მსოფლიოს ისტორია ათნახევარ კარად

by Julian Barnes, გია ჭუმბურიძე (Translator)

თანამედროვე ბრიტანელი მწერლის, ჯულიან ბარნსის (1946) ”მსოფლიოს ისტორია 10 ½ კარად” ერთმანეთთან დაკავშირებული მოთხრობებისაგან შედგება. თხრობის ფორმა ამბიდან ამბამდე იცვლება - მონოლოგი, ესე, დღიური, ოქმი... წიგნის სათაური, ცხადია, ირონიულია. ბარნსი წარსულს, ისტორიას, ფაქტებსა და მათ ინტერპრეტაციას ეჭვის თვალით უყურებს. ბიბლიური წარღვნის არაკანონიკური ვერსია, ნოეს კიდობანს უნებართვოდ დამგზავრებული სულიერი რომ გვიყვება, მეთექვსმეტე საუკუნის საფრანგეთში გამართული სასამართლო სხდომის ოქმი, სადაც ღვთის გმობაში ბრალდებულ ხის ჭიათა ბედი წყდება თუ ჟერიკოს სახელგანთქმული ტილოს, ”მედუზას ტივის” შექმნის ამბავი პოსტმოდერნისტული ლიტერატურის ბრწყინვალე ნიმუშებია.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Contemporary, Literature, 20th Century

332 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 1989

About the author

Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh (having married Pat Kavanagh). In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.
In 2004 he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is history? A science? Is it a usually chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events?
I think to every man history means something different. Some may see nothing but blood, for some it’s just a curiosity and for many it’s an object of a research.

History isn’t what happened, history is just what historians tell us.

From a vantage point of eternity we're still drifting in Noah's ark and there’s no shore in sight.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Prologue

Before I met all of you wonderful Goodreaders I was at the mercy of my paltry few well-read friends for recommendations of new authors and books. Derek Crim, childhood friend and fellow bookish enthusiast has offered up some winners: Chabon before “Kavalier and Clay”; O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series; Kurlansky’s non-fiction. In August of 2006 he gifted me a copy of this Barnes novel. Immediately upon completion of its reading it became one of my life-important books.

The Beginning

This novel is told in 11 parts, these 10 ½ Chapters; a finely knitted tapestry of events that aren’t connected, are connected, will be connected. There are illustrations of the Marx/Hegel maxim History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Barnes is certain of the beautiful absurdities of life: the events that should never have happened – but when they do, the results could be funny, harrowing, enlightening, tragic. In Barnes words:

How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays the process is automatic. A nuclear plant explodes? We’ll have a play on the London stage within a year. A President is assassinated? You can have the book or the film or the filmed book or the booked film. War? Send in the novelists. We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we need the imaginative arts. But we also need to justify it and forgive it, this catastrophe, however minimally… Well, at least it produced art. Perhaps, in the end, that’s what catastrophe is for.

How much fiction needs to be writ to build a truth? How many truths discovered to create a fiction? This art, these stories: sung, seen, read are critical to living.

The Middle

“Shipwreck”, this chapter of 28 pages, has become like a vital organ to me. It can – and should – be read separately from the rest of the book. It is connected, but its specific tonality connecting history, art and this book itself is a masterpiece. The physical book itself is split in half with colored plate depicting Théodore Géricault’s masterpiece Le Radeau de la Méduse. The book cleaves into two parts: what you’ve read to this point, what remains. But for me it is also a dividing line in my life. Where I came from before reading this section, and what has happened to me afterwards.



A year after finishing this book I am in Paris with my wife. We visit the Louvre; I enter one of its many labyrinthine rooms, clueless where we are. The Raft of the Medusa hangs on the left wall, in all of its 18 feet by 24 feet splendor. Have you ever seen a work of art that has brought you to tears? Then you will understand how it affected me. I spent 30 minutes sitting before it, recalling Barnes’s prose, marveling at its visceral impact.

The End

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to Europe. I made a business excuse to go to Paris; the real reason I wanted to go was to return to see my favorite painting. I also took the opportunity to take this book with me; to re-read it again and to hopefully find new meaning in the totality of the work and especially in my favorite chapter. Seven years yields a lifetime of experience between the readings of a favorite book. The possibility exists that the work can dim in its poignancy and there is sadness in the recognition that the person that was once us does not inhabit the same body as the current iteration of the me. But I have loved reading this book all over again. It has spoken to me in new ways – and reading “Shipwreck” right before sitting in awe of Géricault’s genius, all over again.



The Epilogue

I arrived back home last week to a flurry of emails from my friends. Derek was found dead in his hotel room on Sunday morning. He was a great friend, a caring man and a fellow traveler in the world of the written word. His death is a catastrophe, a life cut short by that horrific disease alcoholism.

Why did I choose to read this book, the greatest of his many recommendations, at this moment in time - might have been actually reading it the moment that Derek passed this veil of tears? Barnes would remind me that I’m asking the wrong question. “Everything is connected, even the parts we don’t like, especially the parts we don’t like.”

Farewell, my friend. I’ll see you on the other side.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 'History' turned out to be very different from what my expectations were. In fact, it just marginally qualifies as a novel, but then I thought the same about Flaubert's Parrot too, so you might discount the opinion - both have been booker shortlists after all.

It is highly entertaining and the choice of narrator in each fragment is a feat of imagination. Barnes' obsession with history and its telling comes out in this book too, but this time not as a doubting narrator doggedly working against stacked odds but as exuberant narrators who gain vitality from the very fact of their inconsequentiality to the story. The underlying motifs and themes connecting these seemingly disparate stories and speakers is probably what prompts Pamuk to dub it as a major work of post-modernism.

Wonderfully constructed and wittily told, this book shows fans the full range of the author's interests.

[Helle · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Despite a lukewarm entry into this collection, I ended up marvelling, once again, at Barnes’s ingenuity, insight and sense of humour. And at his prose, which in this collection takes on many different guises – from encyclopedic to shifty, from dull (mostly in the beginning) to dramatic (increasingly). When I say collection, I mean collection – of mostly short stories, some which are bordering on essays – and most emphatically not a novel, although the book claims to be one. It is even less a novel than Flaubert’s Parrot.

All the chapters are connected, however. The unifying theme is Noah’s Ark, which seems surprising coming from the self-acclaimed atheist, Julian Barnes. But of course it’s the story, or potential stories, behind the myth of the ark which propel(s) this work, some of which are based on historical facts or a genuine work of art (Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa) and some which are pure fiction. One or two are downright outlandish and quite delightful.


(The Raft of the Medusa, 1819)

Julian Barnes is always intelligent and good company, and this book is no exception. He narrates, and he philosophizes, he digresses and he merges. He manages to spread himself over a wide array of topics – from Noah’s Ark to the hijacking of a cruise ship, musings on the Medusa, Jonah in the belly of the whale, a film-maker’s crazy adventure in Venezuela, a hike up a mountain, and an American astronaut’s epiphany after landing on the Moon. And a bit more, including a lengthy advice column-cum-essay on why we must believe in love, by a first person narrator who, we are told, may or may not be Julian Barnes. It is assumed we will wonder about it.

As per usual he connects the threads of the various narratives through the use of a repeated leitmotif, in this book by interpreting and imagining Hegel’s/Marx’s thought: History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce . Another leitmotif is woodworms. It works most of the time.

[Caz (littlebookowl)]

I read most of this! A few chapters I stopped reading half-way through because I wasn't enjoying them as much. I decided to DNF as this is a book I had to study last year and no longer /need/ to finish it... and honestly I don't have any desire to revisit the chapters I stopped partway through.

[ArturoBelano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her tanıştığım yazarla ne kadar az okuduğumu bir kez daha anlıyorum. İşin kötüsü bu kazanamayacağım bir savaş, bunu kabullendim ama üzülmüyor değilim. Julian Barnes’ın adını duyalı 20 yıl olmuştur, okumak ise bugüne kısmet oldu. Artık ya ben bunu nasıl ıskaladım da demiyorum, onu okusaydım başka bir şey eksik kalacaktı. İyi okur sanırım pişmanlığı ömür boyu sürecek okurdur. Neyse, geçelim bu faslı.

Dünya Tarihi hakkında ne söylenir, muhteşemliği dışında ona çalışalım biraz. Kitap kulübünün bu ayki okuma programındaydı, öneren arkadaşa olan güvenim nedeniyle iyi bir şey okuyacağımı hissediyordum ama ilk beklentimin de üstüne çıkan bir eserle karşılaştım.

Zizek, bir dönemin ruhunu anlamak için o dönemin edebiyatının işlevselliğinden bahseder, biz de buradan başlıyalım. Dünya Tarihi, 80’ler İngiltere’sinde yazılan bir kitap. 1989’da yayımlanıyor. 80’ler özellikle anglo sakson dünya ve onların yakın dönem sömürgelerinde maduniyet çalışmalarının tavan yaptığı bir dönem. Dönemin işaret fişeği Hindistan’da eski marxist aydınların yayınladıkları bir dergi ile atılıyor. Sesi çıkmayan, görünmeyen, en alttakilerin resmi( beyaz, Avrupalı ve kudretli) tarih anlatısının karşı tarihini anlatan bu çalışmalar, kültürel, edebi, antropolojik bir hat içinde gelişiyor. Efendinin söylemi karşısında madunun hikayesi batı akademisinde de sesini buluyor ancak bunu tarih yapan ezilenler, tarihin motoru sınıf savaşları vb tarihsel materyalist perspektifle okumamak lazım. Evet, aşağıdan bir tarih ama mutlu sonla( sınıfsız, sömürüsüz bir dünya) ile sonlanmıyor, sadece problemi imliyor.

