Nothing to be Frightened Of
by
Julian Barnes
Order:
USA
Can
Vintage, 2009 (2008)
Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
I
n
Nothing to be Frightened Of
, Julian Barnes (bestselling author of
Arthur & George
as well as numerous other novels) gives readers a rather philosophic, and often amusing, treatise on mortality and family, often comparing his own views with those of his philosopher brother (who has taught the discipline '
at Oxford, Geneva, and the Sorbonne
'). Musings on mortality are set in the context of literature and literati.
B
arnes' opening, '
I don't believe in God, but I miss him
', immediately caught my attention. He talks about his grandparents, including his colorful grandmother. A socialist, she '
had progressed to being a communist
' as an old-age pensioner! He analyses the unreliability of childhood memories via the differences between his own and his elder brother's. He shares growing up with a '
family background of attenuated belief combined with brisk irreligion
', talks of the deaths of his parents, and about his own musings on mortality '
as evenings fall, as the days shorten, or towards the end of a long day's hiking.
'
I
love the Indian leather pouffe - my family had one too, though ours wasn't stuffed with shredded parental love letters. But these nostalgic (for me anyway, with similarities from a British childhood) anecdotes offer light relief from the more serious discussion of death. As Montaigne and his predecessors told us, '
To be a philosopher is to learn how to die.
' Barnes delves into implications of increased longevity (assumed as a right nowadays), the nature of happiness and belief, fear of death, and his approach to writing. He compares
The Novel
that '
tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths
' with world religions which tell '
A beautiful, shapely story containing hard, exact lies.
'
T
hough a front cover (
NY Times Book Review
) quote calls this volume funny, the Brit humor is wry and dry, not always accessible to a North American audience. Barnes analyses
The Rapture
as the '
action-man, X-rated, disaster-movie version of the world's end
' and offers
cryonics
as an answer for
thanato-liberals
- until, as has already happened in France, an electric malfunction leaves the living with '
every freezer-owner's nightmare.
' But he also looks hard at the indignities and losses of old age, in particular '
the mind's fall from grace
' through dementia ... '
Identity is memory, I told myself; memory is identity.
'
P
art meandering memoir, part exploration of life, death and everything in between, this is an intriguing read, if only for nuggets like the Flaubert quote, '
Everything must be learned, from reading to dying
', with the author's apt addendum that '
we don't get much practice at the latter.
' If death and dying are ever on your mind - and they preoccupy most of us at one time or another before they finally demand our attention - then you really must read
Nothing to be Frightened Of
.
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