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Nothing to Be Frightened of: Library Edition
"Tanrı'ya inanmıyorum ama O'nu özlüyorum" gibi son derece çarpıcı bir ifadeyle başlayan Korkulacak Bir Şey Yok, Julian Barnes'ın ölüm, ölümlülük, Tanrı, sanatın ölüm karşısındaki yeri gibi temalar üzerine kaleme almış olduğu, tümüyle otobiyografik olmasa bile içinde yer alan anıların kapsamı itibariyle bu yanı belirgin biçimde ağır basan bir deneme, daha doğrusu, "anı" türü çerçevesinde de değerlendirilebilecek bir deneme kitabı.
Julian Barnes, yaşlılık ve ölüm temalarını daha önce de çok sayıda yapıtında, özellikle Limon Masası başlıklı öykü kitabında işlemişti. Ne var ki, bu kez, söz konusu "can alıcı" konuyu, örneklerini daha ziyade edebiyat ve müzik, kimi yerde de bilim ve tıp dünyasından ustalıkla seçtiği, çok daha geniş bir deneme alanına taşıyor. Başta ünlü Fransız yazar Jules Renard olmak üzere Montaigne, Stendhal, Daudet, Somerset Maugham, Arthur Koestler gibi edebiyatçıların ya da Ravel, Rahmaninov, Şostakoviç, Prokofyev ve Rossini gibi müzisyenlerin ilginç tanıklıklarına yer ve-rerek, hepimizin mutlaka karşılaşacağımız bu kaçınılmaz ve "korkutucu olmayan" insanlık halini var olabilecek bütün boyutlarıyla irdelemeye girişiyor. Metnin dikkat çeken bir başka leitmotif özelliği de, Julian Barnes'ın tüm deneme boyunca, felsefeci olan ağabeyi Jonathan Barnes'la girmiş olduğu "yer yer çekişmeli, yer yer görüş birliği içinde cereyan eden" sorgulayıcı diyalog. Bu diyalog, bir bakıma, inanmakla inanmamanın, felsefeyle edebiyatın, Julian Barnes ile pek anlaşamadığı annesinin bitmek bilmez çekişmesi olarak da yorumlanabilir. Nitekim kitabın kasvetli sayılabilecek konusunu ilginç ve dinamik kılan unsur da, bu çekişmeyi tüm satırlara hem keyif veren hem de sorgulayıcı bir ironiy-le yansımakta oluşudur.
Kendisiyle yapılan bir söy-leşide, Korkulacak Bir Şey Yok'un içeriğini en yalın şekilde şu sözlerle tanımlıyor Julian Barnes: "Bu, kendimi bir vaka olarak inceleme ve bir soruya yanıt getirme alıştırmasıdır: Zamanın bu noktasında herhangi bir şeye inanmamak ama öte yandan da bir gün ölece-ğimiz düşüncesiyle uzlaşmamak ne anlama gelmektedir?.."
Julian Barnes, yaşlılık ve ölüm temalarını daha önce de çok sayıda yapıtında, özellikle Limon Masası başlıklı öykü kitabında işlemişti. Ne var ki, bu kez, söz konusu "can alıcı" konuyu, örneklerini daha ziyade edebiyat ve müzik, kimi yerde de bilim ve tıp dünyasından ustalıkla seçtiği, çok daha geniş bir deneme alanına taşıyor. Başta ünlü Fransız yazar Jules Renard olmak üzere Montaigne, Stendhal, Daudet, Somerset Maugham, Arthur Koestler gibi edebiyatçıların ya da Ravel, Rahmaninov, Şostakoviç, Prokofyev ve Rossini gibi müzisyenlerin ilginç tanıklıklarına yer ve-rerek, hepimizin mutlaka karşılaşacağımız bu kaçınılmaz ve "korkutucu olmayan" insanlık halini var olabilecek bütün boyutlarıyla irdelemeye girişiyor. Metnin dikkat çeken bir başka leitmotif özelliği de, Julian Barnes'ın tüm deneme boyunca, felsefeci olan ağabeyi Jonathan Barnes'la girmiş olduğu "yer yer çekişmeli, yer yer görüş birliği içinde cereyan eden" sorgulayıcı diyalog. Bu diyalog, bir bakıma, inanmakla inanmamanın, felsefeyle edebiyatın, Julian Barnes ile pek anlaşamadığı annesinin bitmek bilmez çekişmesi olarak da yorumlanabilir. Nitekim kitabın kasvetli sayılabilecek konusunu ilginç ve dinamik kılan unsur da, bu çekişmeyi tüm satırlara hem keyif veren hem de sorgulayıcı bir ironiy-le yansımakta oluşudur.
Kendisiyle yapılan bir söy-leşide, Korkulacak Bir Şey Yok'un içeriğini en yalın şekilde şu sözlerle tanımlıyor Julian Barnes: "Bu, kendimi bir vaka olarak inceleme ve bir soruya yanıt getirme alıştırmasıdır: Zamanın bu noktasında herhangi bir şeye inanmamak ama öte yandan da bir gün ölece-ğimiz düşüncesiyle uzlaşmamak ne anlama gelmektedir?.."
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First published September 2, 2008
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About the author
Julian Barnes
165 books6,669 followersJulian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh (having married Pat Kavanagh). In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.
In 2004 he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.
In 2004 he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 692 reviews
February 16, 2021
Le Réveil Mortel: Sensing the End
I have always found the leap from metaphysical mystery to Christian religious belief by apologists like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton to be a rhetorical sleight of hand. It is illogical and vaguely insulting. The recognition that human language, perception, and thought don’t quite get to reality is as old as philosophy. But the idea that this inadequacy or defect or disability offers a rationale for the truth, or even the relevance, of Christian doctrine appears to me ludicrous. On the contrary, this congenital human uncertainty would seem to undermine anything like Christian or any other purported faith.
So Barnes’s by now famous opening line is one I can identify with: “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.” What a shame that the profound humility implied by human fallibility should be transformed into an arrogance which displaces a sense of emotional loss with the need for power. Isn’t that what religious faith really is? A euphemism, a justification for the acquisition and exercise of power?
Christian faith in particular claims the ultimate power - over death. Christianity not only invented this power (using the tools provided by Platonic philosophy to propagate the teaching of Paul of Tarsus), it also claimed the right to confer it. In so doing the Church deflected attention from death to its aftermath, heaven and hell. Death itself is either an irrelevance or a blessing depending on one’s sectarian affiliation. But in any case the extinction of life isn’t taken all that seriously as a metaphysical event except as a momentary transition from one state to another.
Barnes’s religious sentiment has never been infected by this metaphysical misdirection: “I had no faith to lose, only a resistance, which felt more heroic than it was, to the mild regime of God-referring that an English education entailed.” God for Barnes is an aesthetic, perhaps an aesthetic best described as Incompleteness, a recognition that there is always more than we know, that we can know, about the world and about ourselves.
This incompleteness is symbolized most articulately by death, or perhaps more precisely what Barnes calls “le réveil mortel,” the sense of mortality, which is the real mystery of human life. Death therefore is not something to be overcome - by faith or anything else - but something to be approached with an aesthetic reverence. Is it not our ultimate personal work of art?
Of course death implies a hole, a gap, a hiatus, a vacuum in existence. But the shape of that hole can be an object of artistic, or at least constructive, effort. Not in terms of legacies, or estates, or wills which are yet more attempts to negate death, but through the character of one’s dying as the meaning of the life that is disappearing.
“Mortality often gatecrashes my consciousness,” says Barnes. Not an afterlife of bliss or agony, but this life in its ending. According to Barnes, “Rachmaninov only surprised his friends when he didn’t want to talk about death.” This implies to me not fear of death but respectful and not unhealthy interest. It’s the way we build our own death piece by piece, through writing a book about it or composing a magnificent Dies Irae as an anticipatory expression of it.
Shostakovich (there is definitely an affinity between Russian, but not Soviet, aesthetics and death) is even more explicit: “We should think more about it and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can’t allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We have to make the fear familiar, and one way is to write about it. I don’t think writing and thinking about death is characteristic only of old men. I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.”
None of this is really news except that it’s been restricted to a sort of cultural samizdat. Cicero knew it; Socrates knew it; Montaigne knew it. Christianity tried to erase the collective consciousness of death and nearly did for a time in the Middle Ages. Faith got us talking about pensions as well as heaven and hell rather than dying.
My interpretation of Barnes’s meditative memoir is unavoidably shaped by my own experience. But I think we share a common aversion to Christianity along with a profound appreciation for its poetry, visual and aural as well as linguistic. It is this poetry which points constantly to the beyond in the idea of death without the doctrinal detritus of power-seeking. And it is this poetry from which the character of one’s death might be constructed.
I have always found the leap from metaphysical mystery to Christian religious belief by apologists like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton to be a rhetorical sleight of hand. It is illogical and vaguely insulting. The recognition that human language, perception, and thought don’t quite get to reality is as old as philosophy. But the idea that this inadequacy or defect or disability offers a rationale for the truth, or even the relevance, of Christian doctrine appears to me ludicrous. On the contrary, this congenital human uncertainty would seem to undermine anything like Christian or any other purported faith.
So Barnes’s by now famous opening line is one I can identify with: “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.” What a shame that the profound humility implied by human fallibility should be transformed into an arrogance which displaces a sense of emotional loss with the need for power. Isn’t that what religious faith really is? A euphemism, a justification for the acquisition and exercise of power?
Christian faith in particular claims the ultimate power - over death. Christianity not only invented this power (using the tools provided by Platonic philosophy to propagate the teaching of Paul of Tarsus), it also claimed the right to confer it. In so doing the Church deflected attention from death to its aftermath, heaven and hell. Death itself is either an irrelevance or a blessing depending on one’s sectarian affiliation. But in any case the extinction of life isn’t taken all that seriously as a metaphysical event except as a momentary transition from one state to another.
Barnes’s religious sentiment has never been infected by this metaphysical misdirection: “I had no faith to lose, only a resistance, which felt more heroic than it was, to the mild regime of God-referring that an English education entailed.” God for Barnes is an aesthetic, perhaps an aesthetic best described as Incompleteness, a recognition that there is always more than we know, that we can know, about the world and about ourselves.
This incompleteness is symbolized most articulately by death, or perhaps more precisely what Barnes calls “le réveil mortel,” the sense of mortality, which is the real mystery of human life. Death therefore is not something to be overcome - by faith or anything else - but something to be approached with an aesthetic reverence. Is it not our ultimate personal work of art?
Of course death implies a hole, a gap, a hiatus, a vacuum in existence. But the shape of that hole can be an object of artistic, or at least constructive, effort. Not in terms of legacies, or estates, or wills which are yet more attempts to negate death, but through the character of one’s dying as the meaning of the life that is disappearing.
“Mortality often gatecrashes my consciousness,” says Barnes. Not an afterlife of bliss or agony, but this life in its ending. According to Barnes, “Rachmaninov only surprised his friends when he didn’t want to talk about death.” This implies to me not fear of death but respectful and not unhealthy interest. It’s the way we build our own death piece by piece, through writing a book about it or composing a magnificent Dies Irae as an anticipatory expression of it.
Shostakovich (there is definitely an affinity between Russian, but not Soviet, aesthetics and death) is even more explicit: “We should think more about it and accustom ourselves to the thought of death. We can’t allow the fear of death to creep up on us unexpectedly. We have to make the fear familiar, and one way is to write about it. I don’t think writing and thinking about death is characteristic only of old men. I think that if people began thinking about death sooner, they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.”
None of this is really news except that it’s been restricted to a sort of cultural samizdat. Cicero knew it; Socrates knew it; Montaigne knew it. Christianity tried to erase the collective consciousness of death and nearly did for a time in the Middle Ages. Faith got us talking about pensions as well as heaven and hell rather than dying.
My interpretation of Barnes’s meditative memoir is unavoidably shaped by my own experience. But I think we share a common aversion to Christianity along with a profound appreciation for its poetry, visual and aural as well as linguistic. It is this poetry which points constantly to the beyond in the idea of death without the doctrinal detritus of power-seeking. And it is this poetry from which the character of one’s death might be constructed.
April 5, 2023
Julian Barnes n-a compus Nimicul de temut dintr-o inspirație, nu cred că avea această carte în plan. L-a lovit și pe el, așa cum ne-a lovit pe toți cîndva, intuiția abjectă a morții. Ne dăm seama prea tîrziu că vom muri. Moartea celorlalți e dovada irefutabilă că nouă nu ni se poate întîmpla nimic rău. Mor ceilalți, moartea e întotdeauna a altora. Cînd înțelegem că nu-i așa (și dacă înțelegem0, nu mai e nimic de făcut. De altfel, soția lui Julian Barnes, Pat Kavanagh, a avut un cancer și a murit fulgerător. De la aflarea diagnosticului și pînă la sfîrșit au trecut doar 37 de zile.
Considerațiile lui Barnes nu aparțin unui ateu (e, în realitate, agnostic), ci unui ins amărît de ceea ce tocmai i se întîmplă pe nedrept. Opiniile lui sînt în bună măsură cinice, dar cinismul, inevitabil în astfel de ocazii, este îndulcit cu multă ironie și nu mai puțin umor. Julian Barnes ne îndeamnă să ne împăcăm cu noi înșine și cu lumea așa cum e... Asta mi-a făcut cartea simpatică.