Dünya Tarihi romanı, yazıldığı dönemin akademik, teorik tartışmalarını bünyesinde taşıyan bir roman. Yanlış anlaşılmasın, çok sert hakikatleri dile getirse de dili oyuncul, muzip ve çok eğlenceli. Merak etmeyin, kuramsal bir metin okumayacaksınız. Resmi tarihin ciddiyeti, kudreti ve güçlü adamlarına yer yok bu kitapta. Alabildiğine kendine, mitlere ve kutsal söylencelere gülen bir kitapla karşı karşıyayız. Aşağıdan tarih derken de ciddiyim hem de en aşağıdan, tahtakuruların seviyesinden başlayacağız. Zira, Din Savaşları bölümünde avukatın dediği gibi ‘sesi çıkmayanlara ses olmak’ için yola çıkmış bir metin var elimizde.

Roman dedik ancak elimizde tek başına okunduğunda da bir güzellik ihtiva eden 10 öykü, sanat eleştirisi, mektup ve aşk üzerine az buçuk bir deneme var. Bu toplamın kendisi eser boyunca tekrarlanan kimi leitmotif ve karakterlerle birbirine temas ederken kitabı bütünlüklü bir roman kılan şey felsefi, düşünsel dünyasındaki tutarlılık oluyor.

Kitabı türümüze dair antropolojik bir kazı çalışması olarak okumak mümkün, söylence ve mitler, kutsal kitaplar ve efsaneler bu çalışmanın yaslandığı bir zemin işlevi görüyor. Bu kazı neticesinde önümüze serilen tabloda şunu görüyoruz; doğayla bağını koparmış, türcü, antroposantrik, alt üst, dost düşman ya da yazarın dediği gibi “temiz olanlar ve olmayanlar” ikilikleri düşün dünyasını şekillendirmiş, ilerlemeci, kazanma kültürünün zehirlediği bir tarihin yanlış bağlantılar peşinde felakete koşan fertleriyiz hepimiz. Barnes tam da bu düşünsel pozisyondan yola “ Kaçak Yolcu” ile çıkıyor.

İlk hikaye, Nuh’un Gemi’sindeyiz. Ama konuşan ne tanrı ne de onun elçisi, yolculuğu bir tahtakurusunun sesinden dinliyoruz. Tanrı, geçmiş günahlarla hesabını kapatmış, lanetini göndermiş ve sevgili kuluna vira bismillah dedirtmiş. Ancak gemi diğer türler için bir hapishaneye dönüşüyor ki cenneten kovulmamız gibi lanet ne onlardan kaynaklı ne de bela onlara geliyor. İnsan bir suç işliyor, ceremesi tahtakurularına kalıyor. İşlevselci insan aklı gemiyi temiz olan ve olmayan yani yiyeceği ve yiyemeyeceği hayvanlar üzerinden bir statüyle şekillendiriyor. Biz bu ikiliği, değerler sıralamasını kitap boyunca göreceğiz kimi hikayelerde. Yola felaketle çıkıyoruz ancak ren geyiklerinin de bir bildiği var, boşa terlemiyorlar odalarında, “sanki bunun en beteri olduğunu mu düşünüyorsunuz?” demek ister gibiler. Nuh, türümüz yani ailesini kurtarıp diğer türleri heba ederek hedefe ulaşır, insan kazanır. Felaket ve lanetiyle birlikte zira dünyayı algılama biçimimiz burada boy verdi. Melez türler yok edildi( ari ırk mı dediniz), bize benzemeyenler ve işimize yaramayanlar bertaraf edildi( ya bizden yanasınız ya da düşmandan diyen Bush ve şürekası) ve tüm hikayenin merkezine insanın mutluluğu oturdu, ren geyiklerinin canı cehenneme.

Tek tek tüm hikayelerden bahsedecek enerjim yok ama biz bu temiz olmayanları ikinci bölümde, tahtakurularını üçüncü hikayede tekrar göreceğiz. İkinci hikayede gemi yine bir felakete sürüklenecek “kişisel bir dünya tarihi” yazma heveslisi bir rehber eşliğinde ve üçüncü hikayede davetsiz misafir tahtakurularını aforoz edeceğiz. Bu bölümleri, özgür irade ve tekerrür kavramı üzerinden düşünmekte anlam açısından işimize yarayabilir. Kitapta Marx’ın Louıs Bonaparte’ın 18. Brumieri’nin önsözünde yazdığı “tarihte her şey iki kere cereyan eder. İlkinde trajedi olan ikincide fars olur sözü bir yerde geçer, deniz- gemi- felaket üçlüsü ile her karşılaşmaya buradan bakabiliriz. Özgür irade mi demiştik! Din Savaşları adlı üçüncü bölümde, insanlar tahtakurusuna dava açar, kilisede yaşayan bu canlılar yerimiz işgal etmiş ve piskoposa zarar vermiştir ama avukat der ki, biz onların yaşam alanını işgal etmiş olamaz mıyız?

Ben kitabın temel meselesinin dördüncü yani Hayatta Kalan bölümünde ifşa edildiğine inanıyorum. Kitap içinde edebi olarak da en güçlü bölümlerden biri burası. Bölüm

Yıl bin dört yüz doksan iki
Kristof Kolomb mavi okyanusu geçti
Peki sonra? Anımsamıyordu

İle açılıyor. Tarih, bir zafer anlatısı olunca gerisinin de bir önemi kalmıyor. Ancak Barnes ileride söz alıp “ beni ilgilendiren 1493’de ne olduğu” diye soruyor ve eksen kaydırıyor. O, büyük keşiflerin içindeki küçük insanla ilgili.

Ren geyiklerini hatırlarsınız, tedirgin bırakmıştık, geleceğe dair kötü önsezilerle birlikte. Merak etmeyin, uçuyorlar artık fakat her şey daha kötüye gidiyor. Yeni bir felaket kapıyı çalıyor, Çernobil ve ilk onlar zehirlenip yerin dibine mavi işaretlerle gömülüyorlar.

Felaket kapımızı çalıyor ve anlatıcı salıyla kaçmaya çalışıyor, felaketten, evden, erkekten. Gene bir tekerrür içindeyiz ama her tekrar diğerini aratıyor.

Gözümüzü akıl hastanesinde açıyor, hasta bir medeniyetin yükünü üstleniyoruz.

“Benim hiçbir şeyden anlamadığımı söylüyorlar. Benim doğru bağlantıları kuramadığımı söylüyorlar. Onları dinleyin, dinleyin de kurdukları bağlantıları görün. Şu oldu, diyorlar ve onun sonucunda da bu oldu. Burada bir meydan savaşı, şurada genel bir savaş oldu, bir kral tahtından indirildi, ünlü adamlar -hep ünlü adamlardan usandım- olaylara meydan verdi. Belki de güneşte çok kaldım, ama onların bağlantılarını anlıyor değilim. Ben onların sonuna yaklaştığını anlar görünmedikleri dünya tarihine bakıyorum ve gördükleri şeyi görmüyorum. Benim bütün gördüğüm eski bağlantılar, artık hiç dikkate almadığımız bağlantılar, çünkü bunlar Ren geyiklerini zehirlemeyi, sırtlarına mavi çizgiler çekmeyi ve onları vizonlara yedirmeyi çok daha kolaylaştırıyor. Bunu kim mümkün kıldı? Bunun sorumluluğunu hangi ünlü adam yüklenecek?”

Ya siz bana bakmayın, çok ironik, kahkalarla okuyacağınız bir kitap bu, en azından kahkaha koparacağınız, absürd çok şey var, ben kahkahaya yitip gitmesin dediğim şeylere vurgu yapıyor, bağlantıları takip ediyorum sadece.

Başlı başına güçlü olan bölümlerden biri de Medusa’nın Salı bölümü. Burada da sanatın gerçekliğe müdahalesini, gerçekliği katlanır kılışını, medeniyet götüren insanın yamyamlığı eşliğinde görmek mümkün. Başka bir salı da film çekimlerinde batıracak, tekerrürün lanetine bir de cangılda dalacağız. Ay’a çıkacak ama Nuh’dan orada da kurtulamayacağız, teknolojik olarak en ilerlediğimiz anda mite teslim olacağız. Titanikten iki kez kurtulacağız, Nuh’u ararken Nuh sanılacağız ve fazlası. Bağlantı bir kez yanlış kurulacak ve biz her seferinde daha kötü bir ana uyanacağız.

Anlatı düşte bitecek ve ihtiyaçları sınırsız karşılanan insanın mutsuzluğuyla karşılaşacağız. Bu kitabı bize belki o düşteki adam hediye edecek belki hikayenin kendisi düşerek bitecek. Belki kitap bitecek ve hepimiz Spinozacı olacak, olanın hakkını teslim edeceğiz.

Ve araya bir parça atacağız, buçuklu ama bir parça yine. Aşk hakkında konuşacağız, o da mutlu etmeyecek, yazdığımız mektupların alıcısı olmayacak, sayıkladığımızla kalacağız. Ama belki de bu muzaffer adamların katlanamadığımız tarihine aşkla bir parantez açacak ve kapayacağız.

