From Publishers Weekly
Noah's Ark, Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa and "an offbeat vision of the Hereafter" are some of the ingredients of this pyrotechnical work. "Admirers of Barnes are accustomed to thoroughly unorthodox approaches to the novel, and his latest, while brilliantly entertaining, certainly strains the limits of the genre," PW remarked. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A revisionist view of Noah's Ark, told by the stowaway woodworm. A chilling account of terrorists hijacking a cruise ship. A court case in 16th-century France in which the woodworm stand accused. A desperate woman's attempt to escape radioactive fallout on a raft. An acute analysis of Gericault's "Scene of Shipwreck." The search of a 19th-century Englishwoman and of a contemporary American astronaut for Noah's Ark. An actor's increasingly desperate letters to his silent lover. A thoughtful meditation on the novelist's responsibility regarding love. These and other stories make up Barnes's witty and sometimes acerbic retelling of the history of the world. The stories are connected, if only tangentially, which is precisely Barnes's point: historians may tell us that "there was a pattern," but history is "just voices echoing in the dark; . . . strange links, impertinent connections." Fascinating reading from the author of Flaubert's Parrot , but not for those wanting conventional plot.- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
This is, in short, a complete, unsettling, and frequently exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven!
From the Inside Flap
This is, in short, a complete, unsettling, and frequently exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven!
About the Author
Born in Leicester in 1946, Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, a book of stories, and a collection of essays. He has won both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina, and in 1988 was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in London.
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters FROM THE PUBLISHER
This is, in short, a complete, unsettling, and frequently exhilarating vision of the world, starting with the voyage of Noah's ark and ending with a sneak preview of heaven!
FROM THE CRITICS
NY Review of Books
Barnes is an accomplished equilibrist; a reader who appreciates being made to work for his sense of balance will find in A History of the World special pleasures, special perils.
New York Review of Books
Barnes is an accomplished equilibrist; a reader who appreciates being made to work for his sense of balance will find in A History of the World special pleasures, special perils.
New York Times Books of the Century
The maNew York stories here are given their...humor, by an undercurrent of gentle, self-reflective iroNew York.
New York Times Books of the Century
The many stories here are given their...humor, by an undercurrent of gentle, self-reflective irony.
Publishers Weekly
Admirers of Barnes are accustomed to thoroughly unorthodox approaches to the novel, and his latest, while brilliantly entertaining, certainly strains the limits of the genre.Read all 10 "From The Critics" >
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