Autorul nu pretinde că ar ști despre faptul morții mai mult decît ceea ce știe orice om (adică absolut nimic), se consultă de multe ori cu fratele său, filosoful (are un frate specialist în Aristotel, a tradus din înțelepții antici), dar nici filosoful (Jonathan Barnes) nu știe în privința morții mare lucru, ba e și mai agnostic, și mai cinic decît scriitorul.
Uneori, un citat spune mai mult decît orice comentariu:
Cărți similare:
● Julian Barnes, Niveluri de viață, traducere de Radu Paraschivescu, București: Editura Nemira, 2014.
● Roland Barthes, Jurnal de doliu: 26 octombrie 1977 - 15 septembrie 1979, traducere de Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Chișinău: Editura Cartier, 2009, 268p.
● Simone de Beauvoir, O moarte ușoară, traducere de Florica-Eugenia Condurachi, București: Editura Univers, 1972, 128p.
● Joan Didion, Anul gîndirii magice, traducere de Virginia Costeschi, București: Editura Pandora M, 2017, 174p.
Considerațiile lui Barnes nu aparțin unui ateu (e, în realitate, agnostic), ci unui ins amărît de ceea ce tocmai i se întîmplă pe nedrept. Opiniile lui sînt în bună măsură cinice, dar cinismul, inevitabil în astfel de ocazii, este îndulcit cu multă ironie și nu mai puțin umor. Julian Barnes ne îndeamnă să ne împăcăm cu noi înșine și cu lumea așa cum e... Asta mi-a făcut cartea simpatică.
Autorul nu pretinde că ar ști despre faptul morții mai mult decît ceea ce știe orice om (adică absolut nimic), se consultă de multe ori cu fratele său, filosoful (are un frate specialist în Aristotel, a tradus din înțelepții antici), dar nici filosoful (Jonathan Barnes) nu știe în privința morții mare lucru, ba e și mai agnostic, și mai cinic decît scriitorul.
Uneori, un citat spune mai mult decît orice comentariu:
„Ar trebui să vă previn (mai ales dacă sînteţi filosofi, teologi ori biologi) că o bună parte din cartea de faţă vi se va părea o întreprindere de amator. De fapt, cu toţii sîntem amatori în propria noastră viaţă... Cînd ne ciocnim de profesionalismul altora, sperăm ca diagrama înţelegerii noastre aproximative să reflecte în mare cunoaşterea lor; dar pe asta nu putem conta” (p.56).
Cărți similare:
● Julian Barnes, Niveluri de viață, traducere de Radu Paraschivescu, București: Editura Nemira, 2014.
● Roland Barthes, Jurnal de doliu: 26 octombrie 1977 - 15 septembrie 1979, traducere de Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Chișinău: Editura Cartier, 2009, 268p.
● Simone de Beauvoir, O moarte ușoară, traducere de Florica-Eugenia Condurachi, București: Editura Univers, 1972, 128p.
● Joan Didion, Anul gîndirii magice, traducere de Virginia Costeschi, București: Editura Pandora M, 2017, 174p.
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August 14, 201910/10
Julian Barnes is nothing if not ironic for while he boldly states, or calmly reassures us that there is nothing to be frightened of, there's a lot that he fears for himself ...
As one who wouldn’t mind dying as long as I didn’t end up dead afterwards, I can certainly make a start on elaborating what my fears about dying might be. I fear being my father as he sat in a chair by his hospital bed and with quite uncharacteristic irateness rebuked me – ‘You said you were coming yesterday’ – before working out from my embarrassment that it was he who had got things confused. I fear being my mother imagining that she still played tennis. I fear being the friend who, longing for death, would repeatedly confide that he had managed to acquire and swallow enough pills to kill himself, but was now seethingly anxious that his actions might get a nurse into trouble. I fear being the innately courteous literary man I knew who, as senility took hold, began spouting at his wife the most extreme sexual fantasies, as if they were what he had always secretly wanted to do to her.
I fear being the octogenarian Somerset Maugham, dropping his trousers behind the sofa and shitting on the rug (even if the moment might happily recall my childhood). I fear being the elderly friend, a man of both refinement and squeamishness, whose eyes showed animal panic when the nurse in the residential home announced in front of visitors that it was time to change his nappy. I fear the nervous laugh I shall give when I don’t quite get an allusion or have forgotten a shared memory, or a familiar face, and then begin to mistrust much of what I think I know, and finally mistrust all of it. I fear the catheter and the stairlift, the oozing body and the wasting brain. I fear the Chabrier/Ravel fate of not knowing who I have been and what I have made. Perhaps Stravinsky, in extreme old age, had their endings in mind when he used to call out from his room for his wife or a member of the household. ‘What is it you need?’ they would ask. ‘ To be reassured of my own existence,’ he would reply. And the confirmation might come in the form of a handclasp, a kiss, or the playing of a favourite record.
And in the telling, we find the revelation: we fear not so much death, but death in life. We fear the loss of self -- the seemingly small death -- before the bigger sleep. But really, it's the reverse: we die in a bigger, more tangible way when we lose ourselves in illness, mental or physical than when the body just simply gives up its ghost. We die with far more cruelty when we are still alive but cannot communicate with those we love.
I've watched this several times in my life; and one quite recently in the last year, where everything came dangerously close to the big sleep, and then miraculously pulled back again. Was it a miracle? Was it science? Was it the will to live? Was it nothing at all but a roll of the dice?
What have I learned? I've learned that Death really is nothing to be afraid of. But the loss of dignity is devastating: it excoriates the spirit and it would be better to be flayed alive than to succumb and submit to all the indignities over which one has no control: how the body oozes and whimpers and hemorrhages and leeches and sheds and exudes and seeps and excretes and weeps, weeps, weeps uncontrollably. And over this, we have no control. And over this, we have to submit to our loved one's gaze; we have to offer this up to them, as our last gift. How can the person that is dying NOT feel shamed and humiliated? The last gesture that we offer those we love is one of weakness of mind and foulness of body.
No, death comes with a sense of great relief, great privilege, at the end of all this. To close our eyes, and not see anymore of this -- like the child playing peek-a-boo who hides her eyes behind her little hands, thinking as she does so that she can no longer be seen. This is the dignity we long for, when we die, are dying.
We don't want pats on the hand, in our humiliation, to hear someone say, "There, it's alright. Take my hand." I think it would be far more kind to turn away, and say, "I don't see it. I don't see you in this way that you are now. I only see you with the sun in your hair and the green fields behind you." It is far sweeter to turn away and say, "I don't see you as a broken and worn body. I see you as prince of the apple towns ... honoured among foxes and pheasants ... under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, under this sun that is born over and over..."
Thank you to Julian Barnes for having this very important conversation with me!
Julian Barnes is nothing if not ironic for while he boldly states, or calmly reassures us that there is nothing to be frightened of, there's a lot that he fears for himself ...
As one who wouldn’t mind dying as long as I didn’t end up dead afterwards, I can certainly make a start on elaborating what my fears about dying might be. I fear being my father as he sat in a chair by his hospital bed and with quite uncharacteristic irateness rebuked me – ‘You said you were coming yesterday’ – before working out from my embarrassment that it was he who had got things confused. I fear being my mother imagining that she still played tennis. I fear being the friend who, longing for death, would repeatedly confide that he had managed to acquire and swallow enough pills to kill himself, but was now seethingly anxious that his actions might get a nurse into trouble. I fear being the innately courteous literary man I knew who, as senility took hold, began spouting at his wife the most extreme sexual fantasies, as if they were what he had always secretly wanted to do to her.
I fear being the octogenarian Somerset Maugham, dropping his trousers behind the sofa and shitting on the rug (even if the moment might happily recall my childhood). I fear being the elderly friend, a man of both refinement and squeamishness, whose eyes showed animal panic when the nurse in the residential home announced in front of visitors that it was time to change his nappy. I fear the nervous laugh I shall give when I don’t quite get an allusion or have forgotten a shared memory, or a familiar face, and then begin to mistrust much of what I think I know, and finally mistrust all of it. I fear the catheter and the stairlift, the oozing body and the wasting brain. I fear the Chabrier/Ravel fate of not knowing who I have been and what I have made. Perhaps Stravinsky, in extreme old age, had their endings in mind when he used to call out from his room for his wife or a member of the household. ‘What is it you need?’ they would ask. ‘ To be reassured of my own existence,’ he would reply. And the confirmation might come in the form of a handclasp, a kiss, or the playing of a favourite record.
And in the telling, we find the revelation: we fear not so much death, but death in life. We fear the loss of self -- the seemingly small death -- before the bigger sleep. But really, it's the reverse: we die in a bigger, more tangible way when we lose ourselves in illness, mental or physical than when the body just simply gives up its ghost. We die with far more cruelty when we are still alive but cannot communicate with those we love.
I've watched this several times in my life; and one quite recently in the last year, where everything came dangerously close to the big sleep, and then miraculously pulled back again. Was it a miracle? Was it science? Was it the will to live? Was it nothing at all but a roll of the dice?
What have I learned? I've learned that Death really is nothing to be afraid of. But the loss of dignity is devastating: it excoriates the spirit and it would be better to be flayed alive than to succumb and submit to all the indignities over which one has no control: how the body oozes and whimpers and hemorrhages and leeches and sheds and exudes and seeps and excretes and weeps, weeps, weeps uncontrollably. And over this, we have no control. And over this, we have to submit to our loved one's gaze; we have to offer this up to them, as our last gift. How can the person that is dying NOT feel shamed and humiliated? The last gesture that we offer those we love is one of weakness of mind and foulness of body.
No, death comes with a sense of great relief, great privilege, at the end of all this. To close our eyes, and not see anymore of this -- like the child playing peek-a-boo who hides her eyes behind her little hands, thinking as she does so that she can no longer be seen. This is the dignity we long for, when we die, are dying.
We don't want pats on the hand, in our humiliation, to hear someone say, "There, it's alright. Take my hand." I think it would be far more kind to turn away, and say, "I don't see it. I don't see you in this way that you are now. I only see you with the sun in your hair and the green fields behind you." It is far sweeter to turn away and say, "I don't see you as a broken and worn body. I see you as prince of the apple towns ... honoured among foxes and pheasants ... under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, under this sun that is born over and over..."
Thank you to Julian Barnes for having this very important conversation with me!
January 26, 2009
MASSIVE FURBALL ALERT!!!!
In this massive eructation of self-indulgent, rambling, repetitive prose, Julian Barnes contemplates his mortality. At considerable, punishing, length. Where does it get him? To paraphrase another writer: And the end of all his exploring is to arrive where he began. Despite the purgatorial length of this hideous hairball of a book, he never really arrives at any conclusion. The reader isn't even offered the courtesy of a chapter break. The book just meanders on with no evident direction until (mercifully) it finally just peters out.
"But surely", I hear you ask, "this is Julian Barnes, a man of such wit and erudition, he cannot fail to be delightful company along the way".
That’s what I thought, gentle reader, but I was mistaken. I believe the relevant phrase is epic fail. The biographical stuff is faintly interesting at best, and Barnes – obviously a very private man – is careful to avoid anything genuinely revealing about his personal life. Anecdotes about various friends and acquaintances, and their thoughts about death, are tediously pointless. They are rendered all the more irritating by Barnes’s referring to the people involved as ‘P’, ‘S’, ‘A’ etc., a device that should have been outlawed after the death of Kafka, and that lends the text all the crackling excitement of a proof from Euclid. Barnes's rehashing of what other writers have written about death is equally soporific.
This is a baffling and irritating book. There is no apparent reason for it to exist at all - if Mr Barnes has nothing to say to us, why not leave us in peace? Whatever made him feel impelled to torment us with these vacuous scribblings? Reading this book feels exactly like watching your favorite cat cough up a particularly dense, matted hairball. It takes forever, and you feel vicariously exhausted when it’s all over. I know that, in mediaeval times, magical healing properties were attributed to such animal hairballs, or bezoars. But the best that can be said for this one is that you won’t have to clean up the carpet afterwards.
Try Henry Alford’s infinitely more engaging “How to Live” instead.
In this massive eructation of self-indulgent, rambling, repetitive prose, Julian Barnes contemplates his mortality. At considerable, punishing, length. Where does it get him? To paraphrase another writer: And the end of all his exploring is to arrive where he began. Despite the purgatorial length of this hideous hairball of a book, he never really arrives at any conclusion. The reader isn't even offered the courtesy of a chapter break. The book just meanders on with no evident direction until (mercifully) it finally just peters out.
"But surely", I hear you ask, "this is Julian Barnes, a man of such wit and erudition, he cannot fail to be delightful company along the way".
That’s what I thought, gentle reader, but I was mistaken. I believe the relevant phrase is epic fail. The biographical stuff is faintly interesting at best, and Barnes – obviously a very private man – is careful to avoid anything genuinely revealing about his personal life. Anecdotes about various friends and acquaintances, and their thoughts about death, are tediously pointless. They are rendered all the more irritating by Barnes’s referring to the people involved as ‘P’, ‘S’, ‘A’ etc., a device that should have been outlawed after the death of Kafka, and that lends the text all the crackling excitement of a proof from Euclid. Barnes's rehashing of what other writers have written about death is equally soporific.
