As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of White.
Grotesque, visionary tycoon Sir Jack Pitman takes the saying literally and does
exactly that.
He constructs on the island 'The Project', a vast heritage cen
tre containing everything 'English', from Big Ben to Stonehenge, from Manchester
United to the white cliffs of Dover. The project is monstrous, risky, and vastl
y successful. In fact, it gradually begins to rival 'Old' England and even threa
tens to supersede it...One of Barnes's finest and funniest novels, England, Engl
and calls into question the idea of replicas, truth vs fiction, reality vs art,
nationhood, myth-making, and self-exploration.
