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    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
    Audiobook10 hours

    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

    Written by Julian Barnes

    Narrated by Alex Jennings

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters tells a series of apparently unconnected stories ranging from a woodworm’s-eye-view of the journey on Noah’s Ark to an astronaut’s quest for its final resting place.

    There is pastiche and learned disquisition; there is heart-stopping documentary and heart-lifting revelation. But these stories are not separate.

    They are all linked by a complex weave of inquiry into history itself, into love, myth and fabulation. It’s about everything that matters, told with brilliant imagination, intelligence and humour.

    ©2007 Naxos Rights International; (P)2007 Naxos Rights International

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateJun 1, 2007
    ISBN9789629546205
    A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
    Author

    Julian Barnes

    Julian Barnes (Leicester, 1946) se educó en Londres y Oxford. Está considerado como una de las mayores revelaciones de la narrativa inglesa de las últimas décadas. Entre muchos otros galardones, ha recibio el premio E.M. Forster de la American Academy of Arts and Letters, el William Shakespeare de la Fundación FvS de Hamburgo y es Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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    Reviews for A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

    4/5

    102 ratings34 reviews

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    • 5/5
      An extremely entertaining read that gives you a lot to think about. I love Julian Barnes!!!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A neat loosely-linked compendium of diverse dazzling chapters. Barnes takes you on a journey and provides an erudite commentary that illuminates and entertains. 10 1/2 Chapters is a difficult book to pin down, but it is an excellent read. I particularly liked the Noah's Ark story and the riff on the Raft of the Medusa. A brilliant exposition from a talented writer who has built a laconic pigeon hole all of his own.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A deep rumination on woodworms on the Arc and other related maritime excursions with love and a rather loveless afterlife for spice. Somewhere between nightmare and dream is the strange heart of this biblical group of salted fantasies.
    • 4/5
      One of those quirky books, playful, which takes you from the Ark (and a nasty drunken Noah), through other disastrous sea voyages in northern Australia and west Africa, to a quest to find the Ark and a rather fake Noah. It's the history of the world in a tangential funny sense, but there is also insight behind the satire.
    • 3/5
      First thing first - you need to pay attention to the spoken words to enjoy this book. At first, I was listening to it while doing other small chores around the house and found the stories boring, because I wasn't paying attention. I started from scratch and then the stories became interesting.