This is a baffling and irritating book. There is no apparent reason for it to exist at all - if Mr Barnes has nothing to say to us, why not leave us in peace? Whatever made him feel impelled to torment us with these vacuous scribblings? Reading this book feels exactly like watching your favorite cat cough up a particularly dense, matted hairball. It takes forever, and you feel vicariously exhausted when it’s all over. I know that, in mediaeval times, magical healing properties were attributed to such animal hairballs, or bezoars. But the best that can be said for this one is that you won’t have to clean up the carpet afterwards.
Try Henry Alford’s infinitely more engaging “How to Live” instead.
May 18, 2020
Fascinating. An amusing inquiry into death and (seemingly) all related matters: funerals, last wishes, God, dying words, grave goods, legacies, survivors, personal possessions, present life vs afterlife, etc. Especially recommended for those conceptually death-saturated persons such as myself. Steeped in cool literary examples: Michel de Montaigne, Jules Renard, who is a relation of Barnes, Dr. Sheldon Nuland, Gustave Flaubert, Doris Lessing, Émile Zola, Somerset Maugham, Cicero, Wittgenstein et al.
September 7, 2008
i almost like your book. almost. it's a fun synthesis of a bunch of death related topics, there're some great historical and personal anecdotes, tons of interesting hypothetical situations and philosophical either/ors... but i object to your britishness, y'know? that whole mannered and clever and cautious thing...? this is death, man! the end! finito! skull and crossbones! grim reaper! "nothing more terrible, nothing more true!"
sure, there are gems throughout, but ultimately your book about death is nothing more than a breezy series of thematically similar essays. you need to re-read tolstoy's confessions, okay? y'know what i'm talking about: "the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless." tormented with the absolute knowledge that his words & life were nothing but a bunch of meaningless blather and bloviation, he attacked his work with such terrible anger and honesty and foolishness and fury that, ironically, over a century later his books do exist and do matter... (of course, they'll only end up mattering for a blip in the face of eternity; only until the uncaring universe does away with all these pink and brown fleshy bundles of neurons and synapses...)
from larkin's aubade:
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
from the old fools:
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?
larkin was a brit, of course, and he laid it all out there, put his tight, puckered ass on the line. and ernest becker's the denial of death? whew... an unflinching gaZe directly into the hollowed-out eye sockets of that cloaked and bony motherfucker, with a quick turn of the head to us, to all of us, with the grim message that it's death that lies at the bottom of everything that we are and everything that we do. and even becker, an academic and psychologist, writes with the urgency and despair that the subject calls for:
"He is a miserable animal whose body decays, who will die, who will pass into dust and oblivion, disappear not only forever in this world but in all possible dimensions of the universe, whose life serves no conceivable purpose, who may as well not have been born."
ah... maybe i'm too serious, too dour, too grim, too unsmiling. maybe i should lighten up and not only include the demented and absurd and black into my personal 'panthanatheon'... maybe i oughtta let in some of the charming and clever and slight...? but, no. no way. fuck that. if you're gonna get into it with the ol' reaping bastard, ya gotta play dirty: kick the bastard in the balls, a nice knee to the stomach. you don't wanna sit down for tea with the thieving bastard.
sure, there are gems throughout, but ultimately your book about death is nothing more than a breezy series of thematically similar essays. you need to re-read tolstoy's confessions, okay? y'know what i'm talking about: "the only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless." tormented with the absolute knowledge that his words & life were nothing but a bunch of meaningless blather and bloviation, he attacked his work with such terrible anger and honesty and foolishness and fury that, ironically, over a century later his books do exist and do matter... (of course, they'll only end up mattering for a blip in the face of eternity; only until the uncaring universe does away with all these pink and brown fleshy bundles of neurons and synapses...)
from larkin's aubade:
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
from the old fools:
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?
larkin was a brit, of course, and he laid it all out there, put his tight, puckered ass on the line. and ernest becker's the denial of death? whew... an unflinching gaZe directly into the hollowed-out eye sockets of that cloaked and bony motherfucker, with a quick turn of the head to us, to all of us, with the grim message that it's death that lies at the bottom of everything that we are and everything that we do. and even becker, an academic and psychologist, writes with the urgency and despair that the subject calls for:
"He is a miserable animal whose body decays, who will die, who will pass into dust and oblivion, disappear not only forever in this world but in all possible dimensions of the universe, whose life serves no conceivable purpose, who may as well not have been born."
ah... maybe i'm too serious, too dour, too grim, too unsmiling. maybe i should lighten up and not only include the demented and absurd and black into my personal 'panthanatheon'... maybe i oughtta let in some of the charming and clever and slight...? but, no. no way. fuck that. if you're gonna get into it with the ol' reaping bastard, ya gotta play dirty: kick the bastard in the balls, a nice knee to the stomach. you don't wanna sit down for tea with the thieving bastard.
March 13, 2011
I generally don’t read other people’s reviews of books before I write my own – I worry that I will end up so affected by their review that I will never know if what I have to say after reading them will really be my reaction to the book or to their review – worse, of course, is to then go on to write a review that says much the same as they have said while thinking of them as my own thoughts. But for some reason I read what one of the best reviewers on this site had to say about the book: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... (he hated it) and then one of my other favourite reviews said that they loved the book http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..., what now?
I really enjoyed this book. Like David I’ve read other Barnes novels and enjoyed those books too. However, unlike David I thought this was amusing, interesting and thought provoking – but again, as David says of himself, this may say more about me than it does about either David or the book.
This book is a manifestation of an obsession with death – something so many of my favourite composers seem to share (Shostakovich, Ravel, Stravinsky). When I started on good reads I began reading the collected essays of Montaigne and, although I’ve never finished them, really enjoyed his essay on death – the main idea being that to truly live one must face death down everyday. For many people, it seems, death is a constant presence in their thoughts. I’m not one of those people – but then, death has been very kind to me to date. I’m more than happy for death to go on being kind to me in much the same way – even though I know the odds are against continued luck in this regard.
Barnes does not believe in a God – and so much of this book is also a discussion of his relationship with death given his near certainty that this is all there is and the end will be The End. I found most of this wonderfully intelligent and at least as amusing as his History of the World novel (a book I would recommend without reservation) – which is also about remarkably similar topics.
At one point in this he mentions that we are our memories – when he says this it is in reference to everyone’s purest of all horror fates, the idea of degenerative mental illnesses, where we slowly forget the basic facts of our lives – ‘I think you were my wife’, being one of the more poignant lines mentioned here. However, from this point on the rest of the book is an extended essay not so much on death, as on just how little we can truly rely on our memories. We get things wrong – and not just occasionally or about things that don’t really matter, but constantly and about even the key facts.
I don’t think it is going too far to say our lives are the unintended lies we tell to help explain just how we got here.
I’m serving on Jury Duty at the moment. I am not allowed to tell you any details of the case, but I’m going to anyway. One man was trying to break up a fight and a friend of his rushed over to his assistance. Together they stood between the fighting parties. The man who rushed over to help his friend had his girl friend there with him. She repeatedly called out to him not to get involved, not to be so stupid and to come back to her. So, a friend comes to stand beside you in your time of need – you might think you would remember such an action and even be grateful. Except the person who was assisted in this way remembers nothing of the assistance at all. In fact, he barely remembers the other person at the scene – never mind his coming over to help. The court case is based in a very violent act – many people witnessed this act. No two of those people saw something anything even approximating the same thing. The differences are as remarkable as they are fundamental. And it is not just memories affected by self-interest. Many of the witnesses knew none of the people involved. It is frightening just how different all their stories are – frightening because it is like watching whatever grip on truth that is allowed us being snatched from our very fingers. How do we get things so wrong?
There is a scene in this book where Barnes’s grandparents are doing their party piece – where they would get out their separate diaries and flick to a pre-decided date some years before and then read out to each other what they had written for that day. The entries are filled with the banalities of everyday life – with the grandfather saying something like, “dug potatoes all day in the garden.” However, that is where the trouble starts – with the grandmother saying, “Well, you couldn’t have – it rained all day”.
The point is that we are not ‘our memories’ – rather, we are the stories we create to make sense of what we like to think we have become. I really enjoyed this book – not least because I think this idea, that our memories are so flawed, is a terribly important one for us to understand and to always remember (if that is not a paradox).
And whilst it is nice that Bruce more or less agrees with me in his review, I can also see why David may not have liked this book too.
This morning when I started this review I read over Bruce’s review and then noticed I had already voted that I had liked it. I couldn’t remember even reading it before. Then I went into the review itself and saw that not only must I have read it, but even commented on it. Oh dear. How much easier it is to believe in the fallibility of the memories of other people – in much the same way as it is easy to believe in their inevitable deaths while not quite fully believing in our own.
I really enjoyed this book. Like David I’ve read other Barnes novels and enjoyed those books too. However, unlike David I thought this was amusing, interesting and thought provoking – but again, as David says of himself, this may say more about me than it does about either David or the book.
This book is a manifestation of an obsession with death – something so many of my favourite composers seem to share (Shostakovich, Ravel, Stravinsky). When I started on good reads I began reading the collected essays of Montaigne and, although I’ve never finished them, really enjoyed his essay on death – the main idea being that to truly live one must face death down everyday. For many people, it seems, death is a constant presence in their thoughts. I’m not one of those people – but then, death has been very kind to me to date. I’m more than happy for death to go on being kind to me in much the same way – even though I know the odds are against continued luck in this regard.
Barnes does not believe in a God – and so much of this book is also a discussion of his relationship with death given his near certainty that this is all there is and the end will be The End. I found most of this wonderfully intelligent and at least as amusing as his History of the World novel (a book I would recommend without reservation) – which is also about remarkably similar topics.
At one point in this he mentions that we are our memories – when he says this it is in reference to everyone’s purest of all horror fates, the idea of degenerative mental illnesses, where we slowly forget the basic facts of our lives – ‘I think you were my wife’, being one of the more poignant lines mentioned here. However, from this point on the rest of the book is an extended essay not so much on death, as on just how little we can truly rely on our memories. We get things wrong – and not just occasionally or about things that don’t really matter, but constantly and about even the key facts.
I don’t think it is going too far to say our lives are the unintended lies we tell to help explain just how we got here.
I’m serving on Jury Duty at the moment. I am not allowed to tell you any details of the case, but I’m going to anyway. One man was trying to break up a fight and a friend of his rushed over to his assistance. Together they stood between the fighting parties. The man who rushed over to help his friend had his girl friend there with him. She repeatedly called out to him not to get involved, not to be so stupid and to come back to her. So, a friend comes to stand beside you in your time of need – you might think you would remember such an action and even be grateful. Except the person who was assisted in this way remembers nothing of the assistance at all. In fact, he barely remembers the other person at the scene – never mind his coming over to help. The court case is based in a very violent act – many people witnessed this act. No two of those people saw something anything even approximating the same thing. The differences are as remarkable as they are fundamental. And it is not just memories affected by self-interest. Many of the witnesses knew none of the people involved. It is frightening just how different all their stories are – frightening because it is like watching whatever grip on truth that is allowed us being snatched from our very fingers. How do we get things so wrong?
There is a scene in this book where Barnes’s grandparents are doing their party piece – where they would get out their separate diaries and flick to a pre-decided date some years before and then read out to each other what they had written for that day. The entries are filled with the banalities of everyday life – with the grandfather saying something like, “dug potatoes all day in the garden.” However, that is where the trouble starts – with the grandmother saying, “Well, you couldn’t have – it rained all day”.
The point is that we are not ‘our memories’ – rather, we are the stories we create to make sense of what we like to think we have become. I really enjoyed this book – not least because I think this idea, that our memories are so flawed, is a terribly important one for us to understand and to always remember (if that is not a paradox).
And whilst it is nice that Bruce more or less agrees with me in his review, I can also see why David may not have liked this book too.
This morning when I started this review I read over Bruce’s review and then noticed I had already voted that I had liked it. I couldn’t remember even reading it before. Then I went into the review itself and saw that not only must I have read it, but even commented on it. Oh dear. How much easier it is to believe in the fallibility of the memories of other people – in much the same way as it is easy to believe in their inevitable deaths while not quite fully believing in our own.
October 21, 2020
This is probably the most deepressing memoir-ish work that I've read in a long, long time.
Too much time spent on pondering death. Yes, I know, it's weird to, eh, say that about a book on mortality but that's just how I can't help thinking about it. Lots of time spent on remembering and re-remembering his parents' deaths in 1992 and 1997 (see, I even remembered the years!). Lots of nitpicking on the fraility of our lives, minds, bodies, the infignities of age, in infirmities of our human bodily state.
On hopelessness and on how we seem to die in stages.... Basically, our hope/soul/spirit/vitality seem to die first and then the body follows the lead. Painful, isn't it?
Now I also know that JB's bro is a philosopher whose daughter's first phrase was a critique of Bertrand Russel's person (!). Hilarious, even though I happen to LOVE Bertrand Russel.
Allusions to lots of philosophers are a fun to read.
A lot of ideas on our memory and how it misfires spectacularly, at times. On illness. On reading. On life... One great essay that paradoxically highlighted death as something that's not nothing to be frightened of. Delightful, huh?
The glimpses into the inner workings of the family were both tantalising, horrifying, calluse and lyrical. Another paradox at work here.
Too much time spent on pondering death. Yes, I know, it's weird to, eh, say that about a book on mortality but that's just how I can't help thinking about it. Lots of time spent on remembering and re-remembering his parents' deaths in 1992 and 1997 (see, I even remembered the years!). Lots of nitpicking on the fraility of our lives, minds, bodies, the infignities of age, in infirmities of our human bodily state.