Nuh’un Gemisinde gizli gizli sevişen tüm davetsiz misafirlere selam ve dua ile.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julian Barnes'dan okuduğum ilk kitap "10 1/2 Bölümde Dünya Tarihi", okuduktan sonra yazarın mizah zekasına hayran kaldım. Gerçi mizah için zeka şarttır denir ama J. Barnes’inki farklı bir zeka, şeytani adeta. Alay ediyor, şakaya vuruyor, hicvediyor, ironiden kara mizaha her çeşidini kullanıyor mizahın.

Julian Barnes'in "10 1/2 Bölümde Dünya Tarihi" adlı romanı, bildiğimiz o klasik dünya tarihi kitaplarından çok farklı. Aslında roman mı bundan da pek emin değilim. Birbiriyle ilişki kurulabilecek ama birbirinden bağımsız öyküler derlemesi bence.

On buçuk bölüm olması 10 ayrı bölüm (öykü) ile numara vermediği yarım bölüm kabul ettiği numarasız “parantez” bölümünden oluşuyor, bir de kısa bir sanat tarihi denemesi de yer alıyor beşinci öykü sonunda, isimsiz olarak. Tüm bölümlerde ortak nokta tahtakurusunun bir şekilde anlatımda yer alması. Bir de Nuh’un Gemisi’nden neredeyse tüm öykülerde bahsedilmesi.

Kitabı özetlemek zor ama deneyeceğim. İlk öykü “Kaçak Yolcu” da Nuh’un gemisine kaçak binen bir tahtakurusunun ağzından Tufan anlatılıyor. Gılgamış Destanı’nda oradan da başta Tevrat olmak üzere kutsal kitaplara geçmiş olan “Tufan Efsanesi”, tahtakurusunun bakış açısıyla yazılmış, Nuh ve ailesinin ipliğini pazara çıkararak. Çok keyifli bir öykü.

2. bölüm “Ziyaretçiler”de Akdeniz'de seyreden bir yolcu gemisini ele geçiren Arap teröristlerin sadece Amerkalı veya İngiliz oldukları için öldürülecek olan masum insanlara yönelik eylemlerine öyle bir yorumla yaklaşır ki, bu ülkelerin Ortadoğu politikalarını sorgulamak kaçınılmaz oluyor.

3. bölüm veya öykünün başlığı “Din Savaşları”. Bu müthiş keyifli öyküde XVI. yüzyılda bir Fransız köyünde halkın tahtakurularını kiliseye ve piskopoza ve ekinlere zarar verdikleri gerekçesiyle mahkemeye vermeleri anlatılıyor. Şikayetçi olan halkın avukatı din ve kutsal kitaplar üzerinden şikayetini temellendirirken, davalı haşaratların avukatı, hukuk ve yasalar üzerinden savunmayı kurguluyor. İddia makamı yani savcı da tamamen kutsal kişiler ve dini olaylar üzerinden iddianamesini hazırlayıp mahkumiyet istiyor. Mahkeme sanki bir teoloji-hukuk savaşına dönüyor. Barnes burada dinlerle olduğu kadar, zavallı ve zayıf kişileri ezmeye kararlı hukuk sistemini de eleştirel olarak kapsama alanına alıyor.

4. öykü “Kurtulan”. Çernobil felaketine gönderme yaparak nükleer tehlike karşısında kendisini çaresiz hisseden ve kişisel sorunları da olan genç bir kadının gerçek dost olarak gördüğü iki kedisini yanına alıp bir tekneyle tek başına denize açılmasının, duyduğu yalnızlık ve güvensizlik hissinin, toplumun duyarsızlığının anlatıldığı bir bölüm.

5.bölüm “Deniz Kazası”, gerçek bir olayın Barnes uslubunca anlatıldığı bir öykü. Tabii tahtakurusu ve Nuh’un gemisinin bir şekilde öyküde yer aldığını hatırlatalım. 1816 yılında Kanarya Adaları açıklarındaki Kayalıklara çarpan Fransız fırkateyni Medusa’nın yolcularının küçük bir bölümünün kurtulma hikayesi anlatılıyor. Bölüm sonunda bu olayı resmeden Théodore Géricault’un muhteşem “Medusa’nın Salı” isimli tablosunun mükemmel bir analizi yer alıyor.

6. öykünün adı Dağ. 1840 yılında, inançsız babasının ruhuna Tanrı'dan af dilemek için Ağrı Dağı’na yani Nuh’un gemisinin sanal yuvasına giden, Viktorya döneminde yaşamış dindar bir İngiliz kadının ilginç hikayesi anlatılıyor. Ruhsal tahliller nefes kesici.

7. bölüm Üç Sade Öykü başlıklı. Tarihten üç kısa hikaye, resmi tarihin yazmadığı, tarihçilerin sevmediği, insana ve hayatta kalmaya dair üç küçük öykü. Anlatılmaz, okunur ancak.

8. öykü Nehir Yukarı ve yarım denilen Parantez denemesi. İki Cizvit papazının iki yüzyıl önce Venezuella cangıllarında yaşadıklarını konu alan bir film çekiminde yer alan erkek sanatçının sevgilisine yazdığı mektuplar bu bölümü oluşturuyor. Heyecanlı, ironik, sanatçı ruhunun karmaşıklığı ve daha bir çok öğe bu bölümde sarıyor okuyanı. Barnes’in aşka dair kişisel düşüncelerini yansıtan Parantez bölümü bir deneme.

9. öykü “Ararat Projesi”, kurmaca da olsa gerçek olaylardan esinlenmiş. Aya ayak basan ve orada bir futbol topuyla şut bile çeken Amerikalı astronotun Nuh'un Gemisi'nin peşine düşmesinin hikayesi. Bu öykü Dağ öyküsü ile bağlantı kurarak sonlanıyor. Hiciv sanatı nasıldır sorusunun cevabı bu öyküde.

10. ve sonuncu öykü Düş, adından da anlaşıldığı gibi düşünde cenneti görmek ve uyanmak nasıl bir duygu. Tabii cennet de cehennem de Barnes’in keskin mizahi zekasından nasibini alıyor.

Aslında bu kitabı özetlemek zor, dünya insanlık tarihinde muhalif kısa bir gezinti yapan J. Barnes’in amacı tarih kitabı yazmak değil. Tarihin ana unsurlarının kahramanlardan, kahramanlıklardan, galip gelenlerden, galibiyetlerden ibaret olmadığını, tam tersine tarihin ezilenlerden,mağdurlardan, haksızlığa uğramışlardan kısaca tarih kitaplarının hiçbir zaman söz etmediği kişiler ve olaylardan oluştuğunu anlatmak istiyor.

Edebiyatın evrensel temalarından aşk, hırs, yaşam mücadelesi, din ve inançları ele alıp tarihin farklı dönemlerinden kimi gerçek kimi kurgu, farklı öykülerle insanı ve insanlığı sorguluyor. Bunu yaparken de kutsal kitaplar başta olmak üzere kafayı buluyor, dalgasını geçiyor, bazen argo bazen romantik, bazen hırçın bazen şiirsel edebiyatın içinde dansediyor. Tabii mizahi üslubu ve muhteşem ironi yeteneğini tüm bölümlere aktararak.

Diyor ki Barnes “Tarih olan biten değildir, tarih tarihçilerin bize anlattıklarıdır..... Tarih bir şeyler bulmamız açısından yararlıdır. Biz onları örtbas etmeye çalışırız, ama tarih peşimizi bırakmaz”
Julian Barnes ve 10 1/2 Bölümde Dünya Tarihi mutlak okunması gereken kitaplardan birisidir kanımca.

[Mevsim Yenice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julian Barnes tarafından anlatılan gayri resmi Dünya tarihi diyebilirim romana rahatlıkla. Nuh'un gemisini kemiren tahta kurularının gizemiyle başlar roman. Ve her bölümde anlatıcısı değişerek bir sürü farklı mekana ve olaya uğrayarak devam eder. Fakat başlangıçtaki Nuh teması ve tahta kurdu diğer bölümlerde de yer yer karşımıza çıkar. Bir de bahsedilen bir yarım bölüm vardır ve beklenilenin aksine kitabın sonunda çıkmaz karşımıza. Kitaptan da epey bağımsız, anlatıcı Barnes olan aşk hakkında bir denemedir.

Roman dendiği gibi kolaylıkla birbirinden bağımsız da okunabilecek öykü seçkisi de denebilir bence kitaba. Bunun hiçbir tat eksiltmeyeceğini garantileyebilirim.

Okunması gayet zevkli, insanı yormayan, Barnes'ın zekasını ortaya koymaktan çekinmediği güzel bir roman On Buçuk Bölümde Dünya Tarihi.
Bitene dek 4 yıldız vereceğimi düşündürüp, bittikten birkaç gün sonra üstüne de dostlarla konuşunca 5 yıldız vermeye karar verdiğim Barnes romanı..

4. bölümle beni sakince yerden yere vurmayı başarabilmiştir. O bölümden bir alıntıyla sizleri başbaşa bırakmadan evvel okumanızı da tavsiye edeyim.

"Hem, daima ren geyiğinin uçabildiğine inandığınız yere gitmelisiniz, gerçekçilik budur."

