A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters by Julian Barnes (Vintage, 1990) is called “A Novel” on the cover, though it little resembles most novelistic writing. Each chapter has a distinct narrator, and each one speaks from a differently imagined time and place. The book, as a whole, is startling, engaging, and often funny. In this study group we will discuss the serious questions this book raises about how we have learned about the past. For example, we will read an eyewitness account of the Flood, told by a disgruntled stowaway on Noah’s Ark. It is very different indeed from the familiar story of Genesis 6-9. Barnes, the fiction writer, also turns to genuine historical scholarship, leaving fantasy aside for the moment to immerse his readers in the controversies of an earlier age. We might also want to know more about the actual experience of those who lived through a famous historical event-- how it felt. For that purpose, greater relevance might be found in artistic representation than in legal language, and so Barnes devotes a chapter to Gericault’s famous painting about a shipwreck, The Raft of the Medusa. Join us as we read, discuss, and become enchanted by this reimagining of history as we thought we knew it.