On hopelessness and on how we seem to die in stages.... Basically, our hope/soul/spirit/vitality seem to die first and then the body follows the lead. Painful, isn't it?
Now I also know that JB's bro is a philosopher whose daughter's first phrase was a critique of Bertrand Russel's person (!). Hilarious, even though I happen to LOVE Bertrand Russel.
Allusions to lots of philosophers are a fun to read.
A lot of ideas on our memory and how it misfires spectacularly, at times. On illness. On reading. On life... One great essay that paradoxically highlighted death as something that's not nothing to be frightened of. Delightful, huh?
The glimpses into the inner workings of the family were both tantalising, horrifying, calluse and lyrical. Another paradox at work here.
September 9, 2018
Το βιβλιο αυτο ειναι πολλα πραγματα: ειναι ενα αφηγημα, ενα δοκιμιο, μια ερευνα, μια βιογραφια ενος ανδρα συγγραφεα ο οποιος εχει πια περασει το μεγαλυτερο μερος της ζωης του και πλεον βλεπει ξεκαθαρα μπροστα του το..τελος.πώς λοιπον καποιος μπορει να αντιμετωπισει την πιο σιγουρη αλλα και πιο τρομακτικη προοπτικη ολων μας, το θανατο? Γιαυτο ακριβως μιλα αυτο το βιβλιο με το ξεχωριστο χιουμορ του Τζουλιαν Μπαρνς αλλα και με τη χαρακτηριστικη υποβοσκουσα μελαγχολια που υπαρχει σε ολα τα εργα του.μια μελετη για το θανατο μεσα απο το πρισμα της επιστημης, της θρησκειας , της λογοτεχνιας.το μονο που μου ελειψε απο αυτο το κατα τα αλλα εξαιρετικα ενδιαφερον βιβλιο, ηταν ισως μια πιο προσωπικη προσεγγιση του συγγραφεα στο θεμα αυτο.θα με ενδιεφερε παρα πολυ να εβλεπα τις πιο βαθιες και προσωπικες σκεψεις ενος τοσο αγαπημενου μου συγγραφεα μεσα απο την ωριμοτητα και το γλυκοπικρο χιουμορ που τον χαρακτηριζει.
June 10, 2019
“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.” – Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened of
My first thought when I read this articulate and searching meditation on death was the incredible courage and determination of Julian Barnes in confronting his fear of mortality. It took him two years from 2005 to 2007 to consolidate his thoughts and pen his own tortuous wrangling with being an agnostic and dealing with a daily preoccupation with his fear of death. It is a tough subject matter to dwell upon but Barnes accomplished this with the humor of a cynic that made this memoir more than palatable and even pleasurable at times. What I appreciated are the anecdotes Barnes shared of his relationship with his equally agnostic family - his parents (both school teachers) and Jonathan, his elder brother (a philosopher).
He expressed being astounded at seeing his father drop to his knees in the pew during a church wedding and sounded gleeful at having stumbled on a new area of ignorance. His funny bone continued to twitch when he visited the mortuary to view his dead mother’s body. He admitted shamefacedly that he did this out of ’writerly curiosity than filial feeling.’ Oh Barnes!
When Barnes went to Oxford and was informed that he had ‘the right to read the lesson in chapel’ given his scholar status, he proclaimed to the college chaplain, “I’m afraid I’m a happy atheist.” At age sixty when this book was written, he seemed less happy to be in his godless state in part because the classical oratorios, sacred music, and religious paintings, for which he had a deep love, drew their inspiration from the Christian God. In his own words, “I miss the God that inspired Italian painting and French stained glass, German music and English chapter houses, and those tumbledown heaps of stone on Celtic headlands which were once symbolic beacons in the darkness and the storm.” How totally reasonable. One’s appreciation of religious art and music is heightened by an understanding of the underlying beliefs and purpose for which they were created. To what extent will one’s enjoyment of churches and cathedrals be affected if one does not believe in what they represent? Barnes quipped, “… imagine hearing the Mozart Requiem in a great cathedral... It would... add a bit of extra oomph, wouldn’t it? It certainly would.
In this well researched novel is a fascinating and extended discussion on the existence of God and the fact of death by prominent philosophers and artists whom Barnes hold as close non-family relations. Here is a sampling. Listen to Pascal’s famous wager: ‘If you believe, and God turns out to exist, you win. If you believe and God turns out not to exist, you lose but not half as badly as you would if you choose not to believe, only to find out after death that God does exist.’ Montaigne, a French philosopher, believed that the best counterattack on death is to keep it in our consciousness because ’if you teach someone how to die, then you teach them how to live.’ Among Barnes’ non-blood relatives, it is Jules Renard, a French author, toward whom I felt most tenderly. Renard lost three members of his immediate family in close succession; the death of his mother he considered 'impenetrable.' He said, ”Perhaps the fact that God is incomprehensible is the strongest argument for His existence.” He added, "Imagine life without death. Every day you’d want to kill yourself from despair.” The English philosopher, A. J. Ayer, is less optimistic about proving God’s existence. In his view, religious language is 'essentially unverifiable.’ Somerset Maugham, also an agnostic, who was a doctor before he became a writer, observed this of his patients: ”And never have I seen in their last moments anything to suggest that their spirit was everlasting. They die as a dog dies.” Hence, he advocated living life with humorous resignation.
What about Barnes’ own view? He said, “For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about; unless you know and feel that the days of wine and roses are limited, that the wine will maderize and the roses turn brown in their stinking weather before all are thrown out for ever - including the jug - there is no context to such pleasures and interests as come your way on the road to the grave.” There is a grain of truth in this. It is also interesting to hear Barnes’ own reasoning in response to other atheists’ perspective: To people who say "I don’t go to church, but I have my personal idea of God", Barnes think this is soppy. “You may have your own personal idea of God, but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because that’s what matters... The notion of redefining the deity into something that works for you is grotesque. It also doesn’t matter whether God is just or benevolent or even observant... only that He exists.” Brilliant point and well-argued.
Barnes’ knowledge and love of music comes to the fore in this work as is typical in his writing. It seems that famous composers wrote their fear of death into their music. We are told that Rachmaninov who feared the possibility of survival after death worked the Dies Irae into his music more times than other musicians. Shostakovich’s chamber music often carried ’long, slow, meditative invocations of mortality.’
My last thought about this novel is how ironically empty this whole discourse is. It is like having a philosophical debate at the end of which one is not any wiser. Barnes said it best: ”If I called myself an atheist at twenty, and an agnostic at fifty and sixty, it isn’t because I have acquired more knowledge in the meantime: just more awareness of ignorance. How can we be sure that we know enough to know? What convinces us that our knowledge is so final?” In this, Barnes is beginning to sound just like his philosopher brother. Yet, his honesty is touching and admirable.
Nothing to Be Frightened of is obviously not a book for everyone. It is a sobering read on a part of life that is inevitable. Even if we share Nietzsche’s belief that God is dead, death most certainly is alive. As always, Barnes is most gratifyingly erudite and writes with the touch of a true wordsmith. His prose is immeasurably a joy to read.
My first thought when I read this articulate and searching meditation on death was the incredible courage and determination of Julian Barnes in confronting his fear of mortality. It took him two years from 2005 to 2007 to consolidate his thoughts and pen his own tortuous wrangling with being an agnostic and dealing with a daily preoccupation with his fear of death. It is a tough subject matter to dwell upon but Barnes accomplished this with the humor of a cynic that made this memoir more than palatable and even pleasurable at times. What I appreciated are the anecdotes Barnes shared of his relationship with his equally agnostic family - his parents (both school teachers) and Jonathan, his elder brother (a philosopher).
He expressed being astounded at seeing his father drop to his knees in the pew during a church wedding and sounded gleeful at having stumbled on a new area of ignorance. His funny bone continued to twitch when he visited the mortuary to view his dead mother’s body. He admitted shamefacedly that he did this out of ’writerly curiosity than filial feeling.’ Oh Barnes!
When Barnes went to Oxford and was informed that he had ‘the right to read the lesson in chapel’ given his scholar status, he proclaimed to the college chaplain, “I’m afraid I’m a happy atheist.” At age sixty when this book was written, he seemed less happy to be in his godless state in part because the classical oratorios, sacred music, and religious paintings, for which he had a deep love, drew their inspiration from the Christian God. In his own words, “I miss the God that inspired Italian painting and French stained glass, German music and English chapter houses, and those tumbledown heaps of stone on Celtic headlands which were once symbolic beacons in the darkness and the storm.” How totally reasonable. One’s appreciation of religious art and music is heightened by an understanding of the underlying beliefs and purpose for which they were created. To what extent will one’s enjoyment of churches and cathedrals be affected if one does not believe in what they represent? Barnes quipped, “… imagine hearing the Mozart Requiem in a great cathedral... It would... add a bit of extra oomph, wouldn’t it? It certainly would.
In this well researched novel is a fascinating and extended discussion on the existence of God and the fact of death by prominent philosophers and artists whom Barnes hold as close non-family relations. Here is a sampling. Listen to Pascal’s famous wager: ‘If you believe, and God turns out to exist, you win. If you believe and God turns out not to exist, you lose but not half as badly as you would if you choose not to believe, only to find out after death that God does exist.’ Montaigne, a French philosopher, believed that the best counterattack on death is to keep it in our consciousness because ’if you teach someone how to die, then you teach them how to live.’ Among Barnes’ non-blood relatives, it is Jules Renard, a French author, toward whom I felt most tenderly. Renard lost three members of his immediate family in close succession; the death of his mother he considered 'impenetrable.' He said, ”Perhaps the fact that God is incomprehensible is the strongest argument for His existence.” He added, "Imagine life without death. Every day you’d want to kill yourself from despair.” The English philosopher, A. J. Ayer, is less optimistic about proving God’s existence. In his view, religious language is 'essentially unverifiable.’ Somerset Maugham, also an agnostic, who was a doctor before he became a writer, observed this of his patients: ”And never have I seen in their last moments anything to suggest that their spirit was everlasting. They die as a dog dies.” Hence, he advocated living life with humorous resignation.
What about Barnes’ own view? He said, “For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about; unless you know and feel that the days of wine and roses are limited, that the wine will maderize and the roses turn brown in their stinking weather before all are thrown out for ever - including the jug - there is no context to such pleasures and interests as come your way on the road to the grave.” There is a grain of truth in this. It is also interesting to hear Barnes’ own reasoning in response to other atheists’ perspective: To people who say "I don’t go to church, but I have my personal idea of God", Barnes think this is soppy. “You may have your own personal idea of God, but does God have His own personal idea of you? Because that’s what matters... The notion of redefining the deity into something that works for you is grotesque. It also doesn’t matter whether God is just or benevolent or even observant... only that He exists.” Brilliant point and well-argued.
Barnes’ knowledge and love of music comes to the fore in this work as is typical in his writing. It seems that famous composers wrote their fear of death into their music. We are told that Rachmaninov who feared the possibility of survival after death worked the Dies Irae into his music more times than other musicians. Shostakovich’s chamber music often carried ’long, slow, meditative invocations of mortality.’
My last thought about this novel is how ironically empty this whole discourse is. It is like having a philosophical debate at the end of which one is not any wiser. Barnes said it best: ”If I called myself an atheist at twenty, and an agnostic at fifty and sixty, it isn’t because I have acquired more knowledge in the meantime: just more awareness of ignorance. How can we be sure that we know enough to know? What convinces us that our knowledge is so final?” In this, Barnes is beginning to sound just like his philosopher brother. Yet, his honesty is touching and admirable.
Nothing to Be Frightened of is obviously not a book for everyone. It is a sobering read on a part of life that is inevitable. Even if we share Nietzsche’s belief that God is dead, death most certainly is alive. As always, Barnes is most gratifyingly erudite and writes with the touch of a true wordsmith. His prose is immeasurably a joy to read.
August 16, 2020
Julian Barnes (n. 1946)”NÃO ACREDITO EM DEUS, mas sinto a Sua falta.” assim começa o livro do escritor inglês Julian Barnes (n. 1946) - ”NADA A TEMER”; que tem como subtítulo na edição portuguesa ”Quando se tem medo da morte, há um romance que se deve ler: este.”
“«Espero que esta história seja verdadeira. É de certeza uma memória muito clara e duradoura; mas tu sabes como é a memória.»” (Pág. 24)
Este é um livro autobiográfico, uma memória de família, construído por recordações – desde a infância até à idade adulta -, de múltiplos diálogos com o seu irmão mais velho, o filósofo Jonathan Barnes; relatos de influências literárias e musicais, de escritores e músicos; uma verdadeira dissertação sobre a morte; mas também sobre a religião – o cristianismo, a filosofia, a biologia e muito mais.
”Como podemos estar certos de que sabemos o bastante para saber.” (…) O que nos convence de que o nosso saber é tão definitivo?” (Pág. 33)
O pai e a mãe de Julian Barnes - são figuras centrais em ”NADA A TEMER”, inspirando sentimentos ambíguos e por vezes contraditórios no escritor.
”«No mundo não existiriam homens maus se não existissem más mulheres.” (Pág. 42)
Ao longo das páginas de ”NADA A TEMER” o escritor vai entrelaçando os seus pensamentos com algumas indagações sobre inúmeros escritores, entre eles - Jules Renard e Somerset Maugham; e alguns músicos como Ígor Stravinski e Dmitri Chostaovitch.
