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A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 4,989 ratings · 363 reviews

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!

Paperback, 320 pages

Published November 27th 1990 by Vintage (first published January 1st 1989)

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Jan 27, 2011 Osho rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This is my first Julian Barnes, and as I read I was very excited to have found him. I was all set to give this a five-star rating until I reached the half-chapter alluded to in the title. It's the only section of the audiobook I played at a faster rate so I could get through it more quickly. It's not clear to me whether it was an authorial intrusion or a fictive voice (either of which would have been fine); I kept wanting to yell at Barnes, "Don't wreck what you've made! It stands on its own! Do...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Riku Sayuj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Turned out to be very different from what my expectations were. The thing about the book is that it just marginally qualifies as a novel, but then I thought the same about Flaubert's Parrot too, so you might discount the opinion - both have been booker shortlists after all.

It is highly entertaining and the choice of narrator in each fragment is a feat of imagination. Barnes'obsession with history and its telling comes out in this book too but this time not as a doubting narrator doggedly workin...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like to make fun of religion

Julian Barnes became one of my favs after reading this book.
Each chapter reads as a sperate story but connected by a religious theme in each, albeit a skewed and revisionist view of various religions.

Chapter one starts the book with a hilarious re-telling of Noah's ark by a stowaway...a woodworm. Apparently the unicorn was tossed overboard because Noah became jealous of it's um...horn. Chapter 3 revisits the woodworms as they are being tried for heresey after infesting the Bishop's throne, caus...more

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Jul 16, 2009 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

16/7

awalnya, saya makin tertarik baca buku ini setelah baca komentar lita kalau terjemahannya apik. jadi penasaran seperti apa yang terjemahannya apik. heheh. lalu menemukan kalimat seperti ini:

Kami akan menghilang secepat kami datang; bagi Anda kami seolah mimpi belaka bagi kalian. (halaman 57)
sementara dalam edisi bahasa inggrisnya:
We shall disappear just as we came, and we shall seem to you simply to have been a dream.(p. 43)

setelah itu saya langsung tidak meneruskan sisi obsesif kompulsif da...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Khrystyna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-author, excellent-reads

I enjoyed the book more than I actually expected to...which is of course terrific beyond belief. I'm not saying that I agreed with the most part of the ideas and beliefs presented in this book, but I was impressed by the authenticity and fluidity in which the book was written. It was devastatingly definitive, had a very personal air, which made the reading feel like reading a close friend's diary, and very unsettling. I enjoyed the unsettling because very few books are able to totally unsettle m...more I enjoyed the book more than I actually expected to...which is of course terrific beyond belief. I'm not saying that I agreed with the most part of the ideas and beliefs presented in this book, but I was impressed by the authenticity and fluidity in which the book was written. It was devastatingly definitive, had a very personal air, which made the reading feel like reading a close friend's diary, and very unsettling. I enjoyed the unsettling because very few books are able to totally unsettle me, to the point where I feel depressed and ashamed for a full half hour, not of myself, but of the entire human race, without realising my emotional state until this fat sinkhole of a half hour has passsed. I was really mesmerised by the historical theme of the book- I love history as well as good storytelling, so the book was a perfect mixture for me in terms of interest.

The book was basically composed of these 10.5 chapters in which different historical events were probed into and explored scrupulously, with the author fearlessly displaying his personal opinions, beliefs and sharp wit, for example creating an image of a tidy blue sky in the U.S being "rented from Universal studios", "...and so it rained for forty days and forty nights-that would be an English summer- in my opinion, it rained for over a year", amongst others. Barnes wrote his book from an unmistakeable atheist perspective, often ridiculing Christian beliefs and so-called Christians (whose vulgar actions I would not sympathise with, being a devout Christian myself) as well as true Christians. He did not believe in any sort of higher being, clearly stating that God was something man had created in order to worship something in the need of approval and a higher leadership, and believed that science and religion could never be compatible. I disagreed with that opinion- I've always believed science exists to expand man’s objective understanding of the surrounding physical world(s) and every mechanical thing in it, while religion exists to enhance man’s spiritual awareness, self-discovery, his nature, and his relationship/link to his Creator. They can quite efficiently exist side by side. However, I fully agreed with the meaning of human nature he proposed, as well as his belief of the reason love is needed on this Earth- precisely because it is not necessary, paradoxically. I felt that the most sobering part of the book was the ending, which practically summarised what he had explored in the book- and was rather bitterly, yet salubriously, sobering.