[Özgür Atmaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitap, “Ya şöyle olsaydı nasıl olurdu?” sorusunun, Barnes diliyle anlatılmış hali.

Başlarken herkes gibi, “neden buçuk ve bunu nereden artıracak?” düşüncesi ve merakıyla başladım. Cevabımı da çok güzel aldım aslında ama asıl kafamı karıştıran ilk bölümde çok ciddi bir kurgu olacağı ve baştan sonra yaslanacağı sağlam bir merkezden hareket etmesiydi ama diğer bölümlerin bambaşka öykülere ve anlatılara evrileceğini, kitabın isminin basitliğine bile baksam anlayabilirmişim. Sadece bu konuda biraz hayal kırıklığı yaşadım çünkü bunu farketsem aldığım zevkin katlanacağı hissine kapıldım.

Kitap gerçekten 10,5 bölümden oluşuyor. Her bölüm bir üst kurgu ve küçük iplerle birbirine bağlı seyir ediyor. İnsan ontolojisi ve dünya tarihinde bilinene yönelik anlatımlar kuru kavramsal olmaktan çıkartılıp estetik ve edebi dille harika bir hale getirilmiş. İnsan’ın doğaya bakış açısının değil de, doğadan kendimize baktığımız yerler de çok etkiliydi.

Her bölümde büyük sorular getiren, okuyanı da bu sorulara katan ve kendi felsefesini ortaya koyduğunu düşündüğüm yerler mevcut.

Kitabın ironik ve sağlam temelli üslubunu fazlasıyla Umberto Eco anlatımlarına benzettim.

Yine kitabın birçok dili var ve adapte olmak zor. Fakat onu aştıktan sonra çok lezzetli bir hale geliyor.

Kitabın tam merkezinde “Parantez” olarak açtığı bölüm, önünde ve arkasında anlatılan - anlatılacak her şeyin merkezinde duruyor ve buna da ÂŞK temasından hareket etmiş olması çok kapsayıcı ve manevi tınlıyor.

Milyon yıllık Dünya, İnsan ve Doğa tarihine ironik ve paralel bir tarih anlatısı olsaydı sanırım o da bu olurdu deyip burada sonlandırmak istiyorum.

Saygılar.

[Kaggelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Εμεινα αφωνος με το συγκεκριμενο βιβλιο. Ειμαι εντυπωσιασμενος και καταπληκτος. Δεκα ξεχωριστα διηγηματα και μια παρενθεση, εκπληκτικα τα περισσοτερα, με διαφορετικο λογοτεχνικο υφος το καθενα, συνθετουν ολα μαζι μια ενιαια ιδεα. Το τελος κυριολεκτικα θα σας παρει το μυαλο. Λιγη υπομονη θελει μονο με την πρωτη ιστορια η οποια ειναι καπως κουραστικη και σαν ιδεα αλλα και στον τροπο αφηγησης, αλλα απο κει κι επειτα το βιβλιο απογειωνεται και συνεχιζει ετσι μεχρι την τελευταια σελιδα. Σπουδαιος αφηγητης και στοχαστης ο Barnes γραφει ενα ιδιοφυες και προκλητικο βιβλιο με τις καταλληλες δοσεις ειρωνιας και σαρκασμου. Χωρις ιχνος διδακτισμου καταφερνει να προβληματισει και να δωσει τροφη για σκεψη πανω στα πιο μεγαλα ζητηματα που εχουν απασχολησει ποτε τον ανθρωπο και πανω στο ιδιο το νοημα της ζωης. Θα απασχολησει για αρκετο καιρο τη σκεψη μου και σιγουρα θα επανελθω για μια δευτερη αναγνωση.

[Kelly W · Rating 3 out of 5]

I originally assumed, based on its title, that A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters was actually a history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters. I thought it would be a quirky, ultra-condensed version of all recorded history. And it IS quirky. But it's actually a series of history-themed short stories.

I had it on my wishlist based on the rave reviews from Amazon, claiming that the book is pure genius. A top review calls it a "sardonic, original, and mischievous mind on a tear." Too bad it bored me so much.

With a postmodern approach, the book is clever and experimental...but clever and experimental doesn't automatically mean good. It's the type of read where every once and a while I would think "That's a neat description," or "What a creative take," and a couple times I chuckled, but I was never hooked. The highlight of the book is probably its first chapter, where Barnes tells the story of Noah's Ark from a wood worm's point of view. Another stand-out is an account of a shipwreck, followed by a chapter beginning with the question, "How do you turn catastrophe into art?"

[Radioread · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okuduktan aylar sonra ısrarla, bölüm bölüm yakama yapışıyor. Bu güncellemeyi borçluyum 10,5'a.

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Aşk konusunda, aşk dilinde ve aşk jestlerinde kesinlikli olmalıyız. Eğer aşk bizi kurtaracaksa, ölüme bakmayı öğrendiğimiz kadar açıkça bakmalıyız ona. Aşk okulda öğretilmeli mi? Birinci sömestr: arkadaşlık; ikinci sömestr: sevecenlik; üçüncü sömestr: tutku. Neden olmasın?"

Julian Barnes okumaya devam ediyorum, bu kez 10½ Bölümde Dünya Tarihi'nin ardından bildirmeye geldim ve tuttum bu "buçuk" bölümden bir alıntı seçtim. Epey enteresan bir kitap bu, 10 bölümlük, başka türlü yazılmış kurgusal ve alternatif bir dünya tarihi. (Roman diye geçiyor ama aslında öyküler de denebilir.) Bir de işte o buçukuncu bölüm var: Barnes'ın araya girip aşka dair bir deneme ekleyiverdiği (çünkü diyor ki, "aşk bizi düş kırıklığına uğrattığında kabahati dünya tarihinde bulmalıyız") - sanırım en sevdiğim bölüm o oldu, alıntı da oradan geldi.

Nuh'un gemisine sızmış bir tahtakurusunun gözlemleriyle başlıyor roman, anlayacağınız üzere epeyce absürt ve muzip bir metin elimizdeki. Açıkçası ilk bölüm öyle müthiş ve komikti ki (gerçi ben zaten Julian Barnes'ı aşırı komik buluyorum), devamına dair beklentim çok yükseldi, bu ilk bölümde canım Saramago'nun "Lizbon Kuşatmasının Tarihi"nin hissini bulur gibi oldum ve heyecanlandım ama ilerleyen bölümleri maalesef o kadar parıltılı bulamadım. Kötü mü, hiç değil, ama ilk bölümdeki kadar iyi uygulayamamıştı sanki fikri.

Ne peki bu fikir? Kitaptan alıntılayayım; şu bence: "Tarih, olan biten değildir. Tarih, tarihçilerin bize anlattığı şeydir." Barnes da adeta diyor ki "bir de ben anlatayım bakın nasıl anlatıyorum?". Yukarıdaki cümle bana bir başka Barnes kitabında (Bir Son Duygusu) okuyup unutamadığım şu cümleyi anımsattı: "Tarih, belleğin kusurlarının, belgelemenin yetersizlikleriyle buluştuğu noktada üretilen o kesinliktir." 10½ Bölümde Dünya Tarihi'nden yaklaşık 20 yıl sonra bu cümleyi yazarken bir yandan kendi kitabını da tariflediğini şimdi anlıyorum.

Yazarların dönüp dolaşıp takıntılı olduğu mevzulara geri gelmelerini izlemeyi, bunların izlerini tespit etmeyi çok seviyorum ya. Bu kitapla Barnes'ın tarih takıntısının derinine inme şansım oldu, ben mutluyum.

[Algernon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries than fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections. We lie here in our hospital bed of the present (what nice clean sheets we get nowadays) with the bubble of daily news drip-fed into our arm. We think we know who we are, though we don't quite know why we're here, or how long we shall be forced to stay. And while we fret and writhe in bandaged uncertainty - are we a voluntary patient? - we fabulate. We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story around them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulations; we call it history.

Julian Barnes provides an unconventional, subjective treatise on history, not as a science but as a collection of mostly unreliable fables. As an intellectual exercise I found his account often brilliant in its 'impertinent connections' and irreverent look at historical and biblical figures. As a collection of loosely linked short stories I must confess it often failed to keep me interested and invested in the characters; I usually read one chapter and put the book aside for a few days in order to explore other literary projects I had going on. This is part of the reason I hesitated more than a month about how to be honest about my experience without potentially turning future readers off from what could arguably be described as a masterpiece.

Everything is connected, even the parts we don't like, especially the parts we don't like.

Using a technique that has some similarities with David Mitchell or Italo Calvino, the ten chapters may appear at first glance random and irrelevant to the grand vision alluded to in the title, but the common maritime themes and repetead motifs accumulate in time and somehow gear together like one of those antique clockwork mechanisms. Briefly the journey offered will transport the reader from the patriarch Noah dealing with stowaways on his Ark to the sinking of the Titanic, from the deck of a research ship in the Antarctic to the wastelands of Chernobyl, from a nameless crater on the moon to the wooden throne of a medieval Bishop in France, from a tourist cruiser in the Egeean to the cetacean that swallowed Jonah, from the snowy peaks of Mount Ararat to the destitude survivors of the Medusa raft. A game of six degrees of separation will try to link a lost Amazonian tribe with the fate of William Huskisson (look him up: Death froze him as an instructive cameo about the nature of progress.). Need another example? Here's a connection between Noah and Father Christmas: She was a girl who believed what she was told, and the reindeer flew. She must have seen them first on a Christmas card. Six, eight, ten of them, harnessed side by side. She always imagined that each pair was man and wife, a happy couple, like the animals that went into the Ark. As for the Rudolf's Red Nose? Why, Chernobyl of course.