      Chapter 1, 2, 3 are good. 4, 5, 6 are kinda drag. 7 and 8 are probably the best in the book, followed by the "parenthesis" (the 1/2 chapter), which is utterly boring, imo. The author goes for an hour, describing what is love. The last two chapters were also kinda meh.
    • 5/5
      Gordon Bennett what a read!. This offering by Julian Barnes published 1989 defies being put into any particular genre. It's not a novel and it’s not strictly a collection of short stories in so much as each chapter is dependent to some degree on each of the chapters before it. No chronological order either as the reader jumps like a time traveller through the ages.I have reached a stage in my reading where I am wanting to get more from a book than an enjoyable read. I want to connect with the text in a more meaningful way. I want to read critically. I want to read the author as well as the written words.This book was for me a lesson in literary theory - Postmodernism. Of course I am only just beginning to understand where studying literature will take me but with this one I really did take more of an active role in the reading process. It's a book for raising questions, something that made me think a lot about all kinds of things. Many of the questions I have had floating about in my mind for some time. Thoughts about life, what it is to be human and how we as humans connect with our world and each other.So what's it all about? Well do not try to figure it out and expect answers or any eureka moments because I do believe doing so would be a mistake and will affect your enjoyment of some brilliant story-telling. For me it is a reflection of life on earth as a human race since life began ( more or less ) and essentially summed up that means a bloody mess with a few bits that seem to be connected somehow throughout the history of time.I took this extract from the book which I think sums up what I am trying to say about it from Chapter 8 - Upstream which is in an epistolary form - ooh get me picking up the literature lingo already:" .... it's about the sort of conflict running through human life in every time and every civilisation. Discipline v Permissiveness. Sticking to the letter of the law v sticking to its spirit. Means and ends. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason v doing the wrong thing for the right reason.This all makes it sound pretty heavy but it is far from it. It's funny, quirky, moving, thought-provoking, thrilling and utterly gripping. This is the first book I have read that I really wanted to savour and take my time over. It's the first book I have read that I have actually shouted out to when Mr Barnes playfully teases us with a ' forgotten' name in the first chapter and like being in a pub quiz team I had to shout out the answer. Totally engaging.Every chapter is different in style and voice. You will read the story of Noah like you have never read it before - Noah pops up throughout as one of the threads that binds the chapters together. You will have a lesson in art appreciation - which was one of my favourite chapters as I have a thing for art too. You will attend the trial of woodworms who will also feature regularly throughout. You will go on a cruise or two both of which will be nothing like you expected and also very relevant to what's happening in the world today. Ships and the sea are another theme. Ooh I forgot Jonah - that was a fab bit. There is lots of searching going on too and a quote related to searching which I think really sums up the intention of the book but I will let you find that quote yourself - because I forgot to write it down!This was the kind of reading experience that I have been craving. It was enjoyable, it gave me pleasure. It was thought-provoking - it fed my soul. It was a learning journey and made me explore further into the realms of critical reading and literary theory. There is an interesting essay on this book by Brian Finney which can be found on the net.A superb offering from Julian Barnes which I heartily recommend.
    • 3/5
      Ogenschijnlijk een losse verhalenbundel, maar de verhalen blijken allemaal met elkaar in verbinding te staan. Niet alles is onmiddellijk duidelijk. Prachtig.Thematisch vooral over relatie wetenschap-geloof, suprematie van de mensen, verhouding mensen-dieren. De Ark van Noah is de telkens terugkerende verhaallijn.
    • 5/5
      Very light hearted, I enjoyed it immensely. Doesn't take itself too seriously
    • 3/5
      Funny stories with as a common theme the Flood and Noah's Arc, in various forms and retellings, not all of them equally good, but fun reading in general. The story about the actor making a film in the jungle is hliarious.
    • 4/5
      Ambitious novel without a typical novel structure, the longform essay as novel. Continued themes of truth, love and what history does to them. Ennui of Barnes’s previous books now actively shipwrecked. Barnes links historical oddities from Noah's Ark to the astronaut's Arafat Project identifying the oddities of human perception. Graham Greene better at 'the human factor' and there is a little too much author, not enough work, in places. Strong JB theme of the fabulist nature of historical accounts.
    • 4/5
      One of those quirky books, playful, which takes you from the Ark (and a nasty drunken Noah), through other disastrous sea voyages in northern Australia and west Africa, to a quest to find the Ark and a rather fake Noah. It's the history of the world in a tangential funny sense, but there is also insight behind the satire.
    • 4/5
      I'm in two minds about this book. Whilst it is beautifully written, well observed and hilarious in parts, there were some bits that I found really dull. The breadth of Barnes' scope is astonishing and the stories are cleverly linked, but I found The Survivor and The Mountain rather weak.
    • 3/5
      Ogenschijnlijk een losse verhalenbundel, maar de verhalen blijken allemaal met elkaar in verbinding te staan. Niet alles is onmiddellijk duidelijk. Prachtig.Thematisch vooral over relatie wetenschap-geloof, suprematie van de mensen, verhouding mensen-dieren. De Ark van Noah is de telkens terugkerende verhaallijn.
    • 5/5
      Didn't know what to expect.

      Never listened to or read Julian Barnes before.

      Really enjoyed his deep dive into Man's relationships with other Human's.