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Jun 18, 2007 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love the story about his wife's neck and hair; very romantic. I believe the same wife was Martin Amis's agent and when he got a new agent J. and M. got in a big fight, or something? Hence the three stars; I'm more interested in his dust-up with Martin Amis than his writing. I suppose that's a personal problem.

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Sep 08, 2009 Jimmy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Minggu, 26 Juli 2009 - 02:57, dini hari, tempat tidur.

"Sejarah Dunia dalam 10 1/2 Bab", saya membayangkan sebuah kisah sejarah yang menyajikan fakta. Ternyata, sepertinya menyajikan fakta yang difiktifkan. Berkisah tentang spesies yang menyusup di bahtera Nuh. Dan, sepertinya spesies ini mempunyai sentimen pribadi terhadap Nuh. Entah, apa yang terjadi diantara mereka dimasa dulu dalam imajinasi spesies ini. Mungkin, kalau saat itu posisinya kuat, dia pasti sudah melakukan kudeta.

Bab pertama mem...more

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May 09, 2007 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

I originally assumed, based on its title, that A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters was actually a history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters. I thought it would be a quirky, ultra-condensed version of all recorded history. And it IS quirky. But it's actually a series of history-themed short stories.

I had it on my wishlist based on the rave reviews from Amazon, claiming that the book is pure genius. A top review calls it a "sardonic, original, and mischievous mind on a tear." Too bad it bored...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Indiabookstore rated it 4 of 5 stars

I recently finished "The History of the World in 101/2 Chapters" by Julian Barnes. Having acquired the said text, I plodded through exactly 10 and a half chapters of prose which sadly fell short of my expectations, given the brilliance of the first chapter.

The main thread connecting all (or rather, most) of the chapters is the legend of Noah's Ark. This common thread becomes increasingly tenuous and occasionally disappears only to re-surface a few chapters later, very much like an ark bobbing up...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Micha rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: capital-T Thinkers

Shelves: post-modern, books-what-i-liked, universe-tea, 20th-century, formative-books

I neglected to review this ages ago. How? This book was Formative and started my Julian Barnes kick. His prose is whose mine most resembles (or would like to resemble). The scope in this book is brilliant. In particular the "Shipwreck" chapter stood out as something I have always desired to read without knowing I desired it, which to me is always the sign of a good book. And I love that themes are the history of the world. I went ahead and read some of the reviews on this site, many of them bad...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Jules rated it 3 of 5 stars

Als je graag een goed geschreven kortverhaal leest met realistische personages en gevoelige beschrijvingen, dan is dit niet je boek. Dit is een essaybundel verpakt in een fictief cadeaupapiertje.

Misschien was het mijn fout. Ik weet niet zoveel van Julian Barnes, ik dacht dat hij een fictieschrijver was als Ian Banks, Martin Amis, en al die andere gedistingueerde Britse mannnen. Dus was ik wat teleurgesteld in de personages. Die hebben allemaal iets houterig. Het gaat niet echt over wat ze doen o...more Als je graag een goed geschreven kortverhaal leest met realistische personages en gevoelige beschrijvingen, dan is dit niet je boek. Dit is een essaybundel verpakt in een fictief cadeaupapiertje.

Misschien was het mijn fout. Ik weet niet zoveel van Julian Barnes, ik dacht dat hij een fictieschrijver was als Ian Banks, Martin Amis, en al die andere gedistingueerde Britse mannnen. Dus was ik wat teleurgesteld in de personages. Die hebben allemaal iets houterig. Het gaat niet echt over wat ze doen of voelen, het gaat enkel over de gedachten die ze hebben. Ze hebben toevallig ook allemaal nog eens gedachten die op elkaar aansluiten. Daarmee krijg je al snel het gevoel dat je een essay leest wat toevallig door een aantal fictieve personages voorgedragen wordt.