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce

The element of humour, of satire and bufoonery, of challenging established myths and too rigid thinking modes, is one of the constant threads woven from story to story ( What was Jonah doing inside the whale in the first place? It's a fishy story, as you might expect. ). It goes hand in hand with tragedy, as the quote above states, and it doesn't try to belittle the real issues touched upon, like terrorism, or rasism, or ecological disasters. But it might provide the detachment and the strength needed to look at these heavy issues from beyond the easy prepackaged ideas of political or religious dogma.

By far my two favorite chapters are the non-fiction ones:

Shipwreck is an essay on the human condition, expressed through a lengthy commentary on the significance and importance of Théodore Géricault’s masterpiece Le Radeau de la Méduse. I've seen it a couple of times - a giant darkish painting on a wall in the Louvre, but it turns out I was in need of a professional critic in order to really 'look' at it in the proper way:
We don't just imagine the ferocious miseries on that fatal machine, we don't just become the sufferers. They become us. And the picture's secret lies in the pattern of its energy. Look at it one more time: at the violent waterspout building up through those muscular backs as they reach for the speck of the rescuing vessel. All that straining - to what end? There is no formal response to the painting's main surge, just as there is no response to most human feelings. Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.

To balance this bleak outlook of the soul lost in a sea of indifference and ultimate destitution, Barnes gives us the half chapter Parenthesis where he breaks out of the story and addresses the audience directly, using a couple of quotes in a way not so different from what we do around here on goodreads when we want to stress a point:

What will survive of us is love.
Philip Larkin - An Arundel Tomb
---
The mystery of what a couple is, exactly, is almost the only true remaining mystery left to us, and when we have come to the end of it there will be no more need for literature - or for love for that matter.
Mavis Gallant

As a commentary on all the effort that went into the rest of the stories, I found this accolade well worth the price of admission and the most memorable moment of the whole journey, turning the perspective from the global to the personal, the only real level at which we can experience the world, and the only level at which we can finally find a sheltering shore from the Deluge. In one final wacky analogy, we are offered the connection between Noah's Ark and Love:

Trusting virgins were told that love was the promised land, an Ark on which two might escape the Flood. It may be an ark, but one on which anthropophagy is rife; an ark skippered by some crazy greybeard who beats you round the head with his gopher-wood stave, and might pitch you overboard at any moment.

So we must be careful of our hearts, and treat the sentiment with the respect and reverence it deserves, as apparently our survival, both as a species and as individuals can be reduced to our capacity for love, our willingness to build up and preserve instead of consumme and destroy:

I Love You. For a start, we'd better put these words on a high shelf; in a square box behind glass which we have to break with our elbow; in the bank. We shouldn't leave them lying around the house like a tube of vitamin C. If the words come too easily to hand, we'll use them without thought; we won't be able to resist. Oh, we say we won't, but we will. We'll get drunk, or
lonely, or - likeliest of all - plain damn hopeful. And there are the words gone, used up, grubbied.[...] These are grand words; we must make sure we deserve them.

As it often happens since I started writing longer reviews and taking notes during reading (bookmarking on ebooks works great) , I realize I begin to appreciate the effort of the author and the quality of the presentation more as I dissect it and try to put my impressions in order. I believe a second reading might convince me to give the maximum number of stars and my currrent lukewarm reaction may be the result of outside stress and disorderly living - which stopped me from giving the book the full attention it deserves.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

Midway, I thought that I might have trouble even giving this 3 stars, as a few of these thematically linked stories didn't keep me on my toes enough, or felt somewhat forced (or, as with the very first one on Noah's Ark, simply felt banal)...

And then there's the matter of how, on the strength of his otherwise very-well-imagined final chapter, on the "afterlife," I'd say that JB doesn't really get the religious impulse all that well, or to put it another way, if he were a Buddhist he'd be Hinayana rather than Mahayana devotee, for even at its best, religion in this book comes across as personal, individual obsession, rather than as that other-centred, compassion-focused mode of being exemplified by the Mahayana concept of the Bodhisattva. Not that I'm religious myself, but I did feel a smidge patronized-by-proxy, as it were.

Anyway. But all was redeemed by the story+essay on the Wreck of the Medusa as well as by the superb digressive essay on love, of which I shall post a few screenshots below, when I get a round tuit!

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortly after starting this book, and even though I knew it was an early Barnes, I had to stop and check to see when it was written because it felt so immediate.

And what it tells me, with that Barnesian wry humor, is there’s not much hope:

(History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.) (From Parenthesis— the ½ chapter—, page 239, 76%)

There’s only this:

But we must still believe that objective truth is obtainable; or we must believe that it is 99 per cent obtainable; or if we can’t believe this we must believe that 43 per cent objective truth is better than 41 per cent. We must do so, because if we don’t we’re lost, we fall into beguiling relativity, we value one liar’s version as much as another liar’s, we throw up our hands at the puzzle of it all, we admit that the victor has the right not just to the spoils but also to the truth. (Also from Parenthesis, page 243, 78%)

And for some reason I find this idea appealing:

For the point is this: not that myth refers us back to some original event which has been fancifully transcribed as it passed through the collective memory; but that it refers us forward to something that will happen, that must happen. Myth will become reality, however sceptical we might be. (From the chapter Three Simple Stories, page 180, 57%)

[Pia G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5/3. sanırım hayal kırıklığına uğradım 🫠
barnes'ın dil becerisi ve esprili üslubu, kitabın atmosferini zenginleştirdiyse de beni tam anlamıyla tatmin edemedi. 10,5 bölüm tarihsel olayları sıradışı bir perspektiften sunmaya çalışırken, bu yaklaşımın bazı yerlerde karmaşaya neden olduğunu düşünüyorum.

[Gülüzar - Ertl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitaba başlarken başka bir dünya tarihi olacağını biliyordum. Ama mavra mı yapacak yoksa tepetaklak* mı bakacak kestiremiyordum. Unutmadan söylemek isterim ki; Barnes zekâsının farkında ve bunun ukalâlığını yapmaktan hiç çekinmemiş bu kitabında.

Her bir hikayesini tek başına uzun uzun tartışmak mümkün ve hatta zaruri. Bunun yanı sıra çok da keyifli.

Ayrıca kitap için öykü mü roman mı tartışması yapmak mümkün. Öykülerden birini çıkardığımızda kitap kendinden bir şey kaybetmemekle beraber bir bütünsellik arzettiğini ve benim için bir roman olduğunu söylemeliyim. Kısaca gördüğüm bir kaç tematik bağlantı var. İlk olarak Kaçak Yolcu'da açık seçik sonraki bir kac öyküde de daha gizli kapaklı olarak gördüğüm insan merkezci yaklaşıma yönelttiği eleştiriden bahsetmek gerek. Nuh Tufanı hikayesinde gördüğümüz gemiye alınacak hayvanlarda yapilan temiz ve temiz olmayan ayrımı dikkat çekici olarak duruyor. Neye göre temiz olduğu değerlendirmesi insanın yiyebileceği ayrimina dayanıyor. Kitapta gecen bir cümle eğer nuh tufani gercek ise doğal çeşitliliğin bugün gördüğümüzden kat be kat çeşitli olduğunu söylüyor ki hikaye de bunu doğruluyor. Tek boynuzlu atın bir masal kahramanı mı olduğunu sanıyorsunuz? Tahtakurusu gibi temiz olmayan hayvanlar alınmıyor gemiye. Yine medusanın salında hasta ve yaralı insanların atılması zayıfı/işe yaramaz görüleni elemesi bir davranış olarak önümüzde duruyor. Yani tek başına türcü değil ama kendi türü içinde de faydacı yapıya sahip insan evladı.

Bir diğer dikatimi çeken konu ise hep bir felaketten -bazen bir tufan bazen çernobil bazen de bir gemi kazasından- kaçarken sığınılan gemi veya salın sonunda kaçanların hapisanesi olması. Felaketten kacarken daha büyük bir felaketle sınanmak, azrailden kaçtığını sanırken aslında azraile koşmak gibi**. Baş edilemeyenden kaçış daha büyük bir sınanmaya götürüyor insanı. Belki de kaçmamak kalmak daha doğru, kim bilir?

Kutsal metinlerin anlatım biçimi olarak okuyucuya "sen" şeklinde hitap etmesi ve anlatıcının tahtakurusu olması "temiz olmayanı", en yüksek canlı olan insanla eş kılması en aşağıdan tarih yazımına güç katmış.

Anlatının imkânlarından biçim olarak oldukca fazla faydalanmış bir kitap. Mektup, mahkeme tutanakları, sanat eleştirisi, günce bu muzip anlatının sert hakikatleri söylenmesine yardımcı olmuş.

