Roth's best novel yet

I had only to read the two opening sentences to realize that I was once again in the hands of a superbly endowed storyteller

Further evidence that Roth can do practically anything with fiction. His narrative power - the ability to delight the reader simultaneously with the telling and the tale - is superb

His prose is immaculate yet curiously plain and unostentatious, as natural as brething

One would have to look very hard to find a wryer, more lovingly detailed account of intellectual and sexual innocence abroad

An alert, witty, unpredictable novel which brings a sharp fresh eye to bear on English character and English compromises

Metroland is a delicious book, sharp and witty and observant

One of the best accounts of clever English schoolboyhood I've read

Flighty, playful… Barnes succeeds in vividly recreating teenage precociousness, particularly what it feels like to be a young male encountering love and sex

A dazzling entertainer

Consummately elegant

He writes perceptively about the shift from self-absorbed teenager to adult.

If all works of fiction were as thoughtful, as subtle, as well constructed and as funny as Metroland there would be no more talk of the death of the novel

It's one of the best accounts of clever English schoolboyhood I've read

Irony and imagery are deployed with a finesse even Flaubert wouldn't wince at...consummately elegant