In de eerste hoofdstukken lees ik nog vrolijk door, geamuseerd door de vreemdheid van de personages die links en rechts historische gebeurtenissen van formaat passeren. Halverwege begrijp ik dat ik telkens hetzelfde verhaal lees. Het schip gaat telkens ten onder, de mens zoekt telkens eerst verlossing en dan dood, historische gebeurtenisssen worden gespiegeld in evenzovele kleine gebeurtenissen. “Histoire se répète“, de gedachte die Barnes zo interessant vind dat hij er een heel boek aan wijdt.

The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections.

Na dat inzicht begin ik de verhalen ongeduldiger te lezen. Ik doe geen moeite meer om in de personages te geloven, en speur naar de onvermijdelijke onderliggende gedachte, de links, de referenties. Daar is niks mis mee. Veel boeken lezen als een groot puzzelboek waarbij de lezer actief moet interpreteren, speuren naar aanwijzingen, mee moet denken, vooruit moet denken. Ik had gewoon iets anders verwacht.

Daarmee geen slecht woord over Julian Barnes. Hij schrijft uitstekend, in die typische Britse stem die voortdurend overgaat van het ene onderwerp tot het andere, en toch nooit de rode draad kwijt raakt. De stem schrijven zo makkelijk doet lijken. Banks en Amis schrijven misschien wel heel goede fictie, maar ik vind de gedachtenwereld van Barnes toch interessanter.

Julian Barnes schrijft overigens voor de Guardian en heeft een heel aantal essays online staan.(less)

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Jun 29, 2012 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: My mom!

Ok, the first chapter of the book entitled "The Stowaway" is one of the most brilliant things i've ever read. If there ever was a more intriguing hypothetical account of Noah's Ark, I haven't read it.

Sadly, the rest of the chapters are not as amazing. They are worth reading and interesting. They are engaging and inventive. But, they still aren't 5/5 stars good. I'm a tough critic. This is a solid 4 star work with some real five star moments. Barnes proves he's a creative thinker and able to del...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Haje rated it 5 of 5 stars

The book is basically what it says on the cover: Ten-and-a-half short chapters, which together cover a lot of ground. It is not, as you may be led to believe, a book about history, however.

Rather, it is one of those books that somewhat reminds me of those Official Soundtrack albums they keep releasing: “Music composed for, and inspired by, X”. The stories are, in fact, all fiction. But rather than being history, they cleverly become part of history. Or they will do – for anyone who reads the boo...more The book is basically what it says on the cover: Ten-and-a-half short chapters, which together cover a lot of ground. It is not, as you may be led to believe, a book about history, however.

Rather, it is one of those books that somewhat reminds me of those Official Soundtrack albums they keep releasing: “Music composed for, and inspired by, X”. The stories are, in fact, all fiction. But rather than being history, they cleverly become part of history. Or they will do – for anyone who reads the book. It is also obviously inspired by history, in a way that no other book I have ever read is.

10.5 chapters is a strange book by many accounts. It uses very distinct narrative structures from chapter to chapter, and each chapter can be read as a short story – as it stands very well on itself. The clever bit is how the stories actually intertwine and play off each other.

The first chapter is about Noah’s Ark, seen from the perspective of a creature that managed to sneak on board – a highly blasphemous, but also thought-provoking and profound tale of survival, and the idiocy of religion in general.

Then, in rapid succession, Barnes covers some seriously deep issues. There is a story about a women who loses her mind and sets sail for the open sea, an in-depth analysis of GŽricault’s 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa, a story about a group of jews trying to escape Germany just before the second world war, and a most profound philosophical work on the mechanics and philosophy of Love.

Throughout this eclectic mixture of profoundness, Julian Barnes manages to keep his readers on the edge of their chairs: Without getting overly pretentious and without ever getting heavy-handed, he illustrates several points: Proficiency in a handful of distinct styles, different narratives, inspiring and fresh thoughts on a handful of topics, a few giggles (both through content and through the cheekiness inherent in some of the writing styles).

All in all, A History of the world in 10.5 chapters has only one grievous flaw: The fact that it is not the history of the world in 99.5 chapters. I would have loved to read more stories. Follow the author through more explorations, and hear more of his ideas.