Nuhun gemisine davetsiz binen bütün kaçak yolculara tahtakuruları nezdinde teşekkür ederim., Siz olmasaydınız hayat bu kadar guzel olmazdı 😊

Ben çok keyifle okudum, siz de okuyun😊

*Galeona'ya selam
** Samarra'da randevu

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

No, I am apparently in a minority of one but overall I find this book irritating. There are some wonderful moments and one chapter in particular, ' Parenthesis', is a joy from start to finish (24 pages long) but other chapters are tediously over written, and at times obscure, with occasional nuggets but little to detain, satisfy or inspire. Can appreciate that some ideas are well crafted, and much of the writing flows, but the topics covered are dull and uninteresting and , in my case, rarely capture the attention or the sympathy of the reader.

So I wondered , are the following ideas fair commentary , or accurate, or mere attention grabbing :

“Should love be taught in school? First term: friendship; second term: tenderness; third term: passion. Why not? They teach kids how to cook and mend cars and fuck one another without getting pregnant…”

“Show me the tyrants who have been great lovers. By which I don’t mean great fuckers; we all know about power as an aphrodisiac (an auto-aphrodisiac too). Even our democratic hero Kennedy serviced women like an assembly-line worker spraying car bodies”

But, being Julian Barnes, there are other ideas that are arresting, concisely expressed and beautifully crafted :

“How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays the process is automatic…We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we have to imagine it, so we need the imaginative arts”

“…how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves”

"History isn’t what happened. History is just what historians tell us”

''The past is a distant, receding coastline,'' he wrote, ''and we are all in the same boat. Along the stern rail there is a line of telescopes; each brings the shore into focus at a given distance. If the boat is becalmed, one of the telescopes will be in continual use; it will seem to tell the whole, the unchanging truth. But this is an illusion; and as the boat sets off again, we return to our normal activity: scurrying from one telescope to another, seeing the sharpness fade in one, waiting for the blur to clear in another. And when the blur does clear, we imagine that we have made it do so all by ourselves.''

[Lizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters was not what I expected, but that happens a lot to me when reading Julian Barnes. I like surprises, and enjoyed the book. My problem is frequently uncontrolled expectations. I had a similar feeling reading Flaubert's Parrot, if I remember correctly since I read both years ago.

It is highly entertaining and the choice of narrator in each fragment is a feat of imagination. Always true with Barnes' writings. The story grew on me as I read on, at the same time as the narrator grows in exuberance and vitality. Wonderfully constructed and wittily told, Barnes’ work show the full spectrum of his interests.

But I think I still prefer his short-stories.

[Moira Fogarty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had 'A History of the World in 10½ Chapters' on my "to read" list for almost 15 years, but kept putting it off. Now I know why I was dithering. Despite the glowing commendations of university professors and English literature elitists, I simply could not warm to the text, clever though it was.

A loosely connected series of 10 1/2 short stories, art reviews, re-imagined histories, personal ramblings, epistolary travelogues and personal anecdotes, this is the epitome of post-modern fiction. Julian Barnes ties together his mish-mash of tales with the recurrence of woodworm & reindeer, pilgrimage & shipwreck, doubt & faith.

Eclectic and unorthodox, this will not suit every taste. Let me say up front, if you like linear plot development, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.

Settings include Mount Ararat (where the Ark made landfall), the moon, heaven, a jungle, a monastery, and a French courthouse. My main obstacles to enjoyment were the arrogant, foolish and misogynistic male narrators (complemented by the delusional, judgmental female narrators) and the author's struggles with religious belief and Biblical history.

The voices are mostly male, including: a worm, an academic, a lawyer, an actor, an astronaut and the author himself. The story about the egotistical academic and the psychology of self-interest made me cringe and nearly put down the book altogether. In a similar way, the stories told from Barnes' own point of view felt highly self-indulgent, like intellectual masturbation.

I did like the piece on Gericault's "Scene of Shipwreck" which looked at the wreck of the Medusa and told the story of the boat, the survivors, the artist and the process. Nice bit of art analysis. I also thought the concluding story about the difficulties of making Heaven satisfactory was a fun little thought-experiment.

Putting on my feminist glasses, I have to suggest that the women in the book - an insane cat-lady obsessed with her ex-boyfriend, a religious fanatic obsessed with her dead father, a deceitful and narcissistic astronaut's wife - are all utterly despicable and essentially defined by their relationship to significant men in their lives. Loathsome.

If you want something similar, only better, try the following...

1) Retelling of Noah's Ark - Timothy Findley's 'Not Wanted on the Voyage'

2) Funny fake legal trials - Ian Frazier's 'Coyote V. Acme'

3) Bold, multilingual Victorian-era female explorers who brave exotic lands - Elizabeth Peters' 'Crocodile on the Sandbank'

4) Crazy American astronauts - Stephen King's short story "I Am the Doorway" in the collection 'Night Shift'

[Kirstie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, the first chapter of the book entitled "The Stowaway" is one of the most brilliant things i've ever read. If there ever was a more intriguing hypothetical account of Noah's Ark, I haven't read it.

Sadly, the rest of the chapters are not as amazing. They are worth reading and interesting. They are engaging and inventive. But, they still aren't 5/5 stars good. I'm a tough critic. This is a solid 4 star work with some real five star moments. Barnes proves he's a creative thinker and able to delve into some important events in the history of both events and concepts (i.e. love, mental illness, and heaven for instance). At times he is wry and at other times he is completely serious and should be taken even more seriously for it. There are great historical accounts of the world based on true paintings and events and then more personal accounts that still seem just as valid for an understanding of the world's history.

While the chapters are vastly different in terms of the topic and theme, time period, perspective, and setting, Barnes has an apt way of providing a distinguishing link between all of them, as if underneath it all deep within our sub conscious is naturally our own origins. In the meantime, Barnes is going to help us explain our own sense of survival and reaction to terrorism in "Franklin Hughes." He writes about the agony of waiting for death and hope in addition to how humans turn catastrophes into art in "Shipwreck." He analyzes sexism, mysticism, WWIII paranoia, and psychosis in "The Survivor." He tells of a story of one man misunderstanding another based on culture and race in "Upstream!" and celebrates as well as criticizes love in "Parenthesis" He shows us the fallibility of religion in "The Wars of Religion" and of heaven itself in "The Dream." He is ever aware of the immense shortcomings in both humanity and history. It is my opinion that he is just as brutal as he is forgiving.

You will learn from this book and you will too investigate deeper thought into human events of the past. It will make you wonder which aspects of history really are true and it will help you re-examine those you thought could be true. He deconstructs history, and myth, and with the greatness of his writing, reminds us of what good there actually is in our species.

Memorable Quotes:

pg. 4 "It wasn't a nature reserve, that Ark of ours; at times it was more like a prison ship."

...

"They were chosen, they endured, they survived: It's normal for them to gloss over the awkward episodes, to have convenient lapses of memory. Bit I am not constrained in that way. I was never chosen. In fact like several other species, I was specifically not chosen. I was a stowaway."
...

"When I recall the Voyage, I feel no sense of obligation, gratitude puts no smear of Vaseline on my lens. My account you can trust."

pg. 6 "We weren't in any way to blame (you don't really believe that story about the serpent, do you? -it was just Adam's black propaganda), and yet the consequences for us were equally severe: every species wiped out except for a single breeding pair, and that couple consigned to the high seas under the charge of an old rogue with a drink problem who was already into his seventh century of life."

...

"Did you imagine that in the vicinity of Noah's palace (Oh, he wasn't poor, that Noah) there dwelt a convenient example of every species on earth? Come, come. No, they were obliged to advertise, and then select the best pair that presented itself. Since they didn't want to cause a iniversal panic, they announced a competition for twosomes-a sort of beauty contest.."

pg. 12 "I don't know how best to break this to you, nut Noah was not a nice man. I realize this idea is embarrassing, since you are all descended from him; still, there it is He was a monster, a puffed-up patriarch who spent half his day grovelling to his God and the other half taking it out on us. He had a gopher-wood stave with which...well, some of the animals carry the stripes to this day. It's amazing what fear can do..."

pg. 16 "Once, in a gale, Ham's wife lost her footing near the rail and was about to go overboard. The unicorn-who had deck privileges as a result of popular lobbying-galloped across and struck his horn through her trailing cloak, pinning it to the desk. Fine thanks he got for his valour; the Noahs had him casseroled one Embarkation Sunday. I can vouch for that. I spoke personally to the carrier hawk who delivered a warm pot to Shem's ark."

pg. 19 "Again-I am reporting what the birds said...And the birds said Noah didn't know what he was doing-he was all bluster and prayer. It wasn't difficult, what he had to do, was it? "

pg. 25 "If you think I am being contentious, it is probably because your species-I hope you don't mind my saying this-is so hopelessly dogmatic. You believe what you want to believe, and you go on believing it. But then, of course, you all have Noah's genes. No doubt this also accounts for the fact that you are often strangely incurious."

pg. 27 "God said...He was creating for us the rainbow. The rainbow! Ha! It's a very pretty thing, to be sure, and the first one he produced for us, an iridescent semi-circle with a paler sibling beside it, the pair of them glittering in an indigo sky, certainly made a lot of us look up from our grazing. You could see the idea behind it: as the rain gave reluctant way to the sun, this flamboyant symbol would remind us each time that the rain wasn't going to carry on and turn into a Flood. But even so. It wasn't much of a deal. And was it legally enforceable? Try getting a rainbow to stand up in court."

