Levels of Life

I liked the way he integrated seemingly unrelated events in the first part of the book into his grieving for his late wife in the second part. Quite ingenious I thought. A touching book - very memorable.

Very touching. Deceptively simple language. He is an artist and this book showed how deeply he has suffered the loss of a great love. I identified very closely with his sentiments and marvelled at his ability to transmit them.

Had an unknown writer submitted this manuscript, I doubt that it would have been published. The 1st part are small, tenously linked historical vignettes on ballooning and the rest is a long essay on the author's experience of grieving after the death of his beloved wife. It's good writing and would make a good piece in the New Yorker but does not merit being sold as a book, an expensive one at that. I felt cheated. Joan Didion's book after the death of her husband really is worthy of being published as a book.

This was one of the worst books I have read in some time. Perhaps if you are a devout atheist you can identify with this book. The author's certainty with this being a cold empty universe with the end of human life passing into nothing I find arrogant and overly confident. I am a physician and I have been l present when many patients died. It is a complicated experience and leaves me with one certainty. Man has minimal understanding of the complexities of the universe and none of our beliefs is certain. With Mr. Barnes' one dimensional experience of loss and grief I don't believe his account will resonate with a large portion of the population. The first half of the book also makes unclear contribution to his theme. Save yourself some money and time. Read something else.

Julian Barnes is incapable of writing a dull paragraph or a shapeless sentence. This short book puts together three narratives centered on love, on flying, and on the loss of love. Barnes has always been good at delineating emotion, and he does not fail here.

The first two parts, mainly about ballooning with a possibly apocryphal story about Sarah Bernhardt and one of her lovers, are vintage Barnes work. Swift, spare, and fascinating.

The third part is Barnes' grief narrative, about the death of his wife and about his grief. Lots of writers have written beautiful grief narratives - Alan Paton, CS Lewis, Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates among them. Each of these writers, while sharing the experience of grieving a spouse, comes up with a work wholly characteristic of themselves and deeply moving. Writers write - that's how they deal with experience. CS Lewis tried to figure out how death and loss fits in with his God, Alan Paton concentrated on the wonderful nature of his wife, Joan Didion on the unbelievability and starkness of grief, and Joyce Carol Oates wrote a very long and discursive day by day account of her grief and gradual recovery, with some guilt thrown in. Characteristic each one of them.

Griefs are similar (the world indifferent to the tragedy, the misery of life without the loved one, the unfamiliarity of familiar experiences, the inability to tell stories to the loved one, the unfairness and unfathomability of it all) but personal as well. Just as his predecessors were true to their writerly selves, Barnes is his usual spare, perfectly phrased and devastating self in this book.

If you've lost a spouse you'll recognize his experience and enjoy his superb way of describing it. If not, take this as a report from a country you may well visit someday. Worth reading in either case, with the bonus pleasure of figuring out how the first two narratives connect to the third.

In this short book, Barnes gives an intimate picture of his on-going grief over the death of his wife in 2008. It is not easy reading as it touches on aspects of grief that most of us will have faced at some time and will either still be going through or will with luck have moved on from. He starts with a contemplation of ballooning as a metaphor for love raising us to a higher level, but the bulk of the book is about how he has lived with his grief, including his musings on whether he would or will commit suicide.

I would prefer not to give this a 'star-rating' as it surely cannot be defined as 'I love it', 'It's OK' etc., but the store's review system doesn't allow for the unrated or unrateable. It is undoubtedly skilfully written and moving in parts. It is, and I'm sorry to say it, also self-indulgent - while accepting that other people have undoubtedly undergone grief, Barnes writes as if he is the first to truly experience and understand it. It also seemed strange that this man in his sixties writes as if he is encountering grief for the first time in his life. I suspect he is subtly making a case for the grief of an uxorious husband (he uses the word uxorious himself, several times) being greater than other griefs.

I would, I suspect, have found this deeply moving had it been a letter from a close friend, but its intimacy is too intense - it left me with an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism. He criticises, in ways that I'm sure would enable them to recognise themselves, his friends' attempts to console him with clichéd expressions of condolence and encouragement. Have we not all felt that? But have we not all understood the genuine warmth behind these clichés and forgiven the clumsiness? Indeed, have we not all been as clumsy when the situation was reversed? But I think it is his musing on the possibility of his own suicide, a future he does not wholly rule out, that left me feeling I had read a private letter addressed to someone else.

We will all react differently to this book and for some it may provide comfort to know that the feelings we feel are not unique to us. I wish I could have written an uncritical review of this - I considered not posting a review at all, but it seems to me that some people will be misled by the publisher's blurb, as I was, and find themselves reading not a novel about 'ballooning, photography, love and grief' but an essay on Barnes' personal road through his own grief - a road it seems he is still travelling.

I am a big fan of Julian Barnes and believe his Sense of an Ending was truly one of the great novels of our times. Here, with Levels of Life, Barnes moves into memoir with mixed results. This felt much more like a book of essays than a book being sold as memoir. It's certainly not all bad, how could it be from Julian Barnes? I thought the portion of the book that dealt with the loss of his beloved wife was gut wrenching, powerful writing. Yet, the book didn't flow for me in any way that tied the sum of its parts together. However, for the writing on grief alone, I recommend you read this. If you have no other expectations going in than reading his shattering portrait of grief (told far too seldom from a man's viewpoint), it's still worth every cent. I just can't honestly say the book - as a whole - worked for me. I suppose my problem is the tapestry stye of this book, I certainly have no quibbles with the writing of Julian Barnes - who is a master with words.