The only consolation is that Julian Barnes has written a handful of other novels, all of which have instantly been awarded a one-way ticket to the top of my “to read” list. And if you have any sense – move 10.5 chapters to near the top of yours as well. Trust me, it is worth it.
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Mar 10, 2011 John Maniscalco rated it 3 of 5 stars

Karl Marx once wrote "History repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second as farce." And essentially, that is what this book is about. From Noah's Ark to modern times, Julian Barnes shows how the same themes and human desires remain constant through time in a collection of short stories. It is a clever idea. Which is why it is somewhat difficult to admit that this book was such a disappointment.

The first chapter is told from the point of view of a stowaway on Noah's Ark which gives you the "tr...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Turns out the history of the world revolves around fabulation, woodworms, and love. Hard to argue with that. I really enjoyed this book, each of the 10 stories self-contained, but threaded together, with the 1/2 chapter bringing it all together nicely. Witty, educational, philosophical, self-deprecating, all things I was really in the mood for while riding a bike across Quebec.

Favorite lines, and there were many, so just a few now so I can harken back with fondness:

"A painting may be represente...more Turns out the history of the world revolves around fabulation, woodworms, and love. Hard to argue with that. I really enjoyed this book, each of the 10 stories self-contained, but threaded together, with the 1/2 chapter bringing it all together nicely. Witty, educational, philosophical, self-deprecating, all things I was really in the mood for while riding a bike across Quebec.

Favorite lines, and there were many, so just a few now so I can harken back with fondness:

"A painting may be represented as a series of decisions labelled 1 to 8a, but we should understand that these are just the annotations of feeling. We must remember nerves and emotions. The painter isn't carried fluently downstream towards the sunlit pool of that finished image, but is trying to hold a course in an open sea of contrary tides." (p. 135)

The description of the "Scene of Shipwreck" is fantastic, especially the paragraph ending in "Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for." (p. 137)

"For the point is this: not that myth refers us back to some original event which has been fancifully transcribed as it is passed through the collective memory; but that it refers us forward to something that will happen, that must happen. Myth will become reality, however sceptical we might be." (p.181)

"Sleep democratizes fear. The terror of a lost shoe or a missed train are as great here as those of guerrilla attack or nuclear war." (p. 226)

"Poets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible 'I' (when I say 'I' you will want to know within a paragraph or two whether I mean Julian Barnes or someone invented; a poet can shimmy between the two, getting credit for both deep feeling and objectivity). Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love - selfish, shitty love - into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us about love." (p. 227)... the discussion shortly thereafter about the phrase 'I love you' is fantastic. (less)

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Jun 08, 2009 Paul Wright rated it 3 of 5 stars

An uneven work, although the second and first half of the fifth chapters are brilliant.

Noah in this telling is a little like the Mel Brooks Moses who was given fifteen . . . whoops . . . ten commandments. Here Noah loses most of his flotilla and a good part of the animal kingdom:
". . . he'd have been court-martialled if there'd been anyone around to sit on the bench. And for all his bluster, he felt guilty about losing half the Ark. Guilt, immaturity, the constant struggle to hold down a job b...more

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Dec 23, 2011 J K rated it 2 of 5 stars

I've been intending to read this book ever since my English Literature tutor raved about it back in my college years. So, put that weight of expectation behind it for starters. Add to this the considerable lure that both it and the writer receive in the press, and I think I was expecting something a little different. What we actually have here is ten - well, eleven let's be honest - short stories of varying quality. While they provide interesting viewpoints, in some cases, they either seem to en...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Mark rated it 2 of 5 stars

No, I am apparently in a minority of one but overall I find this book irritating. There are some wonderful moments and one chapter in particular, ' Parenthesis', is a joy from start to finish (24 pages long) but other chapters are tediously over written, and at times obscure, with occasional nuggets but little to detain, satisfy or inspire. Can appreciate that some ideas are well crafted, and much of the writing flows, but the topics covered are dull and uninteresting and , in my case, rarely ca...more No, I am apparently in a minority of one but overall I find this book irritating. There are some wonderful moments and one chapter in particular, ' Parenthesis', is a joy from start to finish (24 pages long) but other chapters are tediously over written, and at times obscure, with occasional nuggets but little to detain, satisfy or inspire. Can appreciate that some ideas are well crafted, and much of the writing flows, but the topics covered are dull and uninteresting and , in my case, rarely capture the attention or the sympathy of the reader.