Julian Barnes escreve num estilo meticuloso e de uma forma dolorosa sobre alguns episódios familiares; misturando as suas memórias familiares e as suas influências literárias e musicais. Um brilhante ensaio onde reflecte sobre incontáveis objectos e alguns diálogos passados e presentes, discorrendo de uma forma lúcida sobre a morte e sobre o medo da morte. ”A consciência da morte estará ligada ao facto de eu ser escritor? Pode ser.” (Pág. 82).
”«Um dos meus filhos escreve livros que eu posso ler mas não consigo entender, e o outro escreve livros que consigo entender mas não posso ler». Nenhum de nós escreveu «o que ela desejaria».” (Pág. 189)
No final ”… memória e imaginação parecem diferenciar-se cada vez menos.”
March 10, 2022
Julian Barnes con una prosa tagliente, parte dalla morte dei suoi genitori per parlare della morte in generale. Non solo, a partire dalla paura della morte, in questo romanzo che è un ibrido tra un’autobiografia e un saggio, affronta il tema della fede, dell’ibernazione, dell’arte, della musica e della letteratura.
Barnes, in perenne confronto con il fratello filosofo, giunge alla conclusione che la morte, non è qualcosa da superare, per fede o altro, ma qualcosa a cui avvicinarsi con riverenza estetica.
La morte non è forse la nostra ultima opera d'arte personale?
“Potrei domandarmi se le opere pubblicate possano essere già sufficienti e se la nuova idea sia davvero cosí buona come immagino. Ma spero di rifiutare – o, quantomeno, di negoziare e ottenere un’offerta piú sostanziosa. «Che ne dite se eliminiamo proprio la morte invece di eliminarne solo la paura? Quella sí che sarebbe una tentazione non da poco. Voi eliminate la morte e io rinuncio alla scrittura. Che ve ne pare? È o non è un ottimo accordo?”
E quando arriverà l’ultimo istante, che almeno si abbia il tempo di dirsi addio:
“Prematuro, spero, scrivere: addio a me stesso. E altrettanto prematuro imbrattare il muro della cella con la scritta: anch’io sono stato qui. Non tanto, invece, comporre quella parola che – me ne rendo conto solo adesso – non ho mai scritto in nessun libro. Non qui, ad ogni modo, non nell’ultima pagina:
FINE”
Oppure “Fine”, con un corpo inferiore, dimesso.
Barnes, in perenne confronto con il fratello filosofo, giunge alla conclusione che la morte, non è qualcosa da superare, per fede o altro, ma qualcosa a cui avvicinarsi con riverenza estetica.
La morte non è forse la nostra ultima opera d'arte personale?
“Potrei domandarmi se le opere pubblicate possano essere già sufficienti e se la nuova idea sia davvero cosí buona come immagino. Ma spero di rifiutare – o, quantomeno, di negoziare e ottenere un’offerta piú sostanziosa. «Che ne dite se eliminiamo proprio la morte invece di eliminarne solo la paura? Quella sí che sarebbe una tentazione non da poco. Voi eliminate la morte e io rinuncio alla scrittura. Che ve ne pare? È o non è un ottimo accordo?”
E quando arriverà l’ultimo istante, che almeno si abbia il tempo di dirsi addio:
“Prematuro, spero, scrivere: addio a me stesso. E altrettanto prematuro imbrattare il muro della cella con la scritta: anch’io sono stato qui. Non tanto, invece, comporre quella parola che – me ne rendo conto solo adesso – non ho mai scritto in nessun libro. Non qui, ad ogni modo, non nell’ultima pagina:
FINE”
Oppure “Fine”, con un corpo inferiore, dimesso.
September 19, 2021
Julian Barnes is an essayist and he is a storyteller - these are still very different hypostases of a stunningly talented writer. Admiring him in the first role, I prefer the second. In fact, it is not so easy to draw a clear line: Barnes ' fiction is replete with reflections, arguments and various kinds of additional information, while non-fiction includes many stories that can be regarded as ready-made stories.
"Nothing to be afraid of" is no exception. A conversation about death, about God, about family in the form of an autobiography, which is not such (as the author will emphasize more than once in the continuation of the book, that does not shake the reader's conviction - it is). It seems to me that the point here is not so much the desire to protect the inner circle from too close idle glances, but rather the understanding that nothing that happened in the past can be described with impeccable truthfulness. Everyone judges it from their own point of view, evaluates it subjectively, fills it with meaning in accordance with their worldview and life experience.
Жизнь и так далее
Бог есть, но Он знает об этом не больше нашего
Жюль Ренар
Джулиан Барнс эссеист и он же рассказчик - это все-таки сильно разные ипостаси потрясающе талантливого писателя. Восхищаясь им в первой роли, отдаю предпочтение второй. На самом деле, провести четкую границу не так просто: художественная проза Барнса изобилует размышлениями, рассуждениями и разного рода дополнительными сведениями, в то время, как нон-фикшн включает множество историй, которые можно расценивать как готовые рассказы.
"Нечего бояться" не исключение. Разговор о смерти, о Боге, о семье в форме автобиографии, которая таковой не является (как не раз в продолжении книги подчеркнет автор, что не колеблет, читательской убежденности - она и есть). Мне кажется, дело тут не столько в желании оградить ближний круг от слишком пристальных досужих взглядов, сколько в понимании, что ничего из происходившего в прошлом, не удается описать с безупречной правдивостью. Всякий судит о нем со своей точки зрения, оценивает субъективно, наполняет смыслом в соответствии со своим миропониманием и жизненным опытом.
Автор исходит из посыла о двух вещах в основе человеческого бытия: понимания, что смерть неминуема и надежды, что там, за чертой, все не завершится окончательно. Вплетая размышления об экзистенциальном ужасе осознния смертности в рассказ о семье, об отношениях между бабушкой и дедушкой, отцом и матерью, собой и братом. Вводя в повествование примеры из жизни известных представителей творческой элиты: Флобера, Золя, Стравинского, Шостаковича, Тургенева, Чехова (да-да, Барнс русофил, у него есть повесть о Тургеневе и роман о Шостаковиче).
Значительную роль в повествовании играет французский писатель и драматург, Жюль Ренар, соединенный с автором узами отдаленного родства, и более всего известный автобиографическим романом "Рыжик", о бесприютном сиротском детстве. Отец его покончил с собой, разрядив в голову дробовик, а мать сидела на краю колодца и вдруг. на глазах девятилетнего мальчика, опрокинулась навзничь. Когда ее подняли, на ней не было ни царапинки, она была абсолютно окончательно мертва. К истории Ренара Барнс возвращается на протяжении повествования особенно часто, возможно воспринимая ее как антитезу собственному, относительно благополучному детству в обеспеченной интеллигентной семье.
Немалое место занимают размышления о вере. Выросши с отцом числившим себя агностиком и мамой атеисткой (она упрекала мужа в недостаточной радикальности и едва ли не заигрывании с церковниками), братья лишены были естественного восприятия религии, кроме прочего, дарующей утешение возможностью жизни вечной. Не суть, веришь ты в райские кущи, Валгаллу, череду перерождений или некий Абсолют, с коим сольешься, закончив земной путь - вера строит вокруг человека стены, без которых стоишь беззащитный на семи ветрах, ожидая приближения черной бездны.
Не то, чтобы Барнс ощущал в связи со своим неверием недостаток чего-то, среди множества восхитительных сентенций книги, есть предположение, что ожидать со вклада пятидесяти-восьмидесятилетней прав��дной жизни здесь процентов вечного блаженства там как-то чересчур смело, ни один банк не работает на таких условиях. Но танатофобия, явившаяся причиной создания книги, говорит за себя.
А в выигрыше мы, читатели, кому его обнаженная чувствительность подарила умную элегантную горько-нежную барнсову прозу.
Писатель - это тот, кто ничего не помнит, но по-своему манипулирует разными версиями забытых им событий.
"Nothing to be afraid of" is no exception. A conversation about death, about God, about family in the form of an autobiography, which is not such (as the author will emphasize more than once in the continuation of the book, that does not shake the reader's conviction - it is). It seems to me that the point here is not so much the desire to protect the inner circle from too close idle glances, but rather the understanding that nothing that happened in the past can be described with impeccable truthfulness. Everyone judges it from their own point of view, evaluates it subjectively, fills it with meaning in accordance with their worldview and life experience.
Жизнь и так далее
Бог есть, но Он знает об этом не больше нашего
Жюль Ренар
Джулиан Барнс эссеист и он же рассказчик - это все-таки сильно разные ипостаси потрясающе талантливого писателя. Восхищаясь им в первой роли, отдаю предпочтение второй. На самом деле, провести четкую границу не так просто: художественная проза Барнса изобилует размышлениями, рассуждениями и разного рода дополнительными сведениями, в то время, как нон-фикшн включает множество историй, которые можно расценивать как готовые рассказы.
"Нечего бояться" не исключение. Разговор о смерти, о Боге, о семье в форме автобиографии, которая таковой не является (как не раз в продолжении книги подчеркнет автор, что не колеблет, читательской убежденности - она и есть). Мне кажется, дело тут не столько в желании оградить ближний круг от слишком пристальных досужих взглядов, сколько в понимании, что ничего из происходившего в прошлом, не удается описать с безупречной правдивостью. Всякий судит о нем со своей точки зрения, оценивает субъективно, наполняет смыслом в соответствии со своим миропониманием и жизненным опытом.
Автор исходит из посыла о двух вещах в основе человеческого бытия: понимания, что смерть неминуема и надежды, что там, за чертой, все не завершится окончательно. Вплетая размышления об экзистенциальном ужасе осознния смертности в рассказ о семье, об отношениях между бабушкой и дедушкой, отцом и матерью, собой и братом. Вводя в повествование примеры из жизни известных представителей творческой элиты: Флобера, Золя, Стравинского, Шостаковича, Тургенева, Чехова (да-да, Барнс русофил, у него есть повесть о Тургеневе и роман о Шостаковиче).
Значительную роль в повествовании играет французский писатель и драматург, Жюль Ренар, соединенный с автором узами отдаленного родства, и более всего известный автобиографическим романом "Рыжик", о бесприютном сиротском детстве. Отец его покончил с собой, разрядив в голову дробовик, а мать сидела на краю колодца и вдруг. на глазах девятилетнего мальчика, опрокинулась навзничь. Когда ее подняли, на ней не было ни царапинки, она была абсолютно окончательно мертва. К истории Ренара Барнс возвращается на протяжении повествования особенно часто, возможно воспринимая ее как антитезу собственному, относительно благополучному детству в обеспеченной интеллигентной семье.
Немалое место занимают размышления о вере. Выросши с отцом числившим себя агностиком и мамой атеисткой (она упрекала мужа в недостаточной радикальности и едва ли не заигрывании с церковниками), братья лишены были естественного восприятия религии, кроме прочего, дарующей утешение возможностью жизни вечной. Не суть, веришь ты в райские кущи, Валгаллу, череду перерождений или некий Абсолют, с коим сольешься, закончив земной путь - вера строит вокруг человека стены, без которых стоишь беззащитный на семи ветрах, ожидая приближения черной бездны.
Не то, чтобы Барнс ощущал в связи со своим неверием недостаток чего-то, среди множества восхитительных сентенций книги, есть предположение, что ожидать со вклада пятидесяти-восьмидесятилетней прав��дной жизни здесь процентов вечного блаженства там как-то чересчур смело, ни один банк не работает на таких условиях. Но танатофобия, явившаяся причиной создания книги, говорит за себя.
А в выигрыше мы, читатели, кому его обнаженная чувствительность подарила умную элегантную горько-нежную барнсову прозу.
Писатель - это тот, кто ничего не помнит, но по-своему манипулирует разными версиями забытых им событий.
April 19, 2023
[COMENTÁRIO]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Nada a temer"
Julian Barnes
Tradução de Helena Cardoso
Que tal começar com uma longa citação que nos "obriga" à reflexão:
"A ficção é feita por um processo que combina liberdade total e controlo absoluto, que equilibra a observação precisa e o jogo livre da imaginação, que utiliza mentiras para dizer a verdade e a verdade para dizer mentiras. É ao mesmo tempo centripeta e centrífuga. Quer contar todas as histórias em toda a sua incoerência, contradição e insolubilidade; ao mesmo tempo quer contar a única história verdadeira, a que se funde e refina e resolve todas as outras. O romancista é ao mesmo tempo um cínico reles e um poeta lírico... "
Julian Barnes é um escritor que me delícia com as suas múltiplas narrativas.
(aqui entre nós tenho mesmo que ler mais livros dele)
Neste volume, entre o ensaio e a memória, Barnes fala da morte, da nossa intrincada e difícil relação com a morte, a fé e o luto. E porque parte da lembrança dos pais este livro é um poderoso texto sobre a família. Sobre os seus pais, o seu irmão - o filósofo - e os seus avós, em especial o avô Bertie.
