Book Review: "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" by Julian Barnes

As you probably know already, Julian Barnes is one of my favourite authors ever. My favourite book by him was Arthur and George before his epic The Man in the Red Coat came out and then, that was my favourite. Julian Barnes has a very particular way of writing, with a strange sense of humour, a brave social critique and often characters who are going through the depths of emotional or existential turmoil, even Julian Barnes' short stories have and intense impact on the soul. The most recent Julian Barnes book I have read was called The Lemon Table and it was a book of short sotries. It was absolutely fantastic. Now that I'm engaging in more of his short stories - I can honestly say that this man can pretty much write anything well.

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters is a brilliant book filled with very strange stories. This one was much weirder than The Lemon Table because of the subject of some of the stories being a little bit more introspective. For example: my favourite story from the anthology was called The Survivor which tells the tale of the Chernobyl Disaster being 'the first big accident' and how the world is on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. The main character tries to take action by sailing out into the ocean with two cats, leaving her abusive and vile husband behind. It's quite an odd story the more you get into it - you really will not see the ending coming. Even if you do, that really is not the way you pictured it.

Another great story I enjoyed from this was called Shipwreck which was about an appreciation for the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault. It is one of my personal favourite paintings, so to see Julian Barnes write so amazingly and with so much depth into aestheticism and preservation about this painting was a real treat. He comments on the human suffering in the painting as if Gericault had tried to imprison the soul of the dead inside it, as if there is something far deeper than simply aesthetic value - but aesthetic preservation through the very stroke of the brush upon the canvas. It truly is beautiful writing. I mean, I love ekphrasis*, but this is one a whole new level.

One thing I noticed about these stories is that they all have a couple of central themes. One of those themes is the sea. There's a lot to do with large bodies of water and simply how dangerous they are - there's another story in here about The Titanic and another about Noah's Ark - so the theme of danger and water really ties in well. Another theme is self-belief. The idea that you can think yourself in and out of quite intense situations and I think that is possibly portrayed the best in my personal favourite story in the whole anthology The Survivor. Julian Barnes manages to capture the nature of the human soul in peril and in an almost Frankensteinian sense, shows us how we could never overcome nature, how hard we tried to tamper with it would always be thrown back in our faces and nature would rise up and conquer us once again.

This book was well and truly something else, I devoured the whole thing on the busses I was taking and honestly, it was incredible. Would I say it was better than The Lemon Table? No. They are two entirely different anthologies and this one here is a lot darker.

*ekphrasis = writing in-depth about an appreciation of artwork