So I wondered , are the following ideas fair commentary , or accurate, or mere attention grabbing :

“Should love be taught in school? First term: friendship; second term: tenderness; third term: passion. Why not? They teach kids how to cook and mend cars and fuck one another without getting pregnant…”

“Show me the tyrants who have been great lovers. By which I don’t mean great fuckers; we all know about power as an aphrodisiac (an auto-aphrodisiac too). Even our democratic hero Kennedy serviced women like an assembly-line worker spraying car bodies”

But, being Julian Barnes, there are other ideas that are arresting, concisely expressed and beautifully crafted :

“How do you turn catastrophe into art? Nowadays the process is automatic…We have to understand it, of course, this catastrophe; to understand it, we have to imagine it, so we need the imaginative arts”

“…how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves”

"History isn’t what happened. History is just what historians tell us”

''The past is a distant, receding coastline,'' he wrote, ''and we are all in the same boat. Along the stern rail there is a line of telescopes; each brings the shore into focus at a given distance. If the boat is becalmed, one of the telescopes will be in continual use; it will seem to tell the whole, the unchanging truth. But this is an illusion; and as the boat sets off again, we return to our normal activity: scurrying from one telescope to another, seeing the sharpness fade in one, waiting for the blur to clear in another. And when the blur does clear, we imagine that we have made it do so all by ourselves.''
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Sep 09, 2012 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

“Water sluiced down from a bilious sky to purge the wicked world” (9).
“I could occasionally find the situation funny, and give vent to the outcast’s laugh” (11).
“Noah, as you will have been told many times, was a very God-fearing man; and given the nature of God, that was probably the safest line to take” (11).
“…but I can tell you this: there was a lot of salted behemoth left over at the end of the journey” (14).
“…and managed to get him into bed without letting their gaze fall on those organs of...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Maggie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

very disappointed. the first chapter was so well crafted; satire at its finest and funny to boot. all the other chapters used odd mixtures of thoughts and reasoning to prove his single point: cynics, beware. even love does not exist. stop kidding yourself. hope and love are a fools errand and "history" proves it.

ridicule is a favorite tool of cynics; obviously they mistake it for satire; here too, the cynics are wrong. julian barnes uses ridicule throughout this book, a serious lack of respect f...more

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Feb 13, 2013 María rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite-books

Absolutely amazing!!! This is certainly the best short-story collection I have ever read, and I would give it a six-star rating if that was possible!!

The most shocking but enjoyable aspect of the book for me was the constant shift of tone. I went from laughter to anxiety and tears without really realizing what was going on. I saw the smile of my face left by the endearing stowaway from chapter one suddenly freeze in shock when I realized what was going to happen in chapter two. I was infected by...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Alan Wightman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-books

Barnes presents his fictionalised history of the world in ten numbered chapters and one unnumbered chapter.

It starts slowly, the stories in each chapters are separate and the links are clear, indeed an early criticism I had is that Barnes is making the links a little too obvious.

It goes along nicely, if tragically, with many boat trips ending in tragedy, until the unnumbered chapter called Parenthesis between the 8th and the 9th chapters. Here Barnes seems to put fiction completely aside and ad...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First up, that title. Barnes could be forgiven if he was still congratulating himself for it today, it's a pearler! Intriguing, irrelevant and profound all in one. It demands content that matches all those epithets though, so it's also a title that places lofty expectations upon the author, expectations which to my mind Barnes delivered on.
The novel does indeed consist of ten and a half chapters- or perhaps more accurately ten chapters and a parenthetical essay- each self-contained stories or pi...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is pretty fascinating although atypical and slightly maddening book. The subtly linked stories are a tad uneven but interesting on their own and very engagingly written. Together they encourage the reader to think about important life themes in an increasingly broader context: in the context of the history of the world.

