Hey Jealousy

Before She Met Me
Julian Barnes
Vintage EPUB 1.8 MB - 161 pages

Here's how the novel introduced the pros and cons of being a middle-aged man in contemporary British society:

 “...he read a great deal, he gardened, he dd the crossword, he protected his property. At thirty-eight, it felt a bit like being retired already.” 

 “fifteen years married, ten years in the same job; halfway through an elastic mortgage. Halfway through life as well, he supposed’ and he could feel the downhill slope already.” 

 “Sheila, Ann’s closest friend, maintained that in any case married men were preferable to single men because they smelt nicer. Their wives were always having their clothes dry-cleaned. Whereas the bachleor's jacket, she delcared, was all cigarette smoke and armpits.” 

In Before She Met Me, a man who found himself fortunate enough to have a second marriage to a younger woman becomes a jealous man. While jealousy was much more elegantly told by say, Graham Greene in The End of the Affair, the character formation in this book was neatly, stylishly woven as a Tom Ford three piece suit. As with most black comedies, we laugh with a tinge of schadenfreude. Imagine the sight of a grown man wanking to pornographic magazines.

Where is he going with all his jealousy? This question dragged on for an extra ten pages and towards the end it got a trifle unamusing. But it’s a satisfying ending, and you’ll gladly find yourself amused again.

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A few highlighted phrases, verbs, and adjectives: mazy enjoyment, congenial, squirt of sympathy, fretful, winced, it was bad manners to point out other people's bad manners to them, unmappable hurt, fastidious, lurid, benign, exhausted by sadness, maunder on about how he loved her, skittish giggle, desiccating.