"Levels of Life" is about death (in a way like no other) and it is extremely sad (but not maudlin). The first two sections are so matter-of-fact that the third hits you like a ton of bricks. It's all very quick; 124 pages. It's all done with Julian Barnes' deft touch.

"The Sin of Height" skims the highlights of the early attempts to get airborne. We're in the late 19th Century and Barnes compares and contrasts the efforts of Colonel Fred Burnaby and Felix Tournachon with the science and art of ballooning. Barnes is fascinated by the view from above and the view and attitude of those on the ground--how both perspectives were changed by photography in the name of art and understanding. Getting airborne changed the human perspective. At end of this section, Barnes leaps ahead a century to astronaut William Anders, circling the moon on Christmas Eve in 1968 and photographing the Earth, for the first time, with the moon in the foreground. "To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us psychic shock," he writes. But where is Barnes going with all of this?

Actress and ballooning enthusiast Sarah Bernhardt moves front and center in the second section, "On the Level," in which Barnes explores the relationship/courtship between Bernhardt and Fred Burnaby. Barnes imagines their verbal dance, their circling each other--and the impact on Burnaby when Bernhardt ultimately goes her own way. These are two very different people whose worlds have come together, or at least passing in the night.

"On the Level" reads the most like fiction but by now we are lulled into Barnes' plain storytelling style so it's easy to imagine that Burnaby's pleadings and gentle persuasions were recorded verbatim. "Madam Sarah, we are all incomplete. I am just as incomplete as you. That is why we seek another person. For completion." Later, Barnes imagines that Burnaby wondered if Bernhardt had been "on the level" with him, whether she had deceived him in any way. "No, Fred Barnaby concluded, she had been on the level. It was he who had deceived himself. But if being on the level didn't shield you from pain, maybe it was better to be up in the clouds."

Pain is the topic of the third section, "The Loss of Depth." Julian Barnes processes the loss of his wife. They had been married for 30 years when she suddenly got ill and died within a few short weeks; 37 days, to be precise. The loss was five years ago (in 2008). "I was thirty-two when we met, sixty-two when she died. The heart of my life; the life of my heart."

This section is hard to summarize. Each grieving period is unique, Barnes points out, and it seems to me that Barnes put himself up to that challenge--of detailing that grief and how it was processed. How it is still being processed. There's no uplift here, just raw pain. Grief is always looking for "new ways to prick you." Barnes weaves in the themes from the first two sections--love (of course) and yearning and gaining new perspectives from new altitudes, new attitudes and putting things in focus (or not). Clarity is as fleeting as the shadow of your balloon on the cloud below. Your journey through grief is subject to the wind, the breezes, the fates. You are not in control. You might crash. Grief may prompt you to consider managing your own mortal end. Yes, Barnes goes all the way down to the depths, contemplating self-destruction. There is no bottom, only the void.

On the other hand, if you process the emotions just right, you might also be able to float above it all and light a cigar, contemplate how you ended up here, needing to jettison some ballast and hoping to catch a northerly breeze. In fact, Barnes seems to be saying, we should always be wondering: how did I get here, floating in space?

"Levels of Life" is a brilliant book--part memoir, part reflection, part essay, part fiction and full, ironically enough, of life. And very much one of a kind.

Julian Barnes had a love affair with his wife of 30 years. He was 32 when they met, 62 when she died in 2008. As one of the best English writers writing today, he is able to tell us in poignant prose what grief feels like for him. The first two sections of the book are stories about others, but the final section describes his grief experience, making references to the first two stories.

He quotes E.M. Forster: "One death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another."

Barnes continues, "So grief in turn becomes unimaginable: not just its length and depth, but its tone and texture, its deceptions and false dawns, its recidivism."

"Griefs do not explain one another, but they may overlap. And so there is a complicity among the grief-struck. Only you know what you know - even if it is just that you know different things. You have stepped through a mirror, as in some Cocteau film, and find yourself in a world reordered in logic and pattern."

Barnes ponders his grief and his life without his wife Pat. "I mourn her uncomplicatedly and absolutely. This is my good luck, and also my bad luck. Early on, the words came into my head: I miss her in every action, and in every inaction."

He describes the land of Grief: "Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been picked out and given names? It also reconfigures space. You have entered a new geography, mapped by a new cartography....In this new-found-land there is no hierarchy, except that of feeling, of pain."

My mother leads grief groups. You can't judge or "review" someone else's grief journey I have learned from her. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There are better ways of being there for those grieving. Often what we do or say isn't helpful because we haven't traveled ourselves into the land of grief, as Barnes describes in his account. What we think might comfort has the opposite effect. (If you want to be helpful to those grieving, there is research on what you can do or say to comfort those grieving.*) Mostly what you can do is listen, and ask: "Is there anything I can do for you? Tell me what you need." Often it's just your presence and your listening silence that is wanted. Often they need to talk about their loved one. Barnes writes: "...she exists not really in the present, not wholly in the past, but in some intermediate tense, the past-present. Perhaps this is why I relish hearing even the slightest new thing about her: a previously unreported memory, a piece of advice she gave years ago, a flashback of her in ordinary animation."

