The Man in the Red Coat

Written by Julian Barnes

Narrated by Saul Reichlin

From the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Sense of an Ending, a rich, witty, revelatory tour of
Belle Epoque Paris, via the remarkable life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi

In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days’ intellectual shopping: a prince, a
count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown,
but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn in England? Answering these questions, Julian
Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives, which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide
through this world is Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, freethinker, and man of science with a famously complicated
private life who was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits. In this vivid tapestry of people
(Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and James Whistler, among many others), place, and
time, we see not merely an epoch of glamour and pleasure but, surprisingly, one of violence, prejudice, and nativism—
with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. The Man in the Red Coat is, at once, a fresh portrait of the
Belle Epoque, an illuminating look at the long-standing exchange of ideas between Britain and France, and a life of a
man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980057680

Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes (Leicester, 1946) se educó en Londres y Oxford. Está considerado como una de las mayores revelaciones de la narrativa inglesa de las últimas décadas. Entre muchos otros galardones, ha recibio el premio E.M. Forster de la American Academy of Arts and Letters, el William Shakespeare de la Fundación FvS de Hamburgo y es Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Reviews for The Man in the Red Coat

[ramrak_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Boring, didn't finish it.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

[The Man in the Red Coat] by [[Julian Barnes]]I was already reading this one, a Mother's Day gift, when several friends posted about how much they loved it. I can't say that I was quite as impressed, mainly because the topic, Belle Epoque Parisian society (1871-1914) just didn't interest me all that much. The book centers around the life and work of Dr. Samuel Pozzi,the subject of John Singer Sargeant's well-known painting, Dr. Pozzi at Home. Pozzi was a physician who specialized in gynecology and abdominal surgery, and he is credited with bringing Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods to France and with being among the first surgeons to perform a laparotomy. A handsome man, he gained notoriety for seducing a number of his patients, and he had several mistresses, including Sarah Bernhardt. Although he was a society physician, he was also in charge of a hospital that cared for poor patients. He is the most likable person in this social biography, coming across as a kind, caring, generous man and a loyal friend (although falling rather short as both a husband and father).The book begins when Pozzi accompanies two friends and fellow aesthetes, Prince Edmond de Polignac and Count Robert de Montesquiou, to London for a few days of "intellectual and decorative shopping." They look forward to visiting The Crystal Palace and to meeting Henry James and carry a letter of introduction from Sargeant. These two are--well, shall we say, less admirable than Pozzi? Montesquiou spent his life collecting curiosities (the bullet that killed Pushkin, a tortoise that sadly died after he had its shell gilded and bejewelled), dabbling in poetry, and portraying the dandy to an extreme that surpassed Oscar Wilde (who also comes into play several times throughout the book). He was openly homosexual and not particularly kind to his devoted lover. Polignac, a closeted homosexual, married an American heiress for her fortune; both claimed it was a happy marriage, perhaps because his wife, a divorcée who had threatened her husband on their wedding night, preferred women.A real plus is the series of photos of prominent Parisians that appear throughout the book. these were originally inserted into candy bars--kind of early baseball cards that people collected. And of course, many paintings of the main figures are reproduced as well as photographs both formal and casual.[The Man in the Red Coat] does an excellent job of recreating the era with all its parties, political debates, duels, scandals, excessive spending, and artistic innovation. James, Proust, Sargeant, Bernhardt, Wilde, Whistler and others weave in and out, but the focus is on their social presence, not their art. In the end, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the details and anecdotes--and not terribly interested in a good deal of them, I'm afraid. Fortunately, Barnes keeps coming back to Pozzi. Excerpts from his daughter's diary are at times heartbreaking: it's clear that she was torn between remaining loyal to her mother and desperately longing for her father's attention. And unlike many of the stories about Polignac and Montesquiou, which I found mostly silly or annoying, those about Pozzi, including several surgeries and accomplishments and his own death, were intriguing and helped to reveal this complex man.

