Books like A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters

\ The Prologue\ Before I met all of you wonderful Goodreaders I was at the mercy of my paltry few well-read friends for recommendations of new authors and books. Derek Crim, childhood friend and fellow bookish enthusiast has offered up some winners: Chabon before “Kavalier and Clay”; O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series; Kurlansky’s non-fiction. In August of 2006 he gifted me a copy of this Barnes novel. Immediately upon completion of its reading it became one of my life-important books.\ The Beginning\ This novel is told in 11 parts, these 10 ½ Chapters; a finely knitted tapestry of events that aren’t connected, are connected, will be connected. There are illustrations of the Marx/Hegel maxim History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Barnes is certain of the beautiful absurdities of life: the events that should never have happened – but when they do, the results could be funny, harrowing, enlightening, tragic. In Barnes words:How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays the process is automatic. A nuclear plant explodes? We’ll have a play on the London stage within a year. A President is assassinated? You can have the book or the film or the filmed book or the booked film. War? Send in the novelists. We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we need the imaginative arts. But we also need to justify it and forgive it, this catastrophe, however minimally… Well, at least it produced art. Perhaps, in the end, that’s what catastrophe is for.How much fiction needs to be writ to build a truth? How many truths discovered to create a fiction? This art, these stories: sung, seen, read are critical to living.\ The Middle\ “Shipwreck”, this chapter of 28 pages, has become like a vital organ to me. It can – and should – be read separately from the rest of the book. It is connected, but its specific tonality connecting history, art and this book itself is a masterpiece. The physical book itself is split in half with colored plate depicting Théodore Géricault’s masterpiece Le Radeau de la Méduse. The book cleaves into two parts: what you’ve read to this point, what remains. But for me it is also a dividing line in my life. Where I came from before reading this section, and what has happened to me afterwards. \ \ A year after finishing this book I am in Paris with my wife. We visit the Louvre; I enter one of its many labyrinthine rooms, clueless where we are. The Raft of the Medusa hangs on the left wall, in all of its 18 feet by 24 feet splendor. Have you ever seen a work of art that has brought you to tears? Then you will understand how it affected me. I spent 30 minutes sitting before it, recalling Barnes’s prose, marveling at its visceral impact.\ The End\ A few weeks ago my wife and I went to Europe. I made a business excuse to go to Paris; the real reason I wanted to go was to return to see my favorite painting. I also took the opportunity to take this book with me; to re-read it again and to hopefully find new meaning in the totality of the work and especially in my favorite chapter. Seven years yields a lifetime of experience between the readings of a favorite book. The possibility exists that the work can dim in its poignancy and there is sadness in the recognition that the person that was once us does not inhabit the same body as the current iteration of the me. But I have loved reading this book all over again. It has spoken to me in new ways – and reading “Shipwreck” right before sitting in awe of Géricault’s genius, all over again.\ \ \ The Epilogue\ I arrived back home last week to a flurry of emails from my friends. Derek was found dead in his hotel room on Sunday morning. He was a great friend, a caring man and a fellow traveler in the world of the written word. His death is a catastrophe, a life cut short by that horrific disease alcoholism.Why did I choose to read this book, the greatest of his many recommendations, at this moment in time - might have been actually reading it the moment that Derek passed this veil of tears? Barnes would remind me that I’m asking the wrong question. “Everything is connected, even the parts we don’t like, especially the parts we don’t like.”Farewell, my friend. I’ll see you on the other side.