pg. 30 "He just couldn't handle the responsibility. He made some bad navigational decisions, he lost four of his eight ships and about a third of the species entrusted to him-he'd have been court-marshalled if there'd been anyone to sit on the bench. And for all his bluster, he felt guilty about losing half the Ark. Guilt. immaturity, the constant struggle to hold down a job beyond your capabilities-it makes a powerful combination, one which would have had the same ruinous effect on most members of your species. You could even argue, I suppose, that God drove Noah to drink."

pg. 83 "But her Dad said you could tell from the antlers that the reindeer pulling the sleigh were stags. At first she only felt disappointed, but later resentment grew. Father Christmas ran an all-male team. Typical. Absolutely bloody typical, she thought."

pg. 103 "The mind just got carried away. Never knew when to stop. But then the mind never does. It's the same with these nightmares"

pg. 104 "Everything was connected, the weapons and the nightmares. That's why they'd had to break the cycle. Start making things simple again. Begin at the beginning. People said you couldn't turn the clock back, but you could. The future was in the past."

pg. 125 "How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays, the process is automatic. A nuclear plant explodes? We'll have it on the London stage within a year. A president is assassinated? You can have the book or the film or the filmed book or the booked film. War? Send in the novelists. A series of gruesome murders? Listen for the tramp of the poets. We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we have to imagine it, so we need the imaginative arts. But we also need to justify it and forgive it, this catastrophe, however minimally. Why did it happen, this mad act of Nature, this crazed human moment? Well, at least it produced art. Perhaps, in the end, that's what catastrophe is *for*"

pg. 137 "How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky, how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us. Catastrophe has become art; but this is no reducing process. It is freeing, enlarging, explaining. Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for."

pg. 134 "There always appear to be two explanations of everything. That is why we have been given free will, in order that we may choose the correct one."

pg. 205 "Also I think cities make people lie to one another."

pg. 226 "It would be comforting if love were an energy source which continued to glow after our deaths. Early television sets, when you turned them off, used to leave a blob of light in the middle of the screen, which slowly diminished from the size of a florin to an expiring speck...Is love meant to glow on like this for a while after the set has been switched off?

pg. 227 "I love you. For a start, we'd better put these words on a high shelf; in a square box behind glass which we have to break with our elbow; in the bank. We shouldn't leave them lying around the house like a tube of Vitamin C...These are grand words; we must make sure we deserve them."

pg. 134 "Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary."

pg. 235 "A medical textbook doesn't immediately disenchant us; here the heart is mapped like the London underground. Aorta, left and right pulmonary arteries and veins, left and right subclavian arteries, left and right coronary arteries, left and right carotid arteries...it looks elegant, purposeful, a confident network of pumping tubes. Here the blood runs on time, you think."

pg. 238 "But I can tell you why to love. The history of the world becomes brutally self important without love. Our random mutation is essential because it's unnecessary. Love won't change the history of the world...but it will do something much more important: teach us to stand up to history, to ignore its chin-out strut. I don't accept your terms, love says; sorry, you don't impress, and by the way what a silly uniform you're wearing. "

pg. 239 "How you cuddle in the dark governs how you see the history of the world. It's as simple as that.

We get scared by history we allow ourselves to be bullied by dates."

pg. 304 "And scholarly people, they tend to last as long as anyone. They like sitting around reading all the books there are. And then they love arguing about them. Some of these arguments-she casts an eye to the heavens-go on for millennium after millennium. It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, arguing about books."

[zeyneb · Rating 4 out of 5]

normalde "keşke tüm tarih kitapları bu kadar komik olsaydı" gibi bir cümleyle kendimi sonraki kitabın kollarına bırakacaktım çünkü bu biçim emek verilmiş, ünlü ve çok iyi yazılmış kitaplarla ilgili genellikle etrafta koşturup BU YAZILDI ve ÇOK İYİ ve ALLAHIM diye bağırdığım için tartışmaya katabileceğim bir şey yok gibi geliyor ama kitabın her cümlesinde, her ironisinde, karakterinde ve hikayesinde hissettiğim itina ve sabırdan bahsetmeliyim bu nedenle size bu yazıyı BİLGİSAYARIMDAN YAZIYORUM!

genellikle reviewlarımı çanta, mont ve saçlardan oluşan bir yerde (metrobüste), omuzlarım boynuma gömülü ve gözlerimde yaşlarla yazdığım gözetilirse, işbu kitaba değer verdiğim açıktır.

insanlık tarihinin farklı zamanlarına hoplayarak giden ve daha birleşmemişse de, birleşecek hikayelerden oluşan bu kitap; (noktalı virgül kullanıyorum bakar mısınız BİLGİSAYARIMDAN yazıyorum) kimsenin yazmadığı ama o zamanda eminim herkesin düşündüğü fikirlerle, yöneltilmemiş sorularla, politika, din, sevgi ve dünya değişirken bunlara tanık olmakla birlikte, tanıklıklarından ibaret olmayan insanlarla dolu öykülerin hiçbiri diğerine benzemiyor ama hepsi eğlenceli ve acı VE KOMİK.

ve ben bir şeylerin saydığım bu 3 sıfata aynı anda sahip olmasıyla kendimde sabahları yataktan kalkıp metrobüse binebilecek gücü bulabiliyorum

yazar seçtiği tarihlerin en derinine kadar inerken günümüz ironisi ve perspektifini de kendisiyle götürüyor. bir şeyden ne kadar uzaklaşırsak o kadar gülünç gelir (trajedi, yarım kalmış bir komedidir) ama kaliteli bir şekilde komik olabilmek için de bir şeyi derinlemesine anlamak gerektiğini biliyordu bence yazar. yaptığı işi bu kadar ciddiye almasa bu biçim bir kara mizahı da başaramazdı diye düşünüyorum, dil, kurgu, HİKAYELERİN BİRBİRİYLE BAĞLANTISI, kitapta sıkça geçen türkiye bahsiyle kabaran göğsüm, karakterler ve hepsinin insaniyetiyle kitap her ucundan tutulmuştu.

(kendisi çok zeki birisi. parantez bölümünde kendimle ne yapacağımı bilemedim, zeki ve komik insanlar içtenlikle bir şeyler anlatmaya karar verdiklerinde kulaktan ve kalpten ibaret oluyorum.)

sonuç olarak, bence okuyun. bazı bölümler diğerlerinden daha iyi tabii ki ama benim de bazı kısımlarım diğerlerinden daha iyi ve bakın BİLGİSAYRIMDAN yazdığım bu yazının sonuna kadar okumuşsunuz, o yüzden eminim yine bir BİLGİSAYARDA yazılmış bu kitabı niye okumayasınız diye soruyorum, bir beklenti havasında kaşlarımı kaldırıyorum ve iyi geceler diliyorum.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a mixed bag and hard to categorize. I’ll call it a collection of short stories and essays, some of which are interconnected. For example, the theme of Noah’s Ark applies to at least three of the pieces -- a story of the trip in which the Ark is a fleet of filthy prison-like ships under the dubious leadership of a drunken Noah. Then two Irish women go on an expedition to a village on Mt. Ararat. And an astronaut who walked on the moon abandons science for religion and searches the mountain for the Ark. (A story based on the true saga of James Irwin). There are spin-offs of the Ark story such as that of a woman who has just suffered a break up, ends up in a psych ward, and imagines herself in a boat with two paired animals (cats). References to wormwood, a stow-away on the Ark keep cropping up.



Another theme is ships. There are true stories of the ship the St. Louis, loaded with Jewish refugees, turned away from Cuba in 1939. And a true story of a Titanic survivor. There’s a story of a speaker on a ship taken over by terrorists who start killing passengers and make the speaker their spokesman.

Another theme is God and the reality (or not) of divine intervention symbolized by the ship on the horizon that may or may not see you lost at sea. (We realize now how unlikely Tom Hank’s rescue was in the movie Cast Away because no one would have seen him – no one on deck and no one looking out the portholes of such mechanical monsters.) There’s an essay on love and a short story on the boredom of heaven. We even get into art criticism in a story about a shipwreck and the resulting painting: The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault.



Good stuff in an odd package.

Painting of the Ark by Simon de Myle on Wikicommons
Medusa painting from wordpress.com

[Ieva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jocīga grāmata (labā vārda nozīmē). Pat nezinu, ko īsti pateikt, ļoti interesanta (un atkal jāuzsver, ka labā nozīmē) lasāmviela, lai gan neteikšu, ka visas nodaļas man patika vienādi. Jā, galvenais apjukums par to, kāpēc šis ir romāns, jo nodaļu savienošanas princips nebūt nav skaidrs. Bet stāsti par ķirmjiem, kuri ielavās Noasa šķirstā un pret kuriem vēršas viduslaiku tiesas prāvā, par kultūrvēsturisko lekciju lasītāju, kuru teroristi piespiež sadarboties un par vecmeitu, kura dodas klanā meklēt Noasa arku noteikti ir lasīšanas vērti.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a collection of short stories (and essays) focused around Noah and the Flood, ships, Deathwatch beetles (Xestobium rufovillosum), shipwrecks, people lost at sea, etc. lands nearly perfectly. Absolutely this is subjective, but of course everything is subjective. But Barnes had me from the first story to the last. I was reading bits to my wife, promising myself to go visit a painting at the Louvre, and just enjoying this book. Highly recommend. Feels sppropriate to this age where we seem to be regressing back into the past, into the seas; crawling backwards and losing our limbs.

