Is it a novel? Or is it a tapestry of 10 1/2 vignettes on the broad theme of discovery? Barnes himself has said that ‘A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters’ was conceived as the former but I would be more inclined to agree with the latter. The irony here is that the main themes of this book revolve around the idea of alternative perspectives … so perhaps we are both right.
Like Barnes’ other short stories (I reviewed his latest collection ‘Pulse’ last month), the ‘chapters’ are a mixed bunch and aside from repeated nautical metaphors, I’m not fully convinced that it hangs together all that well as a ‘novel’. However, the opening chapter set on Noah’s Ark is pure satirical brilliance, and the 1/2 chapter ‘Parenthesis’ is beautifully written and is definitely Barnes at his best. Perhaps I will only fully appreciate the book at a novel by re-reading it as a later date. Continue reading
Last summer, I set myself the slightly insane task of reading two novels a week purely for pleasure, in other words, not related to my degree course. Originally, this ‘project’ was only meant to last for my sixteen week summer break and had been something I had been looking forward to for a long time as I had had only limited access to English language books when I was studying in Paris for a year (the time when I really should have started writing a blog). I expected that I wouldn’t be able to continue the pace during term time. However, nearly ten months later, possibly at the expense of getting a decent result in my degree, I am still managing to read two novels a week, having possibly borrowed more fiction from the university than the non-fiction I am supposed to be reading for my course. Some people ruin their degrees by drinking too many Jagerbombs at toga parties. I, however, may ruin my degree by spending too much of my time reading 653 page novels by Jonathan Franzen instead of journal articles about political analysis. And if my blogging word count starts getting higher than my project word count…well, that’s when I’ll know I have a bit of a problem. 
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