O brilhantismo da escrita, a reflexão culta, a narrativa cheia de humor fazem deste livro uma bela companhia neste dia em que círculo entre análises clínicas e hospitais.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Nada a temer"
Julian Barnes
Tradução de Helena Cardoso
Que tal começar com uma longa citação que nos "obriga" à reflexão:
"A ficção é feita por um processo que combina liberdade total e controlo absoluto, que equilibra a observação precisa e o jogo livre da imaginação, que utiliza mentiras para dizer a verdade e a verdade para dizer mentiras. É ao mesmo tempo centripeta e centrífuga. Quer contar todas as histórias em toda a sua incoerência, contradição e insolubilidade; ao mesmo tempo quer contar a única história verdadeira, a que se funde e refina e resolve todas as outras. O romancista é ao mesmo tempo um cínico reles e um poeta lírico... "
Julian Barnes é um escritor que me delícia com as suas múltiplas narrativas.
(aqui entre nós tenho mesmo que ler mais livros dele)
Neste volume, entre o ensaio e a memória, Barnes fala da morte, da nossa intrincada e difícil relação com a morte, a fé e o luto. E porque parte da lembrança dos pais este livro é um poderoso texto sobre a família. Sobre os seus pais, o seu irmão - o filósofo - e os seus avós, em especial o avô Bertie.
O brilhantismo da escrita, a reflexão culta, a narrativa cheia de humor fazem deste livro uma bela companhia neste dia em que círculo entre análises clínicas e hospitais.
February 5, 2023
NÃO ACREDITO EM DEUS, mas sinto a Sua falta.
É assim que Julian Barnes começa, e depois ainda acrescenta:
Se me intitulei ateu aos vinte e agnóstico aos cinquenta e aos sessenta, não é porque tenha entretanto adquirido mais saber: apenas mais consciência da ignorância.
Através de algumas memórias da sua família – avós, pais e irmão - Julian Barnes desafia-nos, através dos seus pensamentos, a meditarmos e aprendermos sobre a inevitabilidade da morte, e a interrogarmo-nos sobre a religião.
Antecipar assim a morte é soltarmo-nos da sua servidão: além disso, se ensinamos uma pessoa a morrer, ensinamo-la a viver.
Com uma prosa requintada, em alguns momentos descontraída, Barnes não nos intimida. Vai-nos dando diversos pontos de vista recorrendo a muitos escritores e artistas favoritos: Chostakovich, Ravel, Zola, Flaubert, Somerset Maugham, Jules Renard, até William Faulkner que disse que o obituário dum escritor devia dizer: Escreveu livros e depois morreu.
As reflexões sobre a morte e sobre a religião são simultaneamente sérias e engraçadas, profundamente honestas e que nos trazem uma certa melancolia, mas como diz Richard Dawkins O universo não nos deve condolências nem consolação; não nos deve uma agradável sensação íntima de bem-estar. Se é verdade, é verdade, e o melhor é aprendermos a viver com isso. Morre e desaparece, é mesmo assim., ou como diríamos hoje em dia numa linguagem menos erudita, é lidar!
É assim que Julian Barnes começa, e depois ainda acrescenta:
Se me intitulei ateu aos vinte e agnóstico aos cinquenta e aos sessenta, não é porque tenha entretanto adquirido mais saber: apenas mais consciência da ignorância.
Através de algumas memórias da sua família – avós, pais e irmão - Julian Barnes desafia-nos, através dos seus pensamentos, a meditarmos e aprendermos sobre a inevitabilidade da morte, e a interrogarmo-nos sobre a religião.
Antecipar assim a morte é soltarmo-nos da sua servidão: além disso, se ensinamos uma pessoa a morrer, ensinamo-la a viver.
Com uma prosa requintada, em alguns momentos descontraída, Barnes não nos intimida. Vai-nos dando diversos pontos de vista recorrendo a muitos escritores e artistas favoritos: Chostakovich, Ravel, Zola, Flaubert, Somerset Maugham, Jules Renard, até William Faulkner que disse que o obituário dum escritor devia dizer: Escreveu livros e depois morreu.
As reflexões sobre a morte e sobre a religião são simultaneamente sérias e engraçadas, profundamente honestas e que nos trazem uma certa melancolia, mas como diz Richard Dawkins O universo não nos deve condolências nem consolação; não nos deve uma agradável sensação íntima de bem-estar. Se é verdade, é verdade, e o melhor é aprendermos a viver com isso. Morre e desaparece, é mesmo assim., ou como diríamos hoje em dia numa linguagem menos erudita, é lidar!
January 16, 2019
4 .5
I was drawn to this book because of Barnes' writing and because of the topic. If it sounds odd to say one enjoyed a book about the fear of death/complete-annihilation, so be it. Barnes is entertaining; erudite; and even chuckle-out-loud funny in this book. He writes of his childhood memories, how they differ from those of his brother; how narrative/story both shapes and changes what we remember or what we think we remember; and contemplates the idea of memory = identity.
I was drawn to this book because of Barnes' writing and because of the topic. If it sounds odd to say one enjoyed a book about the fear of death/complete-annihilation, so be it. Barnes is entertaining; erudite; and even chuckle-out-loud funny in this book. He writes of his childhood memories, how they differ from those of his brother; how narrative/story both shapes and changes what we remember or what we think we remember; and contemplates the idea of memory = identity.
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June 24, 2020" I don't believe in God, but I miss him " - a strong beginning, which attracts attention, expressing in a few words a very specific modern attitude : we enjoy the freedom of thought that we have gained over the last decades, but it scares us the spiritual void he brought with it .
Barnes's sarcastic-comic is present throughout the entire volume :
" Death folowed by ressurection - the climax of an happy-end tragedy ".
Modern people don't like to die, it's not that anyone ever like it, but the modern world does everything it can to forget that Death exists, that I, you, or those we love - will ever die.
A mixture of personal experiences, Barnes's book emphasizes precisely " the way we postpone boldly to think of death ".
It is already known that no speech, however beautiful it may be - cannot accustom us to the idea of death, but the absence of any discourse can make death truly frightening.
In his help, Barnes calls both those in his family, and those with whom he feels spiritual and literary : Renard, Flaubert, Stendhal, Goethe...
Despite the topic that may seem unattractive, Barnes's book is a good lesson for the reader, who - understanding death - has more chances to truly understand and live life. It is true, at the moment, the subject comes as inappropriate as possible, ( isn't ? ) but as I said, a good lesson does not choose its moment.
For a better understanding of the author, I recommend also his " The Levels Of Life " - where he speaks in a much more involved and painful way, about the death of his wife.
Definitely, Julian Barnes is a brilliant author, who uses an exceptional narrative thread, to the liking of any reader, I think.
Barnes's sarcastic-comic is present throughout the entire volume :
" Death folowed by ressurection - the climax of an happy-end tragedy ".
Modern people don't like to die, it's not that anyone ever like it, but the modern world does everything it can to forget that Death exists, that I, you, or those we love - will ever die.
A mixture of personal experiences, Barnes's book emphasizes precisely " the way we postpone boldly to think of death ".
It is already known that no speech, however beautiful it may be - cannot accustom us to the idea of death, but the absence of any discourse can make death truly frightening.
In his help, Barnes calls both those in his family, and those with whom he feels spiritual and literary : Renard, Flaubert, Stendhal, Goethe...
Despite the topic that may seem unattractive, Barnes's book is a good lesson for the reader, who - understanding death - has more chances to truly understand and live life. It is true, at the moment, the subject comes as inappropriate as possible, ( isn't ? ) but as I said, a good lesson does not choose its moment.
For a better understanding of the author, I recommend also his " The Levels Of Life " - where he speaks in a much more involved and painful way, about the death of his wife.
Definitely, Julian Barnes is a brilliant author, who uses an exceptional narrative thread, to the liking of any reader, I think.
June 9, 2019
Only last week I was walking through Highgate Cemetery in North London, seeking out the grave of George Eliot (and taking in Marx’s now that I was there, and a few others) when I happened to walk by the grave of Julian Barnes’s wife, who I didn’t know was buried there. By coincidence, I had been listening to Barnes reading aloud this volume, which was published just six months before his wife died. How apt that he should have delved into death just months before, how ironic and how sad.
‘Nothing to be frightened of’ is Barnes’s musings on death and dying and the likelihood of an afterlife (or not), as seen in literature and expressed by his own ‘folklore’ as he calls it: his memories of his parents’ deaths, his own fears and thoughts of death, discussions with his brother, with friends. It is part philosophizing and part anecdotal reminiscences, the combination of which strikes a fine balance that never makes it too intellectual or too sentimental or for that matter too morbid.
It was mesmerizing and intriguing to listen to Barnes reading this aloud and, I suspect, since he can thus add cadence and feeling to his own words on the printed page, even more poignant than had I merely read it, although I’ve no doubt I would have liked it just as much. But to a large extent the book also hit home because my own parents are dead, which means I’ve had to deal with some of the issues he points out here (although I’ve never woken up in the middle of the night because of an acute death fear, but of course that may come, Barnes being a few decades older than me). And yet, the powerfulness of the book, I think, is precisely because many of his thoughts are somehow universal, shared by any thinking member of the human race.
It impacted me for three main reasons, I think:
1. Its intrinsic interesting-ness: death is, after all, a topic none of us can avoid and which we have undoubtedly thought about at one point or another
2. Stylistic repetition of sentences, points, views, questions, that are introduced and then, some fifty pages or so later, re-introduced but now with a slightly different focus or backed by the preceding fifty pages and thus seen in a newer, more complex light
3. Barnes’ sincerity in elucidating the topic through not only literature, his forte, but also through his personal anecdotes. In fact, when he went off on somewhat more personal tangents (e.g. saying that he would quite like it if people visited his grave when he was dead, or his brief shared moments of togetherness with his father), I was moved and liked him even more.
I wouldn’t have expected to like a book about death so much, to be honest, but the potential moroseness of the topic is deftly avoided, mostly, because he sometimes adds a humorous touch. I absolutely loved it when, on occasion, this highly intellectual and intelligent man, who clearly chooses every word with great deliberation, suddenly sprung phrases on me like ‘the fury of the resurrected atheist’ or ‘…some celestial fucking point to it’. Barnes is pretty bloody terrific.
‘Nothing to be frightened of’ is Barnes’s musings on death and dying and the likelihood of an afterlife (or not), as seen in literature and expressed by his own ‘folklore’ as he calls it: his memories of his parents’ deaths, his own fears and thoughts of death, discussions with his brother, with friends. It is part philosophizing and part anecdotal reminiscences, the combination of which strikes a fine balance that never makes it too intellectual or too sentimental or for that matter too morbid.
It was mesmerizing and intriguing to listen to Barnes reading this aloud and, I suspect, since he can thus add cadence and feeling to his own words on the printed page, even more poignant than had I merely read it, although I’ve no doubt I would have liked it just as much. But to a large extent the book also hit home because my own parents are dead, which means I’ve had to deal with some of the issues he points out here (although I’ve never woken up in the middle of the night because of an acute death fear, but of course that may come, Barnes being a few decades older than me). And yet, the powerfulness of the book, I think, is precisely because many of his thoughts are somehow universal, shared by any thinking member of the human race.
It impacted me for three main reasons, I think:
1. Its intrinsic interesting-ness: death is, after all, a topic none of us can avoid and which we have undoubtedly thought about at one point or another
2. Stylistic repetition of sentences, points, views, questions, that are introduced and then, some fifty pages or so later, re-introduced but now with a slightly different focus or backed by the preceding fifty pages and thus seen in a newer, more complex light
3. Barnes’ sincerity in elucidating the topic through not only literature, his forte, but also through his personal anecdotes. In fact, when he went off on somewhat more personal tangents (e.g. saying that he would quite like it if people visited his grave when he was dead, or his brief shared moments of togetherness with his father), I was moved and liked him even more.
I wouldn’t have expected to like a book about death so much, to be honest, but the potential moroseness of the topic is deftly avoided, mostly, because he sometimes adds a humorous touch. I absolutely loved it when, on occasion, this highly intellectual and intelligent man, who clearly chooses every word with great deliberation, suddenly sprung phrases on me like ‘the fury of the resurrected atheist’ or ‘…some celestial fucking point to it’. Barnes is pretty bloody terrific.
May 1, 2011
In one of our bathrooms we keep a drum of water which is usually half-filled and always uncovered. Occasionally, for reasons I do not know, a rat would fall into it. There'd be no way for it to climb back out. And as no one in our household is plucky enough to handle a live rat, we'll just let it stay there until it tires and finally drowns. The big black ones succumb faster than the smaller ones. The record holder of sorts was a really tough, brown, less-than-medium-sized rat athlete who kept on swimming for almost three days. It robbed me of at least two chapters of the book I was then reading because instead of the book keeping me company while I take a dump, I was watching this rat frantically trying to keep its nose above water, its four feet in a nonstop climbing motion, unaware of the futility of it all.
Julian Barnes here, a multi-awarded novelist (see my review of his "Flaubert's Parrot" which gave me so much pleasure that it made me finally read Flaubert's Madame Bovary), did something like one of these rats in our drum of water. In the end he likewise drowned. Many readers disliked this book for this but I am giving his performance here five stars for it was far from a 244-paged monotonous rat swim. He exhibited vastly different strokes, leaped in the air like a dolphin, dove underneath the water, tried to climb the slippery wall of the drum, cried, laughed, reminisced, joked, prayed, cursed the meaningless void, expressed hope, shouted his despair, danced, and told anecdotes about his friends, family and writers (and oh, what stories he tells about them, both the living and the dead!).