Some of the humor seemed silly. Some of the plot twists were awfully unlikely. But I enjoyed the mental gymnastics of the more essay-like chapters (art history, philosophy) a...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Herdi Rap rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-fiction

Selesai juga ini buku akhirnya..
buku yang sangat cerdas,melihat sejarah dari sudut pandang yang tidak pernah kita duga sebelumnya.Saya senyum-senyum sendiri membaca betapa 'jujur'nya si ulat kayu menceritakan tabiat keluarga 'si tua renta tukang mabuk2an Nuh',memvonisnya yang menjadi penyebab punahnya Unicorn,bagaimana mereka diperlakukan selama perjalanan panjang itu.Yunus yang 3 hari berada di perut ikan paus.
Kanibalisme yang terjadi di kapal karam Medusa,penolakan Kapal St.Louis yang mengangk...more

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Sep 03, 2009 Nura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: not-mine, because-its-blue

Akhirnya selesai juga. Kesan setelah baca buku ini: basah. Hehehe... Soalnya seluruh ceritanya berkutat seputar air. Cerita paling berkesan adalah cerita si penumpang gelap di bab pertama. Narasinya yang dekonstruktif dibawakan seekor woodwoorm. Dia cerita sisi lain Nuh dan keluarganya selama dan setelah banjir besar.

Cerita kedua tentang pembajakan sebuah kapal pesiar. Agak merinding waktu baca flashback tokohnya tentang eksperimen pilot project-nya yang pake monyet. Jadi mikir sesudahnya: pili...more Akhirnya selesai juga. Kesan setelah baca buku ini: basah. Hehehe... Soalnya seluruh ceritanya berkutat seputar air. Cerita paling berkesan adalah cerita si penumpang gelap di bab pertama. Narasinya yang dekonstruktif dibawakan seekor woodwoorm. Dia cerita sisi lain Nuh dan keluarganya selama dan setelah banjir besar.

Cerita kedua tentang pembajakan sebuah kapal pesiar. Agak merinding waktu baca flashback tokohnya tentang eksperimen pilot project-nya yang pake monyet. Jadi mikir sesudahnya: pilih bertahan hidup dengan mengorbankan orang lain atau mengorbankan diri sendiri demi hidup orang lain?

War of the Religion jauh melenceng dari bayangan. Menceritakan pengadilan rayap di Prancis yang menurut gw agak konyol, meskipun cerita tersebut dilandasi dokumen sejarah (katanya). Gara-gara si Uskup jatuh dari kursi yang keropos dimakan rayap, penduduk menuntut rayap diberi hukuman. Yang lebih lucu lagi, kok ya ada pengacara yang belain tuh rayap-rayap. Orang Prancis gak ada kerjaan. (Hehehe.. peace!!!)

Cerita keempat satu di antara dua cerita di buku ini dengan tokoh utama perempuan. Baru tahu namanya hampir di akhir cerita. Capek deh. Isunya global meski ujung-ujungnya tuh perempuan menderita penyakit. Di awal cerita tertulis: In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Cara belajar sejarah yang perlu ditiru di sini supaya sejarah gak lagi ngebosenin.

Inti cerita kelima The Shipwreck: segalanya bisa jadi seni... dan banyak hal yang perlu dipertimbangkan dalam membuat sebuah karya seni, terutama jika based on true story....

Cerita keenam cerita tentang perjalanan seorang perempuan menapaktilasi jejak bahtera Nuh setelah banjir besar. Akhirnya agak dramatis. Masih ada kaitannya di cerita kesembilan nanti.

Nah, cerita ketujuh ini agak gak mudeng (atau gw yang dodol). Ada tiga cerita di dalam cerita ini. Judulnya aja Three Simple Stories. Yang satu tentang seorang kakek korban Titanic yang berhasil selamat. Kedua, kejadian Yunus dan pausnya yang terulang dalam kehidupan nyata. Ketiga, tentang kapal St. Louis yang terombang-ambing ditolak untuk mendarat di mana-mana karena membawa penumpang Yahudi pelarian dari Jerman.

Cerita di Upstream! dirangkai dari sekumpulan surat yang dikirim seorang aktor buat pasangannya. Charlie, si tokoh, menceritakan perjalanan yang harus ditempuhnya ke tengah hutan demi pembuatan sebuah film. Mereka menemui sekelompok Indian yang bersedia membantu syuting. Dari mereka Charlie banyak belajar tentang kehidupan. Ada satu kutipan yang gw suka banget dari cerita ini: one thing nature doesn’t do is lie. Kena banget deh.