[Justinas Žilinskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mėgstu dairytis po paliekamų knygų lentynas - ar prie bibliotekų, ar lauko bibliotekėlėse. Ši knyga dėmesį patraukė ir anotacija, ir vertėja, kuri, tikrai žinau, prastų knygų neverčia. Neapsirikau. Keistoka, bet tikrai verta dėmesio knyga, kurioje autorius žongliruoja istorija, menu, siužetas pereina į esė, esė pereina į fantaziją, fantazija virsta filosofija, filosofija virsta siužetu, yra net teismo procesas prieš kirvarpas! Ne, čia nerasite nuoseklios pasaulio istorijos, čia nėra net jos interpretacijos kaip nuoseklaus vyksmo, nors sąsaja yra - biblijinis Nojaus arkos mitas, prie kurio vis grįžtama ir grįžtama. Spėju, kad intelektualas šią knygą apibūdintų kaip "borgesišką", nes tikrai sunku atsirinkti, kur čia tikrovė, kur išmonė, ir, viena vertus, norėtųsi pasiknaisioti, ar buvo vienos moteriškės ir vieno astronauto kelionė į Araratą, kita vertus - bijau nusivilti. Na, o po antro skyriaus - "Svečiai" - knygą reikėjo atidėti į šoną ir šiek tiek atsikvėpuoti po sukrėtimo. Taigi, dovanoja daug emocijų, daug apmąstymų, daug krūvio. Verta, tikrai verta.

Penkios kirvarpos ir viena vyskupo kėdės koja

[Vasilis Manias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πριν καν ξεκινήσω, να πω πως το συγκεκριμένο κείμενο ανήκει δυστυχώς στη λίστα με τα Εξαντλημένα, οπότε και να καταφέρω να σας παρακινήσω να το διαβάσετε, θα είναι αντικειμενικά δύσκολο για εσάς να κάνετε κάτι τέτοιο, και είναι κρίμα, κάποια στιγμή εκτός από τον Κέβιν θα πρέπει να μιλήσουμε και για τα βιβλία που εξαντλούνται και κανείς δεν ενδιαφέρεται να επανεκδόσει, οπότε με την άνεση πως ότι και να πω, η ζωή όλων μας θα συνεχιστεί δίχως να διαταραχθεί η οικουμενική ισορροπία, ξεκινώ.
Η «Ιστορία του Κόσμου σε 10 1/2 Κεφάλαια» είναι το μοναδικό βιβλίο του 2019 για το οποίο άφησα χρόνο να μεγαλώσει μέσα μου πριν γράψω το παραμικρό για αυτό παρά το γεγονός πως όταν το ολοκλήρωσα είχα κατενθουσιαστεί (παρά το γεγονός πως ο βιβλιοπώλης μου τον οποίο εμπιστεύομαι ήταν σε φάση «μιεχ»). Γενικά βέβαια έχω ένα θεματάκι με τους νικητές των Booker, βασικά δε με έχουν απογοητεύσει ΠΟΤΕ, οπότε πριν καν το ξεκινήσω είχα αυτή τη θετική προδιάθεση, σταθερά δίχως να έχω την παραμικρή ιδέα για το πως αυτό θα εξελιχθεί.
Ο Μπαρνς, ξεκινάει με βασικό αφηγητή του βιβλίου του το πιό ασήμαντο ζωάκι του σύμπαντος, ένα ταπεινό σαράκι, που χώθηκε λαθραία στην Κιβωτό του Νώε, προσπαθώντας όπως όλοι μας τη στιγμή της ανάγκης, να σώσει το τομάρι του, στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο το σαράκι δικάζεται από την Εκκλησία επειδή εξ αιτίας του κατέρευσε ο Παπικός Θρόνος, το αθόρυβο σαράκι, στο πέρασμά τον Αιώνων κατέστρεψε την Ξύλινη Επίχρυση Καρέκλα. Και η ιστορία της Κιβωτού, βασικά της αθρώπινης φιγούρας που πασχίζει να σωθεί στο διηνεκές σκαρφαλωμένη σε ένα (όχι πάντα) φθαρτό σκαρί επαναλαμβάνεται διαρκώς, βρίσκοντας την κορύφωσή της στο 5ο μόλις κεφάλαιο όπου είναι και το καλύτερο κεφάλαιο βιβλίου που διάβασα εδώ και χρόνια και έχει για θέμα του τον αγαπημένο μου πίνακα όλων των εποχών, τη Σχεδία του Ζερικό. ΝΑι, το κεφάλαιο αυτό, ΚΑΙ ΜΟΝΟ ΤΟΥ ΝΑ ΗΤΑΝ, πάλι θα ήταν αρκετό να βάλω το συγκεκριμένο στη δεκάδα (βασικά λίγο έξω από αυτή κυρίως γιατί το διάβασα προς το τέλος της χρονιάς, αν το διάβαζα στην αρχή της θα το είχα σίγουρα πεντάδα). Επίσης, ο τίτλος του βιβλίου έχει 10 ιστορίες που συμπληρώνουν όλες μαζί ένα παζλ, το τραπέζι πάνω στον οποίο όμως το παζλ αυτό είναι στρωμένο γράφεται στο «μισό» κεφάλαιο που παρατίθεται λίγο πριν την ολοκλήρωση του έργου, και έχει θέμα του την αγάπη. Ορισμός, ανάλυση σε βάθος, και όλα αυτά με τον τίτλο «Παρένθεση». Γιατί μπορεί το ανθρώπινο γένος να περνοδιαβαίνει ελεύθερο ανά τους αιώνες, το κίνητρο όμως, η δύναμη που κινεί τα πάντα, η κόλλα που κρατάει όλο το παζλ ενωμένο, έχει διαχρονικά το ίδιο όνομα.
Εύχομαι σύντομα να επανακυκλοφορήσει, είναι πραγματικά κρίμα ένα τόσο σημαντικό βιβλίο να βρίσκεται έτσι απλά (και τόσο σύντομα από την πρώτη του έκδοση) εκτός κυκλοφορίας

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were drawn to this (fifth) Barnes title expecting a full length novel , you may well feel short changed. This is a selection of short stories (some of which are very good), brought together by linkages which, to this reader were too contrived, and the efforts made to create the impression of some sort of homogeneity through the book, were its weakest element.
No more woodworm please. Beetles do not make compelling subject matter at any level unless you are a coleopterist or an aspiring Rentokil agent.
Biblical Noah is the other recurring character and this was more successful, as the anchor (pun intended) for the water symbolism, of confinement, even entrapment; a theme of several of the stories.

In parts A History of The World is a modernist work. The appearance of Julian Barnes as a character, and multiple references to Leicester City F.C. made me check whether I had wandered into a Paul Auster novel (the most prolific writer of novels featuring... Paul Auster).

So far as the stories are concerned, I found them fascinating for the most part, and in the hands of Barnes the writing is a terrific example of what a good writer can do with history fictionalised to allow playful embellishment.
There are actually fourteen stories and I enjoyed eight of them a lot. Not a bad return.
In particular I loved “Shipwreck”. A tale from ‘the age of sail’ describing the sinking of the Medusa in 1816 and immortalised in the painting of Gericault. Helpfully my copy of the book includes a pull out of the painting.
Also based on an incident of global interest is the story of James Irwin, the Apollo astronaut. “Project Ararat” is very funny and a great reminder of the extraordinary fame and interest following the era of the American astronauts.

Barnes also has fun taking some urban myths and writing them up so that the reader isn’t sure what is truth and what is the work of fertile imaginations.
James Bartley’s Whale; Castelnau, the naturalist giving credence to the Candiru fish legend.

This was a book that I recommend to lovers of short stories. It’s playful, it’s fun. As the author himself admits:

”The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that seem to overlap; strange links; impertinent connections “(240)

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turns out the history of the world revolves around fabulation, woodworms, and love. Hard to argue with that. I really enjoyed this book, each of the 10 stories self-contained, but threaded together, with the 1/2 chapter bringing it all together nicely. Witty, educational, philosophical, self-deprecating, all things I was really in the mood for while riding a bike across Quebec.

Favorite lines, and there were many, so just a few now so I can harken back with fondness:

"A painting may be represented as a series of decisions labelled 1 to 8a, but we should understand that these are just the annotations of feeling. We must remember nerves and emotions. The painter isn't carried fluently downstream towards the sunlit pool of that finished image, but is trying to hold a course in an open sea of contrary tides." (p. 135)

The description of the "Scene of Shipwreck" is fantastic, especially the paragraph ending in "Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for." (p. 137)

"For the point is this: not that myth refers us back to some original event which has been fancifully transcribed as it is passed through the collective memory; but that it refers us forward to something that will happen, that must happen. Myth will become reality, however sceptical we might be." (p.181)

"Sleep democratizes fear. The terror of a lost shoe or a missed train are as great here as those of guerrilla attack or nuclear war." (p. 226)

"Poets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible 'I' (when I say 'I' you will want to know within a paragraph or two whether I mean Julian Barnes or someone invented; a poet can shimmy between the two, getting credit for both deep feeling and objectivity). Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love - selfish, shitty love - into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us about love." (p. 227)... the discussion shortly thereafter about the phrase 'I love you' is fantastic.