He was already over 60 years old when he wrote this book. Apparentlly still healthy but with constant thoughts of his mortality and certain (for him) permanent obliteration. His maternal grandparents, his parents and his only sibling (a brother who teaches philosophy) were all either atheists or agnostics. He himself does not believe in God or in the afterlife ("Dead is dead," said Gertrude Stein, an author which Julian Barnes surprisingly never referenced). He explains his reasons, but does not preach or attempt to convert. Rather, with his humor, intelligence, wit and keen mind he explores every angle of life's big questions about God, death, the act of dying, absurdity versus meaning, eternal life, oblivion, existence and the void.
A brave effort and a mesmerizing performance.
Julian Barnes here, a multi-awarded novelist (see my review of his "Flaubert's Parrot" which gave me so much pleasure that it made me finally read Flaubert's Madame Bovary), did something like one of these rats in our drum of water. In the end he likewise drowned. Many readers disliked this book for this but I am giving his performance here five stars for it was far from a 244-paged monotonous rat swim. He exhibited vastly different strokes, leaped in the air like a dolphin, dove underneath the water, tried to climb the slippery wall of the drum, cried, laughed, reminisced, joked, prayed, cursed the meaningless void, expressed hope, shouted his despair, danced, and told anecdotes about his friends, family and writers (and oh, what stories he tells about them, both the living and the dead!).
He was already over 60 years old when he wrote this book. Apparentlly still healthy but with constant thoughts of his mortality and certain (for him) permanent obliteration. His maternal grandparents, his parents and his only sibling (a brother who teaches philosophy) were all either atheists or agnostics. He himself does not believe in God or in the afterlife ("Dead is dead," said Gertrude Stein, an author which Julian Barnes surprisingly never referenced). He explains his reasons, but does not preach or attempt to convert. Rather, with his humor, intelligence, wit and keen mind he explores every angle of life's big questions about God, death, the act of dying, absurdity versus meaning, eternal life, oblivion, existence and the void.
A brave effort and a mesmerizing performance.
November 4, 2021
Ölüm ve ölmek üzerine yazarın anıları ile desteklediği bir deneme kitabı. Züccaciye dükkanına fil girmiş gibi, karmakarışık, darmadağınık. Konu çok güzel ama yazar anıları (otobiyografi değil) arasına edebiyattan, sanattan alıntılar ve bilgiler yerleştirilmiş. Okuması zor ve yorucu bir o kadar da kasvetli bir kitap çıkmış ortaya. Eşini kaybettiği yıl yayınlanmış. Sanırım bir müddet Julian Barnes okumam.
June 8, 2025
‘Are we like those Antarctic penguins, or are they like us? We go to the supermarket, they slither and wobble across miles of ice to the open sea in search of food.
Monochromatic animals, and monochromatic (foot)balls. What else can I say? Julian Barnes — a writer I’ve overlooked/under-appreciated in the past, but have now found to be incredibly interesting. ‘Time’ is strange (needless to say).
But here is one detail the wildlife programmes omit. When the penguins approach the water’s edge, they begin to dawdle and loiter. They have reached food, but also danger; the sea contains fish, but also seals. Their long journey might result not in eating but getting eaten—in which case their offspring back in the penguin-huddle will starve to death and their own gene pool be terminated. So this is what the penguins do: they wait until one of their number, either more hungry or more anxious, gets to where the ice runs out, and is gazing down into the nutritious yet deadly ocean, and then, like a gang of commuters on a station platform, they nudge the imprudent bird into the sea. Hey, just testing! This is what those loveable, anthropomorphizable penguins are “really like.” And if we are shocked, they are at least behaving more rationally—more usefully, even more altruistically—than the gratuitous actor of our own species pushing a man from a train.
That penguin doesn’t have a would-you-rather. It is plunge or die—sometimes plunge and die. And some of our own would-you-rathers turn out to be equally hypothetical: ways of simplifying the unthinkable, pretending to control the uncontrollable.’
I have a soft spot for goalkeepers. And Julian Barnes was one, so colour me biased or whatever you know. That aside, the essays are brilliantly written (even though I don't necessarily agree with him half(?) of the time).
‘I was also, like Camus, a goalkeeper, if a less distinguished one. My last ever game was for the New Statesman against the Slough Labour Party. The weather was miserable, the goalmouth a mudpatch, and I lacked proper boots. After letting in five goals I was too ashamed to return to the dressing room, so drove, sodden and dispirited, straight back to my flat. What I learnt that afternoon about social and moral behaviour in a godless universe came from two small boys who wandered round behind my goal and briefly studied my flailing attempts to keep the Slough Labour Party at bay. After a few minutes, one observed cuttingly, “Must be a stand-in goalie.” Sometimes we are not just amateurs in our own lives, but made to feel like substitutes.
Nowadays, Camus’ metaphor is outdated (and not just because sport has become a zone of increasing dishonesty and dishonour). The air has been let out of the tyres of free will, and the joy we find in the beautiful game of life is a mere example of cultural copying. No longer: out there is a godless and absurd universe, so let’s mark out the pitch and pump up the ball. Instead: there is no separation between “us” and the universe, and the notion that we are responding to it as a separate entity is a delusion. If this is indeed the case, then the only comfort I can extract from it all is that I shouldn’t have felt so bad about letting in five goals against the Slough Labour Party. It was just the universe doing its stuff.’
‘And elsewhere, as if in confirmation of Browne: “Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.” This line perplexed me when I first read it. I am certainly melancholic myself, and sometimes find life an overrated way of passing the time; but have never wanted not to be myself anymore, never desired oblivion. I am not so convinced of life’s nullity that the promise of a new novel or a new friend (or an old novel or an old friend), or a football match on television (or even the repeat of an old match) will not excite my interest all over again. I am Browne’s unsatisfactory Christian—“too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life to come”—except that I am not a Christian.’
‘I understand (I think) that life depends on death. That we cannot have a planet in the first place without the previous deaths of collapsing stars; further, that in order for complex organisms like you and me to inhabit this planet, for there to be self-conscious and self-replicating life, an enormous sequence of evolutionary mutations has had to be tried out and discarded. I can see this, and when I ask “Why is death happening to me?” I can applaud the theologian John Bowker’s crisp reply: “Because the universe is happening to you.” But my understanding of all this has not evolved in its turn: towards, say, acceptance, let alone comfort. And I don’t remember putting in to have the universe happen to me.’
December 2, 2019
Looking out for death?
How entertaining and lightly can one write about death? Fatalistic, subdued and saddened, yes, that we can imagine. Or maybe rebellious and desperate? Or just the other way around: with religious confidence or even fanatical arrogance, that too. And finally, maybe even with indifference, cynicism and sarcasm. In this book Julian Barnes reviews all these emotions and attitudes towards mortality. Not as a systematic essay on how others think about death, on what religions or atheism tell us, or what science teaches us. Or rather: that too. Yet in the first place, he talks about how he himself struggles with the prospect of the end, and especially with how much trouble he has with imagining the long infinity that lies beyond the moment of death. Because Barnes makes no secret of it: he has an existential fear about his own mortality.
Lucky for us that fear doesn’t paralyze him (too much), quite the contrary. For about 250 pages he knows to keep our attention with continuous, pertinent questions about life, about being human, the free will, ageing, suffering and the always provisional answers to these questions. And as we have come to expect from Barnes he does so in a brilliant style. In this book it's raining quotes and references, especially from the 19th century French authors so beloved by him: Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, Jules Renard. But that’s not all: he also involves his friends, his own parents and especially his older brother-philosopher on this winding road, with sometimes upsetting intimate details.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I actually enjoyed reading this book about death and mortality, though it actually leads nowhere. But I can recommend it to any reader: you really have nothing to be frightened of.
How entertaining and lightly can one write about death? Fatalistic, subdued and saddened, yes, that we can imagine. Or maybe rebellious and desperate? Or just the other way around: with religious confidence or even fanatical arrogance, that too. And finally, maybe even with indifference, cynicism and sarcasm. In this book Julian Barnes reviews all these emotions and attitudes towards mortality. Not as a systematic essay on how others think about death, on what religions or atheism tell us, or what science teaches us. Or rather: that too. Yet in the first place, he talks about how he himself struggles with the prospect of the end, and especially with how much trouble he has with imagining the long infinity that lies beyond the moment of death. Because Barnes makes no secret of it: he has an existential fear about his own mortality.
Lucky for us that fear doesn’t paralyze him (too much), quite the contrary. For about 250 pages he knows to keep our attention with continuous, pertinent questions about life, about being human, the free will, ageing, suffering and the always provisional answers to these questions. And as we have come to expect from Barnes he does so in a brilliant style. In this book it's raining quotes and references, especially from the 19th century French authors so beloved by him: Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, Jules Renard. But that’s not all: he also involves his friends, his own parents and especially his older brother-philosopher on this winding road, with sometimes upsetting intimate details.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I actually enjoyed reading this book about death and mortality, though it actually leads nowhere. But I can recommend it to any reader: you really have nothing to be frightened of.
Currently reading
July 27, 2021When we fall in love, we hope—both egotistically and altruistically—that we shall be finally, truly seen: judged and approved. Of course, love does not always bring approval: being seen may just as well lead to a thumbs-down and a season in hell.
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I used to believe, when I was 'just' a reader, that writers, because they wrote books where truth was found, because they described the world, because they saw into the human heart, because they grasped both the particular and the general and were able to re-create both in free yet structured forms, because they understood, must therefore be more sensitive—also less vain, less selfish—than other people. Then I became a writer, and started meeting other writers, and studied them, and concluded that the only difference between them and other people, the only, single way in which they were better, was that they were better writers. They might indeed be sensitive, perceptive, wise, generalizing and particularizing—but only at their desks and in their books. When they venture out into the world, they regularly behave as if they have left all their comprehension of human behaviour stuck in their typescripts. It's not just writers either. How wise are philosophers in their private lives?
November 7, 2011
Fascinating, witty, and absorbing. This provocative memoir, ostensibly about Julian Barnes' fear of death and dying, and the nonexistence he thinks he faces afterwards, has lots of interesting things to say about belief and disbelief in God, about family, memory, and being a writer.
The tone throughout is personal, and somehow both serious and lighthearted, at times comical. (Aside to those who've read the opening pages -- I'll never be able to tell friends again with a straight face about how I was warned as a child that my dead Grandpa was watching from heaven to make sure that I was a good boy!)
Barnes says that he's been bothered most of his life by fears of death, still waking frightened from nightmares even now in his sixties. He treats us to funny and poignant stories of his childhood, his parents, maternal grandparents, and brother, with a special interest in their own views of their mortality and religion.
Throughout we see Barnes grappling with how others seemingly have a better grip on being mortal. His grandparents come off rather well, and his brother remains a touchstone of comparison and competition, especially in matters cerebral. The portrayal of Barnes' mother is especially strong, but to my mind becomes cruel in places in its tone and detail.
Along the way Barnes has interspersed topical discussions or stories of authors, artists, and philosophers, especially if they were French, nineteenth-century, and similarly death-obsessed men. The author's manner is conversational and anything but pedantic, even when Barnes is indulging his interest in words and grammar and writerly habit.
To end with a tiny bit of a spoiler -- the title is itself punny and misleading. I had thought the book was going to offer a rousing exhortation not to fear death. But actually, according to Barnes, it's not really so that with death we have nothing to fear; it's instead being nothing that we ought to be frightened of.
The tone throughout is personal, and somehow both serious and lighthearted, at times comical. (Aside to those who've read the opening pages -- I'll never be able to tell friends again with a straight face about how I was warned as a child that my dead Grandpa was watching from heaven to make sure that I was a good boy!)
Barnes says that he's been bothered most of his life by fears of death, still waking frightened from nightmares even now in his sixties. He treats us to funny and poignant stories of his childhood, his parents, maternal grandparents, and brother, with a special interest in their own views of their mortality and religion.
Throughout we see Barnes grappling with how others seemingly have a better grip on being mortal. His grandparents come off rather well, and his brother remains a touchstone of comparison and competition, especially in matters cerebral. The portrayal of Barnes' mother is especially strong, but to my mind becomes cruel in places in its tone and detail.
Along the way Barnes has interspersed topical discussions or stories of authors, artists, and philosophers, especially if they were French, nineteenth-century, and similarly death-obsessed men. The author's manner is conversational and anything but pedantic, even when Barnes is indulging his interest in words and grammar and writerly habit.
To end with a tiny bit of a spoiler -- the title is itself punny and misleading. I had thought the book was going to offer a rousing exhortation not to fear death. But actually, according to Barnes, it's not really so that with death we have nothing to fear; it's instead being nothing that we ought to be frightened of.
September 30, 2020
P. 161- ""Eu nunca tive medo da morte", responde Koestler, "mas sim de morrer" (...) Quase toda a gente teme uma com exclusão da outra; é como se não houvesse espaço suficiente para conter as duas. Se temos medo da morte, não temos medo de morrer; se temos medo de morrer, não temos medo da morte."
P. 216- "Morrer, que não faz parte da morte mas sim da vida, é a conclusão dessa narrativa, e o tempo que antecede a morte é a nossa última oportunidade de descobrir significado na história que está prestes a acabar."
P. 216- "Morrer, que não faz parte da morte mas sim da vida, é a conclusão dessa narrativa, e o tempo que antecede a morte é a nossa última oportunidade de descobrir significado na história que está prestes a acabar."