Four years after Pat's death, Barnes writes: "There are moments which appear to indicate some kind of progress. When the tears - the daily, unavoidable tears - stop. When concentration returns and a book can be read as before."

He continues, "When the world reverts to being 'just' the world, and life feels once more as if it is taking place flat on the level. These may sound like clear markers, boxes awaiting a tick. But among any success there is much failure, much recidivism."

Only about 10-20% of marriages are true love affairs such as the kind Barnes and his wife shared a renowned marriage researcher wrote. It makes sense that in proportion as we love, we grieve proportionally. That's one reason why no one can judge someone else's grief. If you have enjoyed Barnes' other books, you will appreciate an insight into his personal life and thoughts. If you want to understand grief better through the lens of one experience, Barnes articulately shares his experience. His description makes you wish you had known his wife, Pat, and is a tribute to her.

* (For those wanting to be a comfort for those grieving, grieving has only been seriously researched in the past few years. What researchers are learning is what helps grieving people the most isn't necessarily what is conventionally taught or practiced in recovery programs. A grief researcher at Columbia University, Dr. George Bonnanno, says that scientific methodology has never been rigorously applied to grief research previously. Dr. Bonnanno is doing that research now. His research indicates that folks don't grieve in rigid stages. They vacillate between sadness and normality. Feelings often come in waves. What helps most people recover? The good stuff, Bonnanno says: flexibility, humor, positive experiences, new experiences and bonds with friends. "People want to share some kind of experience and adapt with each other," Bonnanno says. "Grief is a process of finding comfort. It doesn't have to be painful all the time.")

Julian Barnes does melancholy and grief with such beautiful restraint, and not the kind that comes off as self-denying or repressed but, instead, feels sacred. There is distance and privacy. He writes: "I look at my key ring (which used to be hers): it holds only two keys, one to the front door of the house and one to the back gate of the cemetery.” Just a glimmer into his life is enough.

Barnes never rips open his heart for us, and yet there's no doubt about his pain and the trauma of his wife's death. But for Barnes's meditative essay on his personal grief, what gives Levels of Life such power and incandescence for me is his weaving of history, fiction, and personal diary. Each mode by itself is solid, but together the writing becomes elevated, incendiary and moving. Flickers of historical account (the days of ballooning) are mixed in with personal anecdotes and reflections in this marvel of intertwined prose. And yet the writing never gets baggy. It is plain and never deflects or obfuscates. Barnes gives us an honest look at what grief does. Barnes also never breaches the privacy of his wife's memory and yet she hovers in the book, the driving force of his words.

Barnes begins with the observation that “you put two things together that have not been put together before. And the world is changed.” Economic progress, artistic expression, scientific advancement, and even the heart and life of a man. The inverse of that: that those two things can be separated and the world can fall apart, is a shadow on the rest of the book, and there is a great, yawning journey before we reach that wrenching realization.

"You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn't matter. The world has been changed nonetheless." The book has three parts with profoundly meaningful and beautifully poetic titles--The sin of Height, On the Level, and The Loss of depth. First part is about the aerostatic photography by Felix Tournachon (Nadar), Second part, about the love between Sarah Burnhardt and Fred Burnaby, and the third, his grief over the death of his wife. I was first intrigued by the choice of photography and ballooning, and quickly was absorbed by the history and the monumental effect on the perspectives, as the writer uses paintings--Simon Magus, to Eye Balloon, "the eye in the sky" and then the photograph of the earth "Earthrise" from a lunar module. The love story between Burnhardt and Burnaby is prelude to the inevitable grief over the death of love in the third chapter which is the most candid and emotional of the three. I have read quite a few books on the subject of grief and I believe this is probably the best. He quotes, E.M. Forster, "One death explains itself, but it throws no light upon another" and the book ends with the ballooning image, "All that has happened is that from somewhere--or nowhere--an unexpected breeze has sprung up, and we are in movement again. But where are we being taken? To Essex? The German Ocean? Or, if that wind is northerly, then, perhaps, with luck, to France."

This brief book contains three personal essays by Julian Barnes. The first chapter explores the history of hot air ballooning, and, to be completely honest, I was often bored while reading the details of various balloon flights. The history is presented as a series of vignettes, and the overall effect is a bit disjointed and halting. The second essay is also historical in nature and covers a love affair. I found this one to be more engaging than the first but still not as interesting as I had hoped from an writer as great as Julian Barnes. The final essay is, by far, the most personal of the three. It covers Barnes's own grief over the death of his wife of 30 years. This essay is touching and sensitive and worth the price of the book. If I were to recommend this to a friend, I would say read the first two chapters if you have some extra time and are interested in ballooning, but don't miss the final chapter.

Julian Barnes, who is just as good at nonfiction as fiction, has in his latest LEVELS OF LIFE pulled together three widely different things and woven them into a fascinating piece of writing. "You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn't matter." These sentences open the beginning section of the book called "The Sin of Height," about ballooning. The second "On the Level" begins with "You put together two things that have not been put together before; and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't." He writes further: "You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash." Here Colonel Burnaby and the actress Sarah Bernhardt make appearances. Previously they were balloonists; here they have a brief affair. Burnaby falls hopeless for Bernhardt, who can only be described as a piece of work. "She slept with all her leading men." They are both-- supposedly-- on the level but when he pledges his love to her and proposes marriage, she responds by comparing marriage to ballooning and informs him that "I shall never take that heavier-than-air-machine with anyone." They then crash and burn figuratively. Mr. Barnes reminds the reader that every love story is a potential grief story. "If not at first, then later." (As we see in the final third of the book.)

