Levels of Life - mashing it up, Julian Barnes style

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes (JonathanCape: 2013). A book in three parts from a Booker Prize winning author. A literary mash up, exploring the history of ballooning, photography, love stories, and death. Wide ranging stuff.

What’s the saddest thing you can think of? Me, it’s always been a husband losing his wife (or a wife losing her husband for that matter). Always got me that one. Doesn’t matter how cheesy it is, that plot element has always made me choke when it’s cropped up on the screen or page.

And yet I subject myself to this. One of the world’s most decorated writers putting pen to paper to explore the grief he felt when his wife died.

I’m an idiot.

In fairness, it’s not all about that. The book is split in three parts. The first is a bit of non-fiction about ballooning and photography, the second is a bit of historical fiction centred on a bohemian love story gone wrong, and then the third part is where Barnes goes to town on his grief.

It works. Brilliantly. And here’s why.

For starts, it works because of the first two sections. They’re amazing. A quirky history of a quirky endeavour, followed by a thorough (but tastily bite-sized) love story which grows as it’s told. Both of the first two sections entertained me, set some of the structural thought which characterised the third section's grief, and introduced emotion slowly rather than simply plunging you in at the deep end.

For seconds, it worked because of the honesty and the rawness and the sheer humanity of the third section. There is no universal truth to grief, no universal experience. Julian Barnes is Julian Barnes; he felt and experienced and reacted to his grief in a Julian Barnes way. At no point does he melt into easy cliché. At no point does he pluck at the usual heart strings in the usual ways. He violently kicks against any sense of Disney emotion. He tells what happened to him - anecdote by anecdote, analogy by analogy – and leaves little out.

And for thirds, it works because this is Julian Barnes we’re talking about here. The guy can write. Every now and then, a sentence or a phrase or a structure will just knock you flat on your ass. I’ve read Barnes before and not quite got it, but I’m acutely aware pretty much everyone else has. The guy has high flung literary praise coming at him from every direction. And in this book, I get it too. I submit. Julian Barnes; you can write good.

9 GBR

One of the best things you’ll read this year. Why not 10 you ask? Because I do the scores, not you.

Next week, another story of a man losing his wife. I’m a glutton for punishment.

The Sense of an Ending - award winning believability

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape: 2011) A short novel written in the first person. Tony Webster looks back on his life and the few key relationships that shaped it, memories triggered by the fate of one of his closest and enigmatic friends.

Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

Got to try the big award winners, right? These are the books that all the pros reckon will end up being the lasters, the ones that survive time and end up being remembered. According to those in the know, these books are the best of the best of what’s around today. That’s why they give them the prizes (obvs).

Once a year, the Man Booker Prize is given out, and the book it’s given too presumably enjoys an ugly upward spike in its sales for a few weeks. I usually do my bit to contribute to that spike (it's nice to take part), the more so this year as the winner was a novella, so a quick read, which I like.

I’ve read a few Man Booker Prize winners (even reviewed one of them here), and they’ve all been quite different from each other. Which is good. And which happened again this time.

The Sense of an Ending has a really simple premise. A man looking back on his life, questioning the reliability of memory, the nature of history, and learning new things about himself and his past.

So simple in fact that it has the danger of being a bit boring. The tactics used to avoid that fate? Well, the usual ones to be honest. A sharp and engaging writing style. Thoughtful and intelligent insights. A few gentle twists sparingly but effectively used. A well staggered exploration of character.

My pulse never raced and my blood never boiled. I stayed well and truly in the middle of my seat throughout. But my brain was certainly engaged, and my heart was too. Barnes achieves a realistic and believable portrayal of a man preoccupied (but not overwhelmed) by the nostalgia of his life. I felt I was in a conversation with Tony Webster. I’m not sure I entirely liked the guy, but he was at least real.

And that’s a trick not to be underestimated. We’ve all read books that are driven by fantastic plots, but where the main characters take on the qualities of Hollywood stars – the kind that, were they to stand in front of you, you’d have to reach out and touch to make sure they were real, and even then they seem more natural on the pages of magazine rather than in the same world as us. Tony Webster is not like that. If he sat in my living room, I’d probably offer him a cup of tea. There’d be little (if any) awe. That I can imagine serving this entirely fictional character a cup of Tetley’s is testament to the powers of Julian Barnes.

But does all this make for a good book? Well, I think it makes for a great novella. Barnes told his story and gave it the right length. He didn’t stretch it out. If he did, he’d either have to keep true to the characters (in which case, it’d probably get boring after a while), or he’d have to give them new qualities, (in which case he’d sacrifice the believability of the book).

I enjoyed reading this. It made me think (more) about the nature of memory. It created connection between its pages and me that I felt strongly, which meant I cared a lot more than I perhaps should have about a relatively ordinary plot. And that’s important. There needn’t be explosions for a book to be good, you simply have to be made to care about what happens.

And I did.

7 GBR

Love this book? No, I probably didn’t. But I was very fond of it. A more pedestrian emotion, but a real one. Probably quite apt.

Next week, a book by an author I’ve reviewed before on here. Which is a first. I'm sure you're very excited.