A History of the World In 10 1/2 Chapters

by JulianBarnes (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $14.04

  Beginning with an unlikely stowaway's account of life on board Noah's Ark, A History of the World in 10� Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission. We journey to the Titanic, to the Amazon, to the raft of the Medusa, and to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin...This is no ordinary history, but something stranger, a challenge and a delight for the reader's imagination. Ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious, this is the work of a brilliant novelist.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.28

  A stowaway aboard Noah's Ark gives us his account of the Voyage - a surprising, subversive one, quite unlike the official version - which explains a lot about how the human race has subsequently developed. A guest lecturer on a cruise ship in the Aegean has his work interrupted by a group of mysterious visitors who place him in a cruel dilemma. An ecclesiastical court in medieval France hears a bizarre case ...Barnes creates a kaleidoscope of narrative voices - from fiction and fact, painting and snatches of autobiography - that comes slowly and compellingly into focus.'You will want to read it again and again, and why not? There's nothing around to touch it' - Anne Smith, Literary Review. 'There is more moral and intellectual fodder, and more jokes, here than you will read in a month of Sundays ...storytelling and teaching which captivate, liberate, and above all, enchant' - Financial Times. 'Funny, ironic, erudite, surprising, and not afraid to take a dive overboard into the depths of sorrow and loss. My novel of the year' - Nadine Gordimer.