Then in the final portion "The Loss of Depth" Mr. Barnes pens a heartbreaking treatise on grief: "You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon to a fire balloon: do you prefer crash and burn, or burn and crash? But sometimes it works, and something new is made, and the world is changed. Then at some point, sooner or later, for this reason or that, one of them is taken away. And what is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible." Mr. Barnes writes of the short illness and death of his wife of thirty years: "The heart of my life; the life of my heart." He writes now four years out from her death that he probably will not attempt suicide-- something he once contemplated -- because he has realized that by remaining alive, she remains alive, at least in his memory. This is why he wants friends to talk about her and wishes that those who do not would. And he brings up the problem we all face when we see recently bereaved friends: we hardly know what to say, or whether to say anything about the deceased. I was reminded once again that grieving is a solitary and lonely affair, regardless of how many well-meaning and loving friends and family we have.

Strangely, one of the things that helped Mr. Barnes in his grief was going to opera performances-- something that totally took him [and me] by surprise; but he realized that "Opera cuts to the chase--as death does. . . an art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart." As in the past, Mr. Barnes is not above calling out his friends on this side of the Atlantic. An American friend of his wife's reminded him within weeks of her death that those who have been in happy marriages often remarry within six months. "She meant it encouragingly, abut this fact, if it was one (perhaps it only applies in the States, where emotional optimism is a constitutional duty), shocked me."

As we would expect from a writer of Mr. Barnes' stature, the language he uses to describe his grief is painfully beautiful. He writes of a passage he wrote thirty years ago in a novel of a man widowed in his sixties and what it would be like-- a passage he read at his wife's funeral-- that hits you head-on: "[People say] you'll come out of it. . . And you do come out of it, that's true. But you don't come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the Downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling decent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil slick; you are tarred and feathered for life."

I have always enjoyed Julian Barnes' books tremendously, and so ordered - and commenced reading - this book, without the slightest idea (nor did my copy give any hint) that this book is a memoir of grief over the death of his wife. Short (124 pages), Levels Of Life is divided into three distinct sections: The Sin of Height (snippets of early balloon flight); On the Level (romance of Sarah Bernhardt and Fred Burnaby - unclear whether Burnaby is an historical or fictional figure); The Loss of Depth (Mr. Barnes' account of grappling with the death of his wife). I deliberately use the word "death" as Mr. Barnes shows great disdain for euphemisms for death. The main theme of height refers to perspective: distance (such as from a balloon above the earth) allows for perspective; being "on the level" is immersion in the here and now.

Really a reflection (concluded four years to the day of her death, per Wikipedia) of Mr. Barnes' grief process, framed by the use of height/level/depth literally and figuratively, this book is brutally honest and really at times painful to read, as he shares the outward effects and inner thoughts where his grief takes him. "You put together two people who have not been put together before...And what is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible." Love partners with grief; grief takes away the "wider pattern."

Because he apparently does not believe in God ("I believe dead is dead."), musings about the "the indifference of life merely continuing until it merely ends" take the grief to places where the believer might not necessarily go in the grief process. There is no sugar-coating here: the overwhelming desire to continue to interact with his dead wife (he converses with her, but acknowledges that he "cannot voice her reaction to new events"; he wills her to come to him in his dreams); and allows himself to plan for suicide. He reads obituaries and measures years of marriage; he is angry with the populace at large - why did the sun rise today; my beloved is dead - but in his introspection, forgets entirely that other human beings may, unbeknownst to him, be suffering under a similar burden they are dealing with: "there is no hierarchy, except that of feeling of pain. Who has fallen from the greater height, who has spilt more organs on the ground?" And in grief, the patterns of living are destroyed, and going further, he says that grief itself "destroys ...the belief that any pattern exists."

When contemplating suicide, it occurs to him that by killing himself, he would also be killing her, so then he wonders how he is to go on living - "as she would have wanted me to." But what is also lost, is his chief corroborator of his own self.

I suppose that for Mr. Barnes this written grief journey is cathartic. Frankly, I was becoming more than a bit uncomfortable reading it - and was only relieved when he finally wrote the following, which put his own grief (much of which is likely universal) into perspective - he gained some height: "But there are many traps and dangers in grief, and time does not diminish them. Self-pity, isolationism, world-scorn, an egotistical exceptionalism: all aspects of vanity." I was relieved, because as I read I found myself accusing Mr. Barnes of all of those things.

Of course, this is a finely-written book. Not at all what I was expecting, as I had no hint whatsoever of what it is about. I feel for Mr. Barnes. I am sorry for his journey, but then again as he says, "Every love story is a potential grief story."

I loved READING this book but ended up not liking (admiring) the book very much. It is absorbed with great ease, the prose simple, the stories (particularly about Burnaby and Bernhardt, who far outshine, in the life with which they're herein endowed, Barnes and Kavanagh) captivating. One may wonder at times how the various stories and themes connect (I mean, if you didn't know that the book is about a man's losing his wife, you might wonder just what the third part is doing here), but if you do know, then you are almost hit over the head (but gratefully, I must admit) by this kind of thematic summation in advance (on p. 39 out of 128): "So why do we constantly aspire to love? Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning."