Parenthesis ngomongin tentang love, love melulu... (niruin Sarah Sechan bawain acara di MTV dulu). Gw setuju sama si tokohnya yang mandang cinta secara realistis. Di sini pengarangnya nulis lanjutan pantun Columbus: In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In fourteen hundred and ninety-three, he sailed back right back across the sea. Coba guru sejarah bisa mengajarkan sejarah Indonesia kayak gitu, mungkin banyak yang gak males belajar sejarah. Btw, cerita ini gak dikasih nomor bab. Mungkin ini si ½ chapter yang dimaksud. tapi di cerita ini banyak disinggung apa sih yang dimaksud sejarah? Baginya sejarah itu: sesuatu yang ditulis para sejarawan. Sesuatu yang berpola, terencana, dinamis, luas, naratif, saling berhubungan dan dapat dijelaskan. Jadi buka-buka bukunya Kuntowijoyo lagi, Pengantar Ilmu Sejarah.... (hehehe...)

Bab sembilan, Project Ararat, mengisahkan seorang pahlawan yang pergi ke bulan dan mendapat hidayah dari Tuhan untuk ‘menemukan’ bahtera Nuh. Ending-nya gampang ditebak.

Last, The Dream. Cerita ini ngingetin sama lagunya Chrisye feat Ahmad Dani. Jika surga dan neraka tak pernah ada, masihkah kau sujud kepada-Nya? Manusia banyak maunya... udah dapet surga masih aja pengen yang lain... it’s part of being human, kali yak...

Secara keseluruhan, buku ini kereeen.... jadi penasaran terjemahannya...
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Apr 23, 2012 Moira Fogarty rated it 2 of 5 stars

I've had 'A History of the World in 10½ Chapters' on my "to read" list for almost 15 years, but kept putting it off. Now I know why I was dithering. Despite the glowing commendations of university professors and English literature elitists, I simply could not warm to the text, clever though it was.

A loosely connected series of 10 1/2 short stories, art reviews, re-imagined histories, personal ramblings, epistolary travelogues and personal anecdotes, this is the epitome of post-modern fiction. Ju...more

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Moira Fogarty Erin wrote: "I think it's unfair to say that the book is sexist because all of the women are flawed..."

I never said the book was sexist - that word d...more
May 03, 2013 08:59am

Erin Gowdy Oh, I'm sorry, to make that assumption. I guess replace "sexist" with "problematic from a feminist perspective"?

Anyway, I don't have a copy in front o...more
May 03, 2013 09:29am

Apr 14, 2011 George rated it 3 of 5 stars

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, rather than being a straightforward novel, is a collection of somewhat related short stories with a couple of essays thrown in along the way. It starts with a firsthand account of the voyage of Noah's ark, related by a stowaway. It ends with a story about Heaven (well, New Heaven). Along the way, there are plenty of boat voyages (and mishaps), incidents of hope and faith (and challenges to both), conflicting views of religion, reflections on art and lov...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Julian Barnes continues to entrance me with his novels. I delighted reading each chapter in this book, seemingly so different from the rest, and yet linked in some ways. I don't feel like I have figured out all the connections or why these particular tales constitute "a history of the world." I like that I'm still musing about the book a week after finishing it. It starts with the story of Noah's Ark as seen by a stow-away woodworm, and woodworms appear throughout the stories...there's something...more

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Dec 22, 2010 Dan Kearns rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: serious-fiction

Pure writing virtuosity! How did England get Amis and Barnes in the same generation?!

I think its fair to say that all the skill is aimed towards the postmodern goals of indeterminacy, intricate interconnections, and the triumph of both the personal and social construction of reality; although, Mr. Barnes does show an admirable humanism in resisting pure relativism.

I would say that he shows brilliantly, especially in his final "heaven" story, the highpoint of postmodern thought, in all of its fu...more

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About Julian Barnes

Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer of postmodernism in literature. He has been shortlisted three times for the Man Booker Prize--- Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998), and Arthur & George (2005), and won the prize for The Sense of an Ending (2011). He has written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh.

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“Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions. ” — 70 people liked it

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