Book Review of "A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters"

 

by Julian Barnes
 

It is often said that everything in the universe is connected, and Julian Barnes proves it with A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters.  Each of these ten (and a half!) short stories shares a commonality with the next in amazing, wonderful ways.

 

Beginning with a rewrite of the story of Noah’s Ark told from the point of view of a very dangerous stowaway, A History of the World winds its way through the history of civilization documenting surrealist court trials (The Wars of Religion) and offering insightful art criticism – complete with a glossy fold-out reproduction of the art for readers to scrutinize along with the narrator (Shipwreck).

 

In The Mountain, two women venture up Mount Ararat in search of the famed ark in 1837, creating immense confusion for an excavation crew four stories (and over one hundred years) later, in Project Ararat. 

 

One of the stories in between is the ½, titled Parenthesis.  The narrator, whom we suspect to be the author himself, muses on the idea of love.  He says that “the heart isn’t heart shaped, that’s one of our problems.”  He documents the purchase and subsequent dissection of an ox heart shared with a radiologist friend, and there is beauty – even metaphor – in the gory details.  He compares it to the history of the world, the indiscretions of politicians, the developing of a photograph. 

 

A History of the World concludes with the account of a dream from which the narrator cannot awaken; or rather, that he continues to awaken in.  Each morning, he wakes in his own bed, has breakfast, dresses, runs errands, but each in a very wondrous and peculiar way.  As the days progress, his experiences grow more surreal and fantastic until he nearly can’t stand it any longer.  He must face what is literally the decision of his life – the decision we must make as a civilization: remain in this heaven of debaucherous excess, or step into the unknown alternative.

-written by Jessie Davis

 

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