A hymn to the acceptable, nay inevitable foibles of mankind, an exhortation to look within, harbouring neither regret nor remorse, Julian Barnes’ Departure(s) brings out the essence of what it means to be human and to revel in that incontrovertible fact. One of the most pre-eminent writers of our times, Barnes took me to that ambivalent realm where one desires fiction to be fact and fact to be a mere figment of a feisty imagination running riot. He made me realise how powerful a tool of communication writing can prove to be and how fulfilling a task reading can turn out to be.

Juxtaposing memoir with fiction, Barnes informs us that Departure/s is going to be his last novel. If this is indeed a leave taking endeavour, it is as memorable as a career that has spanned four glorious decades, and more. As is his inimitable wont, Barnes engages in bouts of Aristotelian contemplation surrounding the inconsequential and unobtrusive elements of life. Minuscule drips and dribbles which converge, coalesce, and combine to create life altering consequences.

Teasing us with real snippets and fabulous chunks of imagination that are more realistic than reality, Barnes’ regales in weaving a tapestry of stunning delight. Episode number one has the author introducing Stephen and Jean, during his tenure as a student at Oxford University. Unanticipated love embraces Stephen and Jean in its blissful grip, before withering away as unexpectedly as it blossomed. Forty years later, the author finds himself instrumental in not only rekindling the faded romance, but also in acting as a serendipitous, best man in an Abba-themed wedding.

Punctuating this eventful tale, is the author’s own rumination, reflection and reconciliation of his own triumphs and tribulations of life. Departure/s in many ways is the anticipation or even welcoming of an arrival. The arrival of a most unwelcome, yet inevitable visitor who is impartial to age, gender, caste, creed, and colour. The matter of death is the most pondered over, protested, and procrastinated subject. Barnes approaches his own impending shedding of the mortal coil with a nonchalance that is brilliantly refreshing. Adopting a Proustian attitude to living, he freely and in a matter-of-fact manner discusses his diagnosis and treatment of blood-cancer and what impact his departure would have on his partner.

Stephen and Jean are unwitting and unsuspecting props to Barnes’ own storied life and literary career. The novel thus is a novel method adopted by Barnes to reminisce on his past and future, in a detached manner befitting a saint, choosing to firmly inhabit the present. A transient past is respected, the unpredictable future is acknowledged, yet the concentration lies completely in the powerful present, the momentous moment. The distinction between the observer and the observed is obfuscated with studied deliberation and informed assessment.

Julian Barnes has found an admirable way to bid adieu to an entire milieu by dexterously and wickedly employing the characters of Stephen and Jean. The duo’s pleasures and pains are reflections of Barnes’ experiences in life. But I am not sure his unabashed admirers – yours truly included – will be ready to let him go. Again at the cost of postponing the inevitable, at the cost of transforming into a proverbial ostrich with its neck buried deeply in the sand, we are not willing to hear or read the last of this phenomenal servant who has been eternally faithful to his chosen craft and a virtuoso who has delivered time after time after time.

But if he has indeed made up his mind and is resolute in his stance to bring down the curtains, then all that remains to be said is, “THANK YOU, SIR!”