[davidwineberg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am not in the habit of picking up biographies of people I never heard of and have no idea why I should. But Julian Barnes proved me quite wrong. He did it in an unusual way, with a dramatic portrait by John Singer Sargent of Sargent’s friend Dr. Samuel Pozzi when they were both young men. Entering that world, Barnes leads the reader on a branching journey of infinite connections to everyone who meant anything in the Belle Epoque in France (1870-1914). Barnes sets it up as a mystery, piecing together clues. For someone who has never heard the name Pozzi before, it is quite a revelation and quite a trip.It reads like a Six Degrees of Separation. Pozzi’s connections alone were more than sufficient to tell the story, but Barnes connects to his connections’ connections, their friends, lovers, haters, critics, customers, managers and acquaintances. And then their connections too. The connections circle back, and everyone seems to have been connected to everyone else. There are dozens of them profiled here. They range from Oscar Wilde to the Mayo Brothers to Dreyfus, Bernhardt, Degas and Rodin.This sweeping expanse is doled out piecemeal, in anecdotes and threads that follow one of the personages through some stage or event. It also gives Barnes a platform to spout some of his own perspectives. Here’s one on the ways the English and the French regard each other:“…Charles de Gaulle’s obstreperous and infuriating (translate into French as ‘determined and patriotic’) behavior during his London wartime exile, then later in his stubbornly vindictive (‘principled and statesmanlike’) triple refusal to allow Britain to join (‘disrupt’) the European Common Market...”Pozzi was handsome and talented. He spoke English and French. He travelled widely, gathering new medical techniques as he went. He was fast to innovate, devoted himself to otherwise neglected women’s health and initiated new abdominal surgical procedures that saved numerous lives. He was charming, seductive, available and everywhere. He was there for the famous and nonfamous, there for the events, the history, and the parties. His own house held a popular salon where many of his connections reconnected and new connections made.He led a wonderfully full life, outside his own family, where everything was tense and strained. His daughter in particular was a vicious piece of work, full of self hate, self pity and self destruction. Pozzi therefore dallied with mistresses, publicly, including with Sarah Bernhardt, the western world’s sweetheart. She called him Docteur Dieu (Doctor God). They hung out for 20 years. Meanwhile, Pozzi developed into a celebrity in his own right. He became a doctor, gynecologist, mayor, senator and surgeon. He reorganized and ran hospital wings and surgeries. He was recognized globally for his medical practices and papers. He learned the critical importance of cleanliness and antiseptics directly from Dr. Lister in Scotland, and brought those practices to France. Despite, or because of his open philandering, he was respected by men and desired by women.His attitude to medical innovation was “Chauvinism is one of the forms of ignorance.” That is, just because it wasn’t invented here doesn’t mean it’s of no value. This openness was his way of life.Barnes is deeply involved in the Belle Epoque. He was able to post individual photos of most of the people he writes about, which is enormously helpful. And most of the images come from his own collection. At the turn of the century a French chocolate-bar maker began a series of trading cards given away free in the wrapping of every bar. It extended to three series, with hundreds of personalities of the era captured in black and white. It seems that everyone Pozzi knew was famous in his or her own right, at least enough to merit a trading card (and therefore an image in this book).With all the celebrity connections, the cattiness, criticism and outright bashing takes up a lot of space. My favorite: “Degas said of Wilde after a visit to the artist’s studio in Paris: ‘He behaves as if he’s playing Lord Byron in some provincial theatre,’” thus outWilding Wilde for once. There are also lots of betrayals, infidelity, duels and murders. There is faded French royalty, both aggressive and dissolute gays (male and female), marriages of convenience and lots of hypocrisy. Truth that is as wild as fiction. And Pozzi figured centrally in all of it.Barnes followed a lot of leads in filling out his stories, from diaries to newspaper coverage and biographies. But in the end he faced several pages of unanswered questions. They can never be answered, and it really doesn’t matter, but it shows his devotion to the period and the players. So it’s not really about starting with a dramatic painting, tracking down the subject and finding out a little about him and his circle. This is Barnes’ passion and expertise, and Pozzi has figured centrally in it for quite some time. Still a neat concept though, and Barnes presents it dramatically and entertainingly.Oddly, the conclusion features, of all things, Brexit, and how the British government is screwing up the country and its future. No argument from me, but it sits uncomfortably with such in-depth profiles of rich characters from a hundred and fifty years ago. And mostly French at that.David Wineberg