Julian Barnes and the Englishness
As I have said in previous pages, England, England is a novel about England, its culture, history, and some other aspects.
The novel is not a destructive criticism of the present England but a constructive criticism due to the fact that it advise us of what could happen if a man like Sir Jack acquires all the power.
It is a business-sector macro-organization which is more powerful than the State itself.
The novel is a patriotic one, and it is also an exacerbated criticism about the nationalisms, mainly those used with one's own purposes.
Sir Jack doesn't conceive a more appropiate monument for his own person , for the expression of his nationalist feeling that the theme park that is going to be built in the Isle of Wight.
The book is also a criticism of those that due to their nationalism convert England into a joking object.
As we have said before, in the novel it is given a list of Fifty Quintessences which everybody considers to be appropiately English. With this list, the Englishness is reduced to a ridiculous list of topics.
It is a book about England's relationship with the past and especially with the process of creative and selective remembering that has been dubbed " the invention of tradition".
In the book we find many references to this subject, and also about patriotism, politics, history but all the elements come to a common figure: England.
We also find references to the relationship between England, Wales, Northen Ireland and Scotland.
Afterwards, we can see a character that expresses his patriotism saying that they are a nation of great age, great history, and of course, great accumulate wisdom,; what it can be reduced to a phrase:" We are already what others may hope to become" .
Later we find that Sir Jack Pitman declares himself to be a pure patriot also in his private moments. Due to that idea, when Sir Jack tries to confuse her saying just the contrary idea, she doesn't hesitate in contradicting him. We can observe his strong patriotism when he analyses the list of topics given. " Who the fuck did they think they were, going around saying things like that about England? What did they know? Bloody tourists, thought Sir Jack".
They also make some references to the relationship between the sex and England or the British: Child prostitution in the Victorian era, sex murders, English Casanova, they invented the condom...
They also talk about what are the authentically English experiences such as "going into a pub for a quiet pint and find some foul-smelling old skittle-player spilling his beer over you and chatting up your wife", "You think being touched is invasive because you are English"," keeping reality and illusion separateis also very English".
We find also some references to the native wit of the English.
So, looking at this, we can sy that it is, in a way, a kind of patriotic novel because it defends the English, and what is more, the characters declare openly their believes about their nation.