There are some wonderful lines: "He could hear himself living." And paragraphs: Barnes's passing under the bridge that was meant to carry the Eurostar into St Pancras and realizing that he and his late wife would never get to go together on this journey, "And so this unoffending bridge came to stand for part of our lost future, for all the spurts and segments and divagations of life that we would now never share...."

Indeed, in the rest of this fine paragraph (p. 103) Barnes seems to make reference to the very things that are missing in this book, those things that would, if he had written about them, add up to the life that's missing from the book (and that he seems afraid of mentioning, as if to soil not his memory of his wife but our acceptance of her). As a result, this becomes a book about death and not very much about life (not about his life with her; which is why we miss about them what we get about Burnaby and Bernhardt. (Those who know specifically about the Barnes/Kavanagh relationship will know what is being referred to when Barnes says, "...times of falling short;" since the author didn't seem to want to bring their actual LIFE into the book, it is not the place for a reader to do that either.)

Oh, there's a great Mencken quote here (p. 111), which seems to inspire one of Barnes's own best remarks. And it's wonderful to see him invoking the concept of Sehnsucht (the title in German of the novel LONGING).

One slightly troubling matter: since there's no bibliography or any other acknowledgment concerning the historical parts of this book, it is hard to know if some of it is fictionalized. For example, this about Burnaby: "He pondered. Lead with the ace, he thought. Best foot forward, best story forward." It would be nice for the reader to know how Barnes knows what Burnaby was thinking.

There is much with which to find fault here. On the other hand, there is much to...ponder. Don't take my ambivalent word for it. Read the book.

Along with its kissing cousin, love, grief as a subject is a staple in fiction, poetry and essays. Maudlin, confessional and sentimental screeds fill bookshelves and consume gigabytes. Yet as Julian Barnes demonstrates in this short but potent book, sometimes coming at a subject sideways exposes penetrating insights that are lost when the light and the words are too direct.

Barnes begins in the 19th-century air, with a brief history of ballooning, in a section called “The Sin of Height.” Pioneers like the Frenchman Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, aka Nadar, and the Englishman Captain Fred Burnaby braved the caprices of wind and weather and fire to glimpse and, in Nadar’s case, to photograph our world from the air. Futurists of that time looked forward to a “heavier-than-air” machine that would not be subject to the vagaries of wind and therefore would be a reliable workhorse on this new plane. “Height was moral, height was spiritual. Height, some thought, was even political: Victor Hugo believed, quite simply, that heavier-than-air flight would lead to democracy.... This sounds high-flown, overinflated. And aeronautics did not lead to democracy, unless budget airlines count.”

As Barnes imagines it in the second section, Fred Burnaby’s vivid affair with actress and fellow “balloonatic” Sarah Bernhardt brings the Englishman down to earth. “We live on the flat, on the level, and yet --- and so --- we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as the gods. Some soar with art, others with religion; most with love. But when we soar, we also crash.” Burnaby, a veteran of many wars and skirmishes, is brought low by the daring and glamorous Bernhardt, a woman so thin she claimed that she “slipped between raindrops without getting wet.” This section, called “On The Level,” documents that elastic yet permanent connection between love and grief, as Burnaby progresses to a marriage proposal, and is dashed by Bernhardt’s refusal. Bernhardt eschews safety and certainty. She prefers the danger and adventure of being blown by the wind to the certainty and efficiency of some engine-propelled heavier-than-air machine with controlled ascents and descents.

Not until the last section, titled “The Loss of Depth,” does Barnes turn his pen toward his own grief at the sudden loss of his wife. In precise, unadorned language, he presents some of the facts. “It was thirty-seven days from diagnosis to death. I tried never to look away, always to face it; and a kind of crazy lucidity resulted.” Building on the metaphors of the first two sections, he wonders at our aspirations for height and safety. “In this new-found-land there is no hierarchy, except that of feeling of pain. Who has fallen from the greater height, who has spilt more organs on the ground?” He applies his excellent mind to the common banalities trotted out for the grieving.

An acquaintance writes to reassure him that one does survive the grief to emerge a stronger and better person. “This struck me as outrageous and self-praising (as well as too quickly decided.) How could I possibly be a better person without her than with her? Later, I thought: but he is just echoing Nietzsche’s line about what doesn’t kill us making us stronger. And as it happens, I have long considered this epigram particularly specious. There are many things that fail to kill us but weaken us forever.”

It’s clear that Barnes loved his wife wholeheartedly, and one hopes that writing this book gave him some comfort. Regardless, his spare considerations of grief move us all the more for their honesty, intelligence and delicacy.

Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman Nicol

Levels of Life may appear to be a small book with over 120 pages. However, there is plenty of informative elements within the Julian Barnes examination of how two things that may not necessarily or normally be put together find ways to make the two work be it for a short time or a long time of period. Barnes titles the three major sections of the book, The Sin of Height, On the Level, and The Loss of Depth, information that crosses various boundaries of inquiry from art, history, literature, philosophy, science, and other substantial factors that relate to Barnes's inspiration to explore life's question after the passing of his wife Pat Kavanagh.

