England by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape) 

hat England has become a theme-park nation is a chattering-class cliché. It is also at least partly true. There is no English crisis, but there is a problem. In England, everything becomes a tradition, and that includes the confection of tradition. 

But the quantity of contemporary repackaging is remarkable. It wraps itself around us all, like gaudy, omnipresent plastic - knightly tournaments, Robin Hood rambles, Battle of Britain days, Shakespeare’s Globe. This, of course is hardly unique to England. Other countries have theme parks. But as any visitor to London will confirm, England itself can feel like one. 

Yet the English passion for dressing up is matched by growing unease about nationhood. In his new novel, a frontrunner for this year’s Booker Prize, Julian Barnes has taken this spirit of the time and further distilled it into one of the oddest books you are likely to read this year. 

It’s what they call a romp, but it is written in anger. There is a short first section, exquisitely done, about a girl’s damaged childhood. There is a longer central satire in which a tycoon takes over the Isle of Wight and turns it into a giant theme park of English history. Then there is a brief fantasy about England in retreat, a place of organic farms and the occasional steam locomotive. 

The tone alters, disturbingly, from one section to the next. The central part is more cartoon-like, more Tom Sharpeish, than anything Barnes has done before. The colours are primary, the outlines crude, the jokes obvious. 

For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like: the Isle of Wight’s buildings are mostly demolished, then it gets a fake Parliament, peasants, fake London fog, Di’s grave, Stonehenge, and so on. It is "everything you imagined England to be, but more convenient, cleaner, friendlier, and more efficient". It is also much more popular. 

The heritage industry is an easy target. Barnes doesn’t miss, though it was mildly amusing to read the breathless promise on the back of my proof copy: "Huge full colour advertising ... Splendid mobiles of the island ... 18-copy dump-bin and header ... Author tour." Next stop, the Julian Barnes Experience? 

By the final section, the tone has shifted again. Old England suffers economic collapse. The Scots buy the northern counties and the Welsh, Shropshire and Herefordshire. Scheming Europeans isolate England from the continent. By which time, I felt, Barnes’s satire had curdled into an exhibition of self-pity. Then the English turn ruralist, and the mood changes again. 

Barnes’s deep theme is the search for authenticity. What is real? Is it what we think we know of our history, what we think we remember? A world of mimicry and falsity threatens life itself, Barnes argues: it cuts away at our capacity for seriousness. 

In a key passage, one character explodes: "Look what’s happened to Old England. It stopped believing in things ... it lost seriousness." The search for authenticity, in an increasingly unreal world, is worth it. It’s the search for life itself. 

Nothing could be odder than such a cartoonish romp whose real concern is seriousness. But this is both ambitious and serious - real, if you like. Dive at those dump-bins. 

Julian Barnes: His new book is a romp, written in anger PHOTOGRAPH: JOHN REARDON Related stories Getting on the Booker bus The outsider on this year’s Booker Prize shortlist is a bus driver. Peter Kingston caught a ride  Cyberspace The Salon Interview Carl Swanson meets Julian Barnes  The Booker McConnell Prize The 1998 Booker Prize shortlist announced

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