Julian Barnes's History

Synopsis: Connecting themes of voyage and discovery, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters has become one of Barnes's most studied and talked about novels. The mixture of fictional and historical narratives provides Barnes the opportunity to question our ideas of history, our interpretation of facts, and our search for answers to explain our interaction and placement within the grand scope of history.

Review: This is really a collection of short stories, loosely connected by themes such as Noah and his Ark, boats and water in general and woodworm! Most of them are fictionalised accounts of true stories. The first one is a humorous retelling of Noah and his journey on the Ark .. from the viewpoint of a stowaway woodworm. The woodworm is not a big fan of Noah or his 'role model' God, and that's putting it mildly.

There is a fascinating account of the 'Shipwreck of the Medusa' (1816) which is split into two parts. The first part details how after the ship struck a reef some of the crew built a raft and this was towed by one of the ship's launches. Fearing that they would be overwhelmed by the desperate crew of the raft the launch crew cut the ropes and left the raft adrift in the ocean. What followed is a tale of despair, dissent, fighting, starvation, cannibalism and execution until the few survivors left were eventually rescued. Tucked in between the two parts is a folded book plate which when pulled out reveals a stunning painting depicting the crew of the raft hailing a tiny boat on the horizon.
This painting is by Gericault and is called 'The Raft of the Medusa'. The second part is an account of how catastrophe can be turned into art and Julian attempts to provide answers as to why Gericault chose to paint the raft and it's crew in the way that he did for 'the incident never took place as depicted'.

Other stories include a cruise ship beset by terrorists, a bizarre medieval tale about some woodworm, which are on trial at a French court, accused of infesting the Bishop's throne legs, causing the chair to topple and the Bishop to fall into imbecility, and a tale of an astronaut who believed that during his moonwalk, God spoke to him and urged him to find the Ark on Mount Ararat. He subsequently comes home and sets about raising funds for the trip.

On the whole I liked it a lot. Perhaps the title is misleading, this isn't really a history of the world, just a few fictionalised random accounts of historical events and some musings from Julian about love, life and death. It was rewarding and thought provoking though, the sort of book that makes you head straight to 'Google' during and after reading it, to research the subject matter.