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A review by mownon
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
4.0
Not a review. Just a description according to what I felt.
The name ought to be enough to attract your attention to this fascinating book by Julian Barnes. And then comes the content it offers.
This book tells you some stories, based on documented sources, stories of some events that occurred at some point in the past. The events, seemingly discrete and disjoint, are being connected via a grand narrative. Just like a game of solving jigsaw puzzles. Each piece falls into its specific position and is neatly fitted into the groove of the board on which you arrange them. The board here is the grand narrative itself. The background, the basis or whatever you would like to call it.
I won't say much about the stories or the events that has been described in this book. I will rather say something else about them.
Each event's description is laid out in a manner keeping the chronology in mind. Though, at first glance you won't be able to find the connection, nor the context... And that's okay. You're not supposed to, at least not before you have finished the entire book. A collection of stories that tells, no... Reveals a much greater and bigger story, in a way you have never heard or read before, despite knowing the main theme, plot and etc of the story beforehand. You probably even know the conclusion, but alone you finish this book, it will make you to ask, whether what you have previously believed as the conclusion, is it for real or something else had happened?
The book doesn't tell you what to imagine or how to, rather it tells you what not to imagine. You, as a reader must filter out the previous notions that you had and embark upon a fresh process of perceiving. You do that while holding on to a narrative hook portrayed by the author at the begining of each strand involved in the great tale.
Well, not quite literally at the begining though. When you read or perceive something, that was constructed in a manner, much alike the process of forming a kaleidoscopic construct, the place, the exact event that denotes the narrative hook becomes the begining of a new strand. You read on... And learn to reimagine pictures and start perceiving them from a different angle. You rediscover so much more, like the turns and hidden alleyways along the paths that the stories made you to take at the very begining of the journey.
The usage of metaphors and uncanny references to social issues are hard to miss and, tough to decipher if you're not paying attention. And despite giving it your full attentiveness, a few portions are there that demand a second revision for you to be able to understand their inner meaning properly. An alternative fictional history of the world, presented in the form of stories and informal arguments against the known versions, a bigger picture starts to get painted in your imagination quite subtly. You realize it later on, when you revisit the beging of the end or end of the begining, what ever you would like to call it.
The name ought to be enough to attract your attention to this fascinating book by Julian Barnes. And then comes the content it offers.
This book tells you some stories, based on documented sources, stories of some events that occurred at some point in the past. The events, seemingly discrete and disjoint, are being connected via a grand narrative. Just like a game of solving jigsaw puzzles. Each piece falls into its specific position and is neatly fitted into the groove of the board on which you arrange them. The board here is the grand narrative itself. The background, the basis or whatever you would like to call it.
I won't say much about the stories or the events that has been described in this book. I will rather say something else about them.
Each event's description is laid out in a manner keeping the chronology in mind. Though, at first glance you won't be able to find the connection, nor the context... And that's okay. You're not supposed to, at least not before you have finished the entire book. A collection of stories that tells, no... Reveals a much greater and bigger story, in a way you have never heard or read before, despite knowing the main theme, plot and etc of the story beforehand. You probably even know the conclusion, but alone you finish this book, it will make you to ask, whether what you have previously believed as the conclusion, is it for real or something else had happened?
The book doesn't tell you what to imagine or how to, rather it tells you what not to imagine. You, as a reader must filter out the previous notions that you had and embark upon a fresh process of perceiving. You do that while holding on to a narrative hook portrayed by the author at the begining of each strand involved in the great tale.
Well, not quite literally at the begining though. When you read or perceive something, that was constructed in a manner, much alike the process of forming a kaleidoscopic construct, the place, the exact event that denotes the narrative hook becomes the begining of a new strand. You read on... And learn to reimagine pictures and start perceiving them from a different angle. You rediscover so much more, like the turns and hidden alleyways along the paths that the stories made you to take at the very begining of the journey.
The usage of metaphors and uncanny references to social issues are hard to miss and, tough to decipher if you're not paying attention. And despite giving it your full attentiveness, a few portions are there that demand a second revision for you to be able to understand their inner meaning properly. An alternative fictional history of the world, presented in the form of stories and informal arguments against the known versions, a bigger picture starts to get painted in your imagination quite subtly. You realize it later on, when you revisit the beging of the end or end of the begining, what ever you would like to call it.