The Story Archive

Metroland

Julian Barnes · 1980 CE · Novel · English · Contemporary

Two schoolboys commuting in from the Metropolitan Line in 1963 spend their afternoons in the National Gallery timing strangers' reactions and quoting French symbolists at each other, certain that suburbia is the enemy of every good thing. One of them reaches Paris in 1968 and misses the événements entirely, occupied with a girlfriend and with the discovery that he is not the person his sixteen-year-old self designed. The last part returns him to the same commuter belt, married and content, and asks what exactly he thinks he has betrayed.

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Attributes

Genre
Coming-of-AgeSatire
Theme
Coming of AgeClass & InequalityArt & CreationIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanRebel / OutlawAlly / Companion
Plot structure
BildungsromanConfession
Symbol / motif
The TrainThe CityThe Portrait
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
IronicRealistComic
Culture / tradition
English

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