A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the seventh book by Julian Barnes that I am reviewing here, with The Sense of an Ending being, in my view, the best. In comparison, A History of the World, a collection of 10 short stories (chapters) plus an essay about love, seems to work only partially.

Many of the stories are thematically linked: Noah's Ark and ocean travel are recurring motifs. Also, there is another, humorously amusing connection between the chapters: the motif of a particular species of invertebrate animal, which appears in most stories.

Alas, not all stories—maybe through a fault of mine—resonate with me. I like the chapter titled Project Ararat the best: a story of an astronaut who, while walking on the moon, hears God's voice telling him to find Noah's Ark's final resting place. I find the chapter titled The Wars of Religion hilarious. The author produces authentically sounding legal documents—plaintiff's pleadings, defendant lawyers' responses, plaintiff's responses to responses, etc.—from the year 1520 to create an almost complete documentation of court proceedings against that particular species of invertebrate animal.

In one of the chapters, the author tells the depressing story of the St. Louis liner, on which over 900 Jewish refugees tried to escape from Hitler's Germany in May of 1939. Cuba and then the US refused to admit the refugees, and the liner had to return to Europe, where several countries, after long negotiations, finally accepted them.

Let me also mention what I think is a rare occurrence in a paperback. The story Shipwreck comes with a centerfold color reproduction of the famous painting Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.

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