As one first reads the first section of the book, there is very little inklings to where Barnes's story may lead but on a high note of discovery and fascination that begins with three individuals that comprise his narrative, Colonel Fred Burnaby, Actress and art lover Sarah Bernhardt, and well-renowned photographer Félix Tournachon, also known as Nadar. And within the center of their stories were the most inventive flying machines to brace early modern aeronautical technology to have flown successfully above the grounds but not quite to the heavens, the air balloon of the nineteenth century. One wonders, what may a balloon have to do with Barnes's story? One major focus and theme of the book centers upon the factors of two and how two things may work by trial and error and an eventual result of success or failure may be the final outcome. Nadar made the attempt and risk to make two things work, the use of photography and aeronautical technology by way of the balloon; he took nature, intelligence, and artistic expression to another level that never had been attempted before and captured the moment for all to see and to preserve within memory. What Nadar achieved would taken even greater heights by the time Apollo 8 landed on the moon. In essence, Nadar as well as the early passengers of the balloon, Bohemians Burnaby and Bernhardt who were also subjects of Nadar's photographs, were daring and risk takers of their day. The first chapter shows the success that two can work together, but the success does not end there, it continues with the second chapter On the Level with a few imperfections that are met along the way. But out of the three chapters, the book's conclusion, The Loss of Depth attempts to bring the first two levels of the book to full circle and somewhat closure to what he has had to come to terms with in his life; in the beginning things fall within place, but Barnes suggests that things also fall out of place. It is a matter of coming to grips and picking the pieces up to move to the next level and begin the cycle once again.

Levels of Life is a thought provoking book that may take more than one read to get the gist of Barnes's story. This is a recommendable read for the curious and inquisitive.

"Writers believe in the patterns their words make, which they hope and trust add up to ideas, to stories, to truths." But what happens when grief destroys all patterns and then goes one step further...to destroy the belief that any pattern exists? Then, Julian Barnes implies, it is up to the writer to go in search for them for his very salvation.

Levels of Life is a heartbreakingly personal meditation on the unrelenting grief of an uxorious husband - Julian Barnes himself -- upon the rather sudden death of his wife Pat Kavanagh. It is also a book of linked narratives - a historical essay on ballooning and photography, focusing on the French balloonist and photographer Felix Tournachon, and a fact-based fictional piece that centers on balloonist Colonel Fred Burnaby's desire for Sarah Bernhardt, herself a balloonist. It is not until halfway through the short book that Julian Barnes introduces his own story.

At first, the stories seem loosely linked and certainly unconventional. But wait - there is a pattern and a theme that ties them in. "You put together two things that have not been put together before," the first narrative begins, "and the world is changed." And the second narrative? "You put together two things that have not been put together before; and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Finally, the third: "You put together two people who have not been put together before...sometimes it works, and something new is made, and the world is changed."

Julian Barnes is interested in how things are put together and what happens when they are torn apart. His book comes back time and time again to themes of flying and soaring...of drifting...of sinking. Time and again, he returns to themes from his first two narratives: how far each of us falls in life, how we try to avoid the depths and regain a little height, how our memories - the mind's photographic archive - fails us as images blur.

Even as the reader feels like a voyeur in witnessing the grief of a known author and fellow human being, we watch from our own distance - not unlike viewing the world below from a balloon or examining it through a photographic image. Grief - that journey we all must take - and life itself is "so clear, so sure, until, for one reason or another - the balloon moves, the cloud disperses, the sun changes angle - the image is lost forever." The writer can unveil patterns but it is up to the reader to decipher the images and the connections. With a book so beautifully written, that is a labor of love.

A single day is all that's needed to read Julian Barnes collection of three essays, Levels of Life, but you're likely to think about it for days longer. With the unexpected loss of his wife after a very brief time in which to prepare for the inevitable, Barnes clearly attempted to hold on to every second he could to memorize the level of life that existed with the putting together the two people who completed his pair. As he has written, you put together two things that have not been put together before and the world is changed; sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. In the case of people, putting two together is inevitably ended when one dies or leaves the pair by choice or necessity, but the world is changed forever. I personally love the movement from the first essay into the second, with the culminating third explaining how Barnes managed to cope with the alteration to his life. He explains the difference between grief and mourning, saying, "I mourn her uncomplicatedly, and absolutely. This is my good luck, and also my bad luck." He says of grief, "It is not a place of upper air; there are no views. You can no longer hear yourself living."

With the help of friends, Mr. Barnes reluctantly has continued to another level of life, this one without the woman who joined together with him to create a pair that has changed the world. I recommend this book.

The fragrance of the 19th century in France is close by in Julian Barnes' writings. In "Levels of Life," he starts with the famous French photographer, Nadar, and uses his aerial shots to jump to "Madame Sarah" Bernhardt's brief love affair with an English balloonist which Barnes then deftly uses to open to his grief over the 2008 death of his wife, the well known London literary agent, Patricia Kavanagh.

Reading Barnes is the taste of the finest Bordeaux, subtle, hidden, richly textured, measured. "Love is the meeting point of truth and magic." Madame Sarah's lady assistant. Mme Guerard is "vanguard, rearguard and e'tat-major, all combined." This doomed love affair, Barnes concludes, was "on the level" and it was the Englishman who had deceived himself with his infatuation with the legendary bohemian actress.