      Best Chapter by far was the unsettling goings on aboard Noah's Ark and the answer as to why certain species never survived the passage. Very, very funny.
    • 4/5
      For whatever reason, I like my fiction to cohere in predictable ways; oftentimes when that doesn’t happen, I leave a reading experience feeling less than satisfied. Chalk it up to being weaned on something other than the so-called “postmodern” novel. In several ways, “A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” complicates my expectations. It can feel more like a series of short stories than a traditional novel – however, one cannot avoid the interconnectedness they share. The chapters do span the scope of what we call human history, from a re-telling of the story of Noah’s Ark from the perspective of a stowaway woodworm to a chapter clearly based on the 1985 PLF hijacking of the MS Achille Lauro. A playful jokiness reminiscent of Nabokov and concomitant preoccupation with the mythic (resembling Borges) informs the way in which the chapters speak to and resonate with one another; in “The Wars of Religion,” a Bishop sits down on this throne during a service in church, and immediately falls down due woodworm infestation. Church officials decide to bring suit for the slow, careful, destruction of the Bishop’s seat. Against whom do they file suit? The woodworms, of course. Even for fiction, this sounds twee and jokey, but it works in a most convincing way.I think it works so well because these pieces do hang together as something more than a series of stories, and many of them provide fascinating things to think about. “Parenthesis” (which might be the half-chapter of the title) provides an almost essayistic analysis of love which I find didn’t at all detract from the novel’s progress. It’s told through the voice of a man laying next to a woman, desperate to fall asleep but unable to stop meditating on the power and mystery of human love. It quietly informs other chapters without letting Barnes’ authorial voice get in the way.Another entire chapter is dedicated to a fictionalized account of Gericault’s rendering of perhaps his most-recognized painting, “The Raft of the Medusa.” Incorporating the “real life” (we quickly learn how perfunctory such labels are) accounts on which the painting is based, Barnes adeptly shows how Gericault selected details carefully, leaves others out, and made still others up, in order for the painting to ring true to the viewer. This immediately raises important questions about history and any mode of representation, more generally. How is history possible if we recognize it only as a true account of past events? Is the historian always a writer? Or, to put matters more explicitly, is she always a novelist? Another theme that echoes throughout the novel is that of religion and its mystifying effects. Read without care, this can seem a harsh treatment of religion and the religious mindset. Noah is identified by the stowaway woodworm as a vicious drunk, the Catholic officials who try the woodworm for eating the Bishop’s throne come off as a little maniacal, and the last chapter coyly pokes fun at common ideas of Heaven. “Project Ararat” takes up a former astronaut who has had a religious conversion, and now has put his and his wife’s lives on hold to find Noah’s Ark. Despite coming from a conservative, Christian town, the locals have their reservations. The chapter ends with him having raised enough money to go on his mission. He finds the Ark, collects samples, and quickly returns home to have them tested. The tests show that they are no more than a couple hundred years old. This doesn’t matter, though. He is already planning his second mission next year, even more determined to find Noah’s remains. It’s not God that works in mysterious ways. It’s the human mind. That’s Barnes’ point.Rarely do I find works of fiction so self-referential simultaneously so appealing. Barnes might be telling us about Noah’s Ark and Mount Ararat, but he’s telling us about very human, all too human, forces. Love, the weird preoccupations that perennially concern us, ideas – they’re all here, and not in the heavy-handed way we’re probably only too familiar with. This book is playful, and serious without taking itself too seriously, which gives it a coy sort of charm that’s nearly impossible to dislike.
    • 4/5
      During a heated discussion several years ago, my wife accused me of being “way too linear” in my thinking. (I’m still not quite sure what she meant by that, but I’m reasonably certain it wasn’t a compliment.) Given that comment, however, I am sure that she would appreciate the sort of novels that Julian Barnes writes.In fact, as with "Flaubert’s Parrot," some might argue that "A History of the World" is not really a novel at all but rather a collection of tangentially connected stories that are as much documentary as they are fiction. What the book clearly is not is linear story-telling, mixing as it does a retelling of the Noah’s Ark story from the perspective of a stowaway with a detailed analysis of a painting that hangs in the Louvre and an archeological expedition to Mt. Ararat. It all does make sense ultimately—the chapters actually do progress from Genesis to Revelations—and much of what it contains is both philosophically challenging and very funny.
    • 5/5
      What a fun and thought-provoking read! Julian Barnes gives us a "history of the world" via short stories and even non-fiction, which can be read separately but which also have some recurring themes: the woodworm, animals, the Biblical story of Noah, the clean and the unclean, and more. It's an exercise for the author in many different writing styles, and he pulls each off beautifully. Love this book!
    • 4/5
      Different short stories with different historical backgrounds but all centered around the theme 'shipwreck'.The first story describes the flood and the arch of Noah from the viewpoint of a woodworm.+Strong start with a very funny first story.Well writtenUncommonFavors reflectionThe short story 'Parenthesis' about love is amazing-Not all short stories have equal valueConclusion:Refreshing eerie short stories with as theme 'shipwreck'. To read and read again.
