Examining Barnes' Navel

"Julian Barnes is much the hardest to pin down. Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan – you know where you are with them, and have done for years. But the unifying theme of Barnes's work? The through line? If there is such a thing, it's an elegant unknowability, a distaste for the business of sifting through the contents of his own navel."

- The Telegraph profiles Julian Barnes, calling him inscrutable simply because his books don't conform to a single, recognisable pattern. (Recall that Vikram Seth faces the same problem.)