Barnes spatial metaphor extends to his final, painful and darker chapter entitled "The Loss of Depth" in which he undresses his emotions and grief disclosing a cold anger at her death; never insincere, nor mawkish, but with an analytical honesty; "subtle, hidden, richly textured, measured." He ends not in optimism but tempered, so to speak, finding, perhaps, his "cheerfulness has become more fragile, and present pleasure no match for past joy."

I enjoyed his point about grief in the States as being somewhat different as "emotional optimism is a constitutional duty."

What does a handful of feathers have to do with this memoir on loss and grief? Bsrnes explains in the first section of this book in an indirect look at his wife's death, focusing primarily on hot air ballooning and the celebrities of the early days of that transport.

It seems that when hot air ballooning first became a sensation (and he details incredibly the history of it) that pilots of such would carry feathers with them in the basket. The reason was that once the craft was aloft, it was difficult to judge when it was descending OR ascending...thus they'd toss a handful of feathers out and watch them trail. This metaphorically explains the sensations of grief and dread that occurred for him personally, and something everyone can relate to personally.

This is not an overwrought sentimental story of grief. It's actually only the last third of the book that we understand truly what he was getting at as he explained the sordid love affairs and hot air ballooning in their heyday. When he touches on grief, though, it's brutally honest and not dressed up or used sensationally. It's simple, and heartbreaking.

I read this in one day as I couldn't get away from it. His choice to approach the topic so indirectly is a risk, but it pays off in making the reader see how, while universal, grief can never be the same for anyone.

This is an essay, imaginative and heartfelt, about grief. Barnes argues that the extent and depth of grief varies with the quality and height of the love that preceded it. He makes this argument with an ingenious account of the early days of air travel by balloon, and an imagined love affair that came undone. These sections precede the memoir-like account of Barnes' own grief after the sudden death of his wife of some 40 years. It's as though he could not put his own feelings into words without first making up the story about the early passion of flying, a metaphor for his soaring love, the balloons' deflation a metaphor for his lost love. His is the most moving description of grief I have ever come across, as he confronts the nitty-gritty of carrying on life after the death of a beloved other.

Three subtly connected stories:
"The Sin of Heights" explores earthly transcendence through early balloon flight. Looking down at the earth while floating above. A comparison is made to the Apollo 8 flight made in 1968 when they had travelled 240,000 to see the moon, but rather, it was the Earthrise image that was to be most striking and inspiring.
"On the Level" is a fictional affair between Sarah Bernhardt and Fred Burnaby. "Every love affair is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes for both."
In "The Loss of Depth" Barnes explores death, grief and mourning of his wife, Pat. For me, this was the most profound section in the book. It made me think of my own grief and mourning over the loss of family and friends. It made me reflect on how I have watched others mourn and grieve. The ultimate loss, the death of my spouse, is yet to be spun. Do we carry on private conversations with those gone? How do we mark and remember times and the transitions between when they were here and now they are not. In the future, I will come back to this chapter again, to reread it, and contemplate and learn from its teachings.

No contemporary writer is better than Barnes in juxtaposing intellectual reflection with underlying emotion, whether in his fiction or in his essays and reflections. When Barnes is at his best his reader is rewarded with exceptional clarity and intensity, and quite literally shares the experience that Barnes offers. "Levels of LIfe" seems to me sometimes uneven in its weight, but Barnes unusual exploration of our yearnings, loves and grief in three parts (ballooning history, fiction and autobiography ) works. There is a great deal of the author's craft in the construction of this book, as well as in his finely parsed language. But ultimately its success lies in Barnes drawing the reader into his mental and emotional space and into sharing in part of his (and our) human journey. Might the book be stronger with fewer reflections on self-reflections and "too much sharing" on some points? Possibly. But these are also what give the experience much of its power to move us to our own reflections.

As an aside, I think that those who like "Levels of Life" probably also would enjoy (if they have not already read) Barnes's "Nothing to be Frightened Of" and "The Lemon Table," each of which in its own way also offers striking reflections on coming to terms with our mortality.

I don't know whether I would call Julian Barnes' new book a collection of linked essays or a monograph, but I do know that I admired it very much. At first I was hesitant: it begins with a decent but rather workmanlike account of early ballooning and aerial photography that only (ahem) rises to the level of art near the end, in considering how these new hobbies changed human attitudes toward religion and human endeavor. A second section, more short story than essay, recounts a love affair, of sorts, between Sarah Bernhardt and Frederick Burnaby, both of whom once went up in balloons; it's a reasonably charming evocation of devotion and desire on the part of two colorful characters, but it doesn't add up to much, and is easily the least relevant chunk of the book. Happily, the third and longest section redeems the first by tying the metaphors of ballooning into a succinct, devastating memoir of grief. Barnes grasps what so many writers do not, that death, "that banal, unique thing," is not easy to write meaningfully about, its very familiarity rendering its intensity almost impossible to capture. The brevity of this account works to its benefit (indeed, despite only running about 60 pages of large print, it may be slightly too long). Barnes moves briskly but devastatingly through his own loss, describing scattered experiences that combine to create a web of references, bringing order to the chaos of memory and allowing humor to leaven the intensity (he critiques the phrase "lost his wife to cancer," juxtaposing it with "We lost our dog to gypsies" and "He lost his wife to a commercial traveler"). The experience of the book, defined by the unexpected connections and callbacks, can't be captured in a review. It's not that Barnes has new insights into grief; I don't think there have been any of those for a very long time. But his style has a disjointed yet organized poetry that brings home the weight of grief, how it hits over and over like waves on a shore. This book will only take an hour or two to read, and at that length, it's almost certainly worth your time.