    • 4/5
      This is a fun and lighthearted collection of short stories that ends up tackling the uncertainty of the human condition and the meaning of life constructed out of and against our interpretation of religion. Really. Or at least, that's what I got from it. Since apparently relativism is a big thing with this book.History of the World leads with a story of Noah's Ark, a motif which most of the stories tie back into in one way or another. God is vicious and wrathful, Noah's an angry drunk, and clearly there's resentment among the animals over their playing favorites with the clean and unclean business. But as the stories progress, the readers seem to be drawn farther and farther away from God - from the religious fundamentalists who misuse God to their own ends, to the vaguely spiritual, to the secular humanists, to a Heaven that's crafted democratically, with abounding pleasure and nothing adversative and no God in sight. With such a loss comes an existential crisis: what is the reason for the world, and how should one live, in light of this lack of a religious and moral guiding force? Barnes does not quite answer this, but I do like a line spoken by an ex-astronaut gone off on a search for Noah's Ark: "I went 240,000 miles to see the moon - and it was the earth that was really worth looking at."
    • 4/5
      Barnes has found a niche for himself as an English-born French intellectual who happens to write in the English language. This is a very cunning ploy, as few British readers are prepared to admit how little French literature we have actually read, and therefore assume he must be terribly clever to know about Flaubert, Proust and co. Perhaps he is. However, unlike genuine French intellectuals, he is modest about his cleverness, so it doesn't upset us too much. Meanwhile, the French literary establishment showers honours on him, as the only British writer entirely uncontaminated by anglo-saxon attitudes.This book is - in a way - an English answer to Perec's La vie mode d'emploi. Like Perec there is a grandiose title that can't be taken literally; unlike Perec it is subverted by the little joke of the half-chapter. As in Perec, the different chapters bring in a wide range of different literary styles and genres, with recurrent themes and images linking them together, but without any single narrative line running through the book. Unlike Perec, Barnes doesn't bother with an explicit architectural framework to link the chapters together: it would be possible to read the book as a short-story collection (although not many short-story collections mix fiction with art-criticism or philosophical essays on the nature of love). The most important image in the book, touched upon in almost ever chapter, is Noah's Ark, and the idea of the uncertainty of the human condition that it implies. Barnes is certainly being English and whimsical in his choice of narrator for the first chapter, but after that it gets more serious. Barnes doesn't seem to have much trust in rainbows. At the centre of the book there is an extended discussion of the "Raft of the Medusa" incident and Géricault's celebrated painting of the raft. First we get a summary of what happened after the frigate Medusa was wrecked, drawn from the accounts of the survivors, then we get a detailed critical analysis of the painting. Obviously, we are supposed to put this account of real humans, saved from drowning by killing and eating their companions, side by side with our nursery book ideas of animals going in two by two, as well as looking carefully at the way such subjects are represented in art.
    • 3/5
      The 10 and a half chapters of short stories that make up this novel are written to entertain and bye and large they do, if the reader can get past the first story which I found to be just plain crass. The Stowaway is a re-telling of of the story of Noah’s Ark from a humorous practical perspective, the jokes or really one extended joke are relentless and thirty three pages later I feared for the rest of the book. It does however serve to introduce one of the major themes that run through the book and that is the myth of storytelling. This is picked up and taken to the extreme in the chapter entitled ‘Shipwreck’ which is a deconstruction of Théodore Géricault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa” (there is a reproduction of the painting enclosed in the book so that readers will not find themselves all at sea) - Oh my God I am beginning to sound like Barnes. Chapter seven starts off like this:“I was a normal eighteen-year-old: shuttered, self conscious, untravelled and sneering; violently educated, socially crass, emotionally blurting.”I immediately thought that if I was still this eighteen year old person then I might have found this book wonderfully enriching, but as I am not I don’t. The novel was published in 1989 and has been hailed as a post-modern approach to the history of the world as a reflection of the human condition. I enjoyed some of the stories and appreciated some of the clever witty writing, but only when the crassness was not too overwhelming. Barnes references the story of Noah’s ark in every one of his stories I think, although I could not bring myself to search through the half chapter entitled Parenthesis (I had a feeling it was called Possession until I checked the contents list) to check this out. A mixed bag then that has amused and entertained many readers, but it didn’t do much for me especially as I knew where Mount Ararat was having seen it for myself. Three starsPS I have got [Flaubert’s Parrot] on my shelf to read and I have a feeling I know exactly what it is going to be like, perhaps I can forget it is there.
    • 4/5
      Some may call this a nonlinear novel, I prefer loosely connected short stories. It's certainly not a history book. There is useful plot summary by chapter on Wikipedia for those looking for a synopsis. I'm not a huge fan of postmodernist literature: this stuff about ambiguity and unreliable narrators was never my thing. However, this book grew on me as it went on. Several themes were thoughtfully and humorously crafted, I've selected a few below.