December 21, 2022
Bayıldım, bayıldım. "Herkes okusun" diyebileceğim bir kitap değil ama biraz yoğunlaşarak derinlikli bir okuma yapmaya hazır hissettiğiniz bir dönemde muhakkak el atın isterim bu kitaba. Kurgu eserleri kadar denemelerini de sevdiğim Julian Barnes'ın ölüme, yasa, ölüm korkusuna ve tabii tüm bunların kardeşi yaşama dair düşüncelerini içeren "Korkulacak Bir Şey Yok" kitabı acayip lezzetli.
Barnes, kendi anne ve babasının ölümlerinden başlayarak hem kendi hayatına kısmen otobiyografik bir bakış atıyor, hem de her zaman olduğu gibi sözü türlü yazarlara (Renard, Stendhal ve elbette ki Flaubert), müzisyenlere (Stravinsky, Şostakoviç...) getirip onların hayatlarından anekdotlarla zenginleştiriyor metni. O anekdotlar yeni düşünceler üretiyor, kitap derinleştikçe derinleşiyor.
Kimilerine dağınık bir metin gibi gelebilir ama ben öyle düşünmüyorum. Yazarın zihninde harika bir seyahate çıkmış gibi hissettim. Böyle derinlikli bir adamın iç sesini dinlemek gibi bir ayrıcalığa sahip olmama izin verilmişcesine haz duyarak okudum.
Yas deneyimi yaşamış biri olarak ölüme dair bu kadar ironik bir metin okumak ayrıca çok güzel ve teskin ediciydi. Zaten Barnes'ı ironiden bağımsız düşünmek mümkün mü? Bu büyük meselelerle meşgul kitabında her zaman olduğu gibi yer yer aşırı komik yazmış, bayılıyorum kendisinin mesafeli mizahına.
Eserlerinde sıklıkla gördüğümüz ana izlekleri (bellek, hafıza, hayal gücü, Tanrı, tarih, sanat vd.) ölüm fikri çerçevesinde irdeliyor yazar ve ortaya nefis ve müthiş kafa açıcı bir metin çıkartıyor. Sadece ölüm ve ölüm korkusu konusunda kafa yoranlar için değil, Barnes'ı biraz daha iyi tanımak isteyenler için de kesinlikle okunması gereken bir kitap olduğunu düşünüyorum. Çok sevdim!
Sırf Renard'ın olağanüstü "Kırk beş yaşındayım - bir ağaç olsaydım yaşlı olmazdım" cümlesini öğrenmemi sağladığı için bile bu kitabı öpebilirim gerçi ama Barnes'ın kendisinden de bir cümleyle bitireyim: "Edebiyat bu dünyanın neden oluştuğunu bize en iyi şekilde söylemiştir ve hâlâ da söylemektedir. Edebiyat bize aynı zamanda, bu dünyada en iyi nasıl yaşanacağını da söyleyebilir; gerçi bunu en etkili biçimde öyle yapıyormuş gibi gözükmediğinde gerçekleştirir."
Barnes, kendi anne ve babasının ölümlerinden başlayarak hem kendi hayatına kısmen otobiyografik bir bakış atıyor, hem de her zaman olduğu gibi sözü türlü yazarlara (Renard, Stendhal ve elbette ki Flaubert), müzisyenlere (Stravinsky, Şostakoviç...) getirip onların hayatlarından anekdotlarla zenginleştiriyor metni. O anekdotlar yeni düşünceler üretiyor, kitap derinleştikçe derinleşiyor.
Kimilerine dağınık bir metin gibi gelebilir ama ben öyle düşünmüyorum. Yazarın zihninde harika bir seyahate çıkmış gibi hissettim. Böyle derinlikli bir adamın iç sesini dinlemek gibi bir ayrıcalığa sahip olmama izin verilmişcesine haz duyarak okudum.
Yas deneyimi yaşamış biri olarak ölüme dair bu kadar ironik bir metin okumak ayrıca çok güzel ve teskin ediciydi. Zaten Barnes'ı ironiden bağımsız düşünmek mümkün mü? Bu büyük meselelerle meşgul kitabında her zaman olduğu gibi yer yer aşırı komik yazmış, bayılıyorum kendisinin mesafeli mizahına.
Eserlerinde sıklıkla gördüğümüz ana izlekleri (bellek, hafıza, hayal gücü, Tanrı, tarih, sanat vd.) ölüm fikri çerçevesinde irdeliyor yazar ve ortaya nefis ve müthiş kafa açıcı bir metin çıkartıyor. Sadece ölüm ve ölüm korkusu konusunda kafa yoranlar için değil, Barnes'ı biraz daha iyi tanımak isteyenler için de kesinlikle okunması gereken bir kitap olduğunu düşünüyorum. Çok sevdim!
Sırf Renard'ın olağanüstü "Kırk beş yaşındayım - bir ağaç olsaydım yaşlı olmazdım" cümlesini öğrenmemi sağladığı için bile bu kitabı öpebilirim gerçi ama Barnes'ın kendisinden de bir cümleyle bitireyim: "Edebiyat bu dünyanın neden oluştuğunu bize en iyi şekilde söylemiştir ve hâlâ da söylemektedir. Edebiyat bize aynı zamanda, bu dünyada en iyi nasıl yaşanacağını da söyleyebilir; gerçi bunu en etkili biçimde öyle yapıyormuş gibi gözükmediğinde gerçekleştirir."
September 1, 2012
Обожавам го. Изящен език и тънък хумор :)
Книгата е много по-мъдра отколкото бих могла да възприема на първо четене. С много литературни и философски препратки, освежени от тънкия хумор на Барнс.
Не мога да си представя как може да се говори толкова леко за нещо "тежко" като смъртта. Но ето че той успява.
Книгата е много по-мъдра отколкото бих могла да възприема на първо четене. С много литературни и философски препратки, освежени от тънкия хумор на Барнс.
Не мога да си представя как може да се говори толкова леко за нещо "тежко" като смъртта. Но ето че той успява.
November 1, 2014
You know, when you have that friend - the one you met years ago, when they were quite a bit older than you, and now you know them better you can understand properly how much more of the world they've seen than you have. And every so often, you'll find yourself in the same city as them, and you'll take them out for dinner or a coffee, and you'll ask them a question, something innocuous like "So what have you been up to, then?" and they'll talk. And then, the conversation moves further away from what they've been doing, and they're telling you about some of their other friends, and their family, and places they've been and things they've learned about the world, and all you're doing is occasionally asking questions to point what they're saying in a direction that is most interesting to you.
This book is like that.
Some of the time, Julian Barnes is talking about death. Sometimes he's talking abut Jules Renard, of whom I had never heard, but Julian Barnes seems to like him so I suppose he now comes under the heading of Friend Of A Friend. Sometimes he's telling anecdotes about him and his brother when they were little, or how his parents were before they died, or people he went to school with. Sometimes he's talking about his agnosticism, how God or an afterlife might work - and he just plays with the themes, like you would if you were thinking aloud in a conversation where the other person was genuinely interested in listening to you. I felt actively a part of the conversation while reading this book. It gave me food for thought, ideas about how the world works, I enjoyed it like I enjoy seeing that old friend and drawing out of them their ideas in one long conversation.
Sometimes it rambled. Two hundred pages later, Julian Barnes was still talking, and my coffee was cold. Sometimes I thought, these are very personal details about your family, Julian - I know your parents are dead, but I don't think I could be as blase as you about writing some of this stuff down and letting any old person in a bookshop pick it up and find it out. But I came away with the feeling that on some level, Julian Barnes and I are now friends. I wonder if he's like that in real life.
This book is like that.
Some of the time, Julian Barnes is talking about death. Sometimes he's talking abut Jules Renard, of whom I had never heard, but Julian Barnes seems to like him so I suppose he now comes under the heading of Friend Of A Friend. Sometimes he's telling anecdotes about him and his brother when they were little, or how his parents were before they died, or people he went to school with. Sometimes he's talking about his agnosticism, how God or an afterlife might work - and he just plays with the themes, like you would if you were thinking aloud in a conversation where the other person was genuinely interested in listening to you. I felt actively a part of the conversation while reading this book. It gave me food for thought, ideas about how the world works, I enjoyed it like I enjoy seeing that old friend and drawing out of them their ideas in one long conversation.
Sometimes it rambled. Two hundred pages later, Julian Barnes was still talking, and my coffee was cold. Sometimes I thought, these are very personal details about your family, Julian - I know your parents are dead, but I don't think I could be as blase as you about writing some of this stuff down and letting any old person in a bookshop pick it up and find it out. But I came away with the feeling that on some level, Julian Barnes and I are now friends. I wonder if he's like that in real life.
March 3, 2019
Clever – does it mean, disarmingly, “[THERE’S] Nothing ...”, or does it mean the existential dread of “[THE] Nothing ...”? Barnes looks at death both ways, revealing that what he thinks he is supposed to feel isn’t at all what he really feels.
Although this is essentially a meditation on death and religion, Barnes also spends a whack of it reminiscing about his family – brother, father, mother and grandparents. (He says this isn’t a memoir but it certainly reads like one.) Barnes uses his observations about his parents’ later years to good effect – his mother seems to have been a domineering and controlling character who couldn’t let him have a real relationship with his father, even during his father’s last hours. And Barnes’s brother, a philosopher, also has some very wry observations concerning their quite different views of their childhood and who their parents really were.
It’s about gods and religion as well as acceptance of death. But the two are not linked that closely, (you can be afraid of death even if you believe in some kind of afterlife, as Barnes makes pointed comments on in several places), and discussing atheism along with death is part of what makes this work too long and meandering.
So yes, it is full of witty and memorable observations, beautifully written and even entertaining, as you’d expect from Barnes; I read it twice, and leafed through it some more to re-read some of the many excerpts I’d highlighted. But it’s also unfocussed and repetitive. I became irritated with his extensive examples from (mostly French) philosophers even while I found his own and his familial experiences much more moving; I thought it was much too long for what should really be an essay.
3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 because I loved parts of it so much.
Although this is essentially a meditation on death and religion, Barnes also spends a whack of it reminiscing about his family – brother, father, mother and grandparents. (He says this isn’t a memoir but it certainly reads like one.) Barnes uses his observations about his parents’ later years to good effect – his mother seems to have been a domineering and controlling character who couldn’t let him have a real relationship with his father, even during his father’s last hours. And Barnes’s brother, a philosopher, also has some very wry observations concerning their quite different views of their childhood and who their parents really were.
It’s about gods and religion as well as acceptance of death. But the two are not linked that closely, (you can be afraid of death even if you believe in some kind of afterlife, as Barnes makes pointed comments on in several places), and discussing atheism along with death is part of what makes this work too long and meandering.
So yes, it is full of witty and memorable observations, beautifully written and even entertaining, as you’d expect from Barnes; I read it twice, and leafed through it some more to re-read some of the many excerpts I’d highlighted. But it’s also unfocussed and repetitive. I became irritated with his extensive examples from (mostly French) philosophers even while I found his own and his familial experiences much more moving; I thought it was much too long for what should really be an essay.
3.5 stars but rounded up to 4 because I loved parts of it so much.
April 7, 2010
On and on he goes! Where he stops, no one knows!
With a great title like that and a cover showing me a grave, I expected sooooo much more. What a bummer.
What I got were the rambling thoughts of the author on his eventual demise, the demise of his parents, what (drop in big name -preferably French- philosopher/artist here) thought, and what his friends C., G., H. and T. think about death. (I hate that initial shit. Make up a name if they want to be anonymous.)
None of this seemed to flow or come together.
The only part I enjoyed, and why this book is a low 2 star rating in stead of a 1 star was the following passage:
"In June 2006, at a Kiev zoo, a man lowered himself by rope into the island compound where the lions and tigers are kept... one witness quoted him as saying... "God will save me, if He exists." The metaphysical provocateur reached the ground, took off his shoes, walked towards the animals; whereupon an irritated lioness knocked him down and bit through his carotid artery. Does this prove a) the man was mad; b) God does not exist; c) God does exist but will not be lured into the open by such cheap tricks; d)God does exist and has just demonstrated the He is an ironist; e) none of the above."
That did give me a good laugh. I'd like to propose another option, f) a, c, and d are correct.
Other than that, I felt the book was a waste. I think we can have a better conversation regarding that topic here on Goodreads.
Are you afraid?
With a great title like that and a cover showing me a grave, I expected sooooo much more. What a bummer.
What I got were the rambling thoughts of the author on his eventual demise, the demise of his parents, what (drop in big name -preferably French- philosopher/artist here) thought, and what his friends C., G., H. and T. think about death. (I hate that initial shit. Make up a name if they want to be anonymous.)
None of this seemed to flow or come together.
The only part I enjoyed, and why this book is a low 2 star rating in stead of a 1 star was the following passage:
"In June 2006, at a Kiev zoo, a man lowered himself by rope into the island compound where the lions and tigers are kept... one witness quoted him as saying... "God will save me, if He exists." The metaphysical provocateur reached the ground, took off his shoes, walked towards the animals; whereupon an irritated lioness knocked him down and bit through his carotid artery. Does this prove a) the man was mad; b) God does not exist; c) God does exist but will not be lured into the open by such cheap tricks; d)God does exist and has just demonstrated the He is an ironist; e) none of the above."
That did give me a good laugh. I'd like to propose another option, f) a, c, and d are correct.
Other than that, I felt the book was a waste. I think we can have a better conversation regarding that topic here on Goodreads.
Are you afraid?
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