'The partial truths we humans mostly live by'

Julian Barnes said that William Trevor “is the subtlest purveyor of the partial truths we humans mostly live by.”

I like that line. I think most of us have some general principles that guide our lives, but our day-to-day behavior isn’t governed by some grand ethical theory. We limp along with partial truths — our grandfather’s maxims, our professor’s proverbs, our drill sergeant’s standing order. Trevor gets his finger on these partial truths. His stories often show how our reliance on them can go wrong.

More than one writer has noticed that Trevor is a master at giving readers information without letting them know. If you’re a reader of Trevor’s stories, you find that you know things about the characters without having been explicitly told.

That, to me, is writing.

• Source and notes: Julian Barnes, “Julian Barnes on William Trevor’s final stories — a master of the short form”; The Guardian, 19 May 2018. It’s here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/19/last-stories-william-trevor-review-julian-barnes