      Maritime disasters: By far my favourite story is The Stowaway, a satirical description of Noah's ark from the perspective of stowaway woodworms. But there are also some gems later on, such as a shipwreck prompting cannibalism, the Titanic, Jonah and the whale, and a take on Jewish refugees in 1939 in limbo on the sea. The last three of these, encapsulated in Three Simple Stories, is probably my next favourite.

      Art as propaganda: Barnes lays a particular emphasis, mostly satirical, on how historical or mythical events are treated in art. In The Shipwreck, he describes what a painting leaves out as much as what it includes, and how human interpretation motivates these choices. In the Titanic story, a survivor attempts to take part in a re-enactment of the ship's sinking.

      Irreverence to religion: In The Wars of Religion, woodworms are threatened with excommunication for attacking a church and humiliating a priest. Noah is frequently mentioned: in separate stories, a fanatically religious woman and a credulent astronaut seek Noah's ark on a mountain.

      Philosophy of life: The second half of the novel focuses more on philosophical questions and attitudes to life. In Upstream!, an actor travels to an exotic jungle and comes to terms with a colleague drowning in a raft accident. There's an isolated discourse on love in the half-chapter Parenthesis. The final chapter, The Dream, is an extreme account of a life where every desire is met.

      A History of the World in 10½ Chapters is "clever" in the sense there are many interlocking elements, even while the stories themselves cover a range of epochs, perspectives and literary forms. But is this really clever, or just a gimmick? I lean towards the former. My only complaint is the absence of any memorable characters or relationships. Overall, I found the novel highly readable and would certainly recommend it to those looking for something different.
    • 4/5
      This book explores life and love through the ages, beginning with Noah's ark and ending with a futuristic look at death. And yes, it does have 10.5 chapters. It's not a single story but a look at life through various time periods, styles, and focal points. Yet, it hangs together with enough links to be satisfying as a novel...more than a set of inter-related stories. Each chapter is very different from the others...almost like enjoying a multi-course meal. Mr. Barnes is a great writer and this book made me think.
    • 4/5
      Clever. I liked it, but I would stop short of characterizing it as a life-changing experience.
    • 4/5
      Labeling this as a novel is somewhat of stretch, as this book is more of a loosely-connected collection of short stories. There's a definite nautical theme running through many of the tales, recurring mentions of woodworms & Noah's Ark, ironic twists, and quite a few wry jabs at Judeo-Christian myth. Quite fun, with some surprisingly poignant interludes.PS: One of the stories is about The Raft of the Medusa, a 19th century painting by Theodore Gericault. Instead of making the reader Google it, there's a surprisingly generous color foldout of the work in the book. I thought that was a nice touch.
    • 3/5
      Short stories,original but at many times boring.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant though perplexing. Full of delicious irony and some serious analysis concerning how we conceive history and time. The portrayal of paradise in the final chapter is priceless.
    • 1/5
      No connection between the book's title and its content at all
    • 3/5
      I don’t know about this one. It was recommended to me by a Barnes fan, but I’m hoping it just wasn’t the best place to start. This is a collection of very loosely linked stories - the best I can figure is most of them have a boat?. Well first I hate reading about boats for whatever reason - like boats, like being on boats, just haven’t liked anything I’ve read that was boat focused. And I just hated the first story so it started off rocky. However, the variation among the stories in tone, voice, mood, etc. is incredible and shows a great writing talent. So while this wasn’t my cup of tea, I’m hoping my next Barnes will be better.
    • 4/5
      Reread after 20 years. The cleverness of tying together a short story collection with a theme of woodworm and Noah's Ark is less impressive this time round. The anomalous story, “Parenthesis”, on the nature of love, seemed the most honest, though the linked accounts of the wreck of the Medusa and Géricault's painting of it I found engrossing, reminding me of the best of Flaubert's Parrot.