I am a big fan of Julian Barnes, and I gave five stars for "A Sense of an Ending," but this book is not the best of Barnes, and unfortunately it didn't work for me.

The first two thirds read like rather dry pieces of non fiction (although they are fictionalized essays). Of course, since it's Barnes, the style is flawless, it just that the substance is not really engaging.

The last 56 pages dealing with grief are moving. Nevertheless, if this book were written by a no name author, it would have never got an agent or a publisher in the US.

I am surprised that a writer of his caliber could only write 56 pages on the subject of mourning his wife. Perhaps Mr. Barnes should have waited to develop the third essay in a real novel. As is, the book seems slapped together to quickly mark another published title for the year.

So unfortunately, I cannot recommend it since I didn't enjoy reading it. However, I remain a fan or Barnes, looking forward to reading his future works!

I enjoyed the first part of this book which focussed on the joys and disasters of the early balloonists. The love affair between Sarah Bernhardt and the adventurer Barnaby held my interest. The final third or so of the book which describes Barnes' grief over the loss of his wife was, I found, difficult to read. Those who grieve can be very intolerant of anyone who doesn't share or understand the depth of their grief and it seemed to me that Barnes has only harsh words for those who tried to comfort him in their various inept British ways. By the time I'd got to the end of the book, I found myself gazing down into a black hole of despair; and also feeing rather inadequate as I still wouldn't know what to say to him if I met him. Or perhaps I should just keep quiet and let him do the talking.

Julian Barnes writes brilliantly and his prose is always a pleasure to read. He takes the art of writing to a new, higher plane than most contemporary writers. Therefore four stars is reasonable. But only his most devoted fan could call this a novel. It's really more of a literary curio, and not a particularly uplifting one at that.

Barnes is at the height of his talent with "Levels of Life". The Level's he's referring to are height, ground level, and depth. The first essay, `The Sin of Height', is about ambition and he uses the metaphor of ballooning as it became the rage in the 19th century. The desire for love and an exploration of truthfulness is his topic in `On the Level' where he explores the French actress Sarah Bernhardt's life and career including a look at her collection of suitors with a focus on one in particular, English nobleman Frederick Burnaby. Their relationship is far from conventional and painfully honest...or at least appears to be.

`The Loss of Depth' completes the collection and makes up half the book. It's about love achieved and then lost. It's moving and honest in a way that is close to too painful to read. In the previous two essays Barnes was more in his head but when he explores the death and subsequent grieving for his wife of 32 years he's all heart. I've read other grief accounts including Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" and Lewis's "A Grief Observed" and found them insightful however this essay far surpasses them. Barnes is talking about his particular experience, he's not trying to impart lessons or give advice he's merely describing how his loss. He invites the reader to accompany him. His honesty is raw and lovely.

Like his other works, especially Flaubert's Parrot, Barnes is capable of creating compelling voices for narrators that draw readers in. As the information provided on the book's page on the store suggests, Levels of Life covers several topics and time periods, starting with early ballooning in England and France to loss of a loved one. Dividing into three sections (The Sin of Height, On The Level, The Loss of Depth) this work is not quite a standard novel, it its mix of fiction and some level of history. If a reader wanted to, I'm sure they could find where the two part, but that was not something I want to just yet, if ever. It is a fragmentary at times work, not filling in details about characters or even plot, which my frustrate readers expecting such things. If you've read Barnes before though, Levels of Life is sure to find a place next to his many other books.

Julian Barnes' memoir of grief for the death of his wife Pat Kavanagh in 2008 after a thirty-year relationship, must be one of the most moving tributes ever paid to a loved one, but also the most oblique. So let's start with something simple, a photograph. Look up the title in the Daily Mail of London (I'll give the link in the first comment), partly for the marvelously-titled review "Lifted by Love, Grounded by Grief" by Craig Brown, but mostly for the photograph that accompanies it. Julian is seated. Pat stands behind him, her arms around his shoulders, her chin resting on the crown of his head. Her love is obvious, she whom Barnes refers to as "The heart of my life; the life of my heart." But equally striking is the unusual vertical composition. Pat, who on the ground was a small woman beside the gangling Barnes, here appears above him, like a guardian angel reaching down.

Which is relevant, because Barnes' book is about verticality, about love and loss, and incidentally about photography. The first of its three sections, "The Sin of Height," is essentially an essay. It begins with three ascents by balloon: the English adventurer Colonel Fred Burnaby in 1882, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1876, and a French entrepreneur named Félix Tournachon in 1863. Tournachon was to become one of the most famous early photographers under the name Nadar; it was he who took the iconic photographs of Bernhardt, and it was in his studio in 1874 that the first Impressionist exhibition was held. Barnes' second section, "On the Level," is typical of many of his short stories (and also longer works such as FLAUBERT'S PARROT and ARTHUR AND GEORGE), starting off from fact and developing it in the imagination. In this case, his subject is the passionate affair between Fred Burnaby and Sarah Bernhardt in the mid-1870's, the remarkable openness of the actress with the soldier (on the level, indeed), and its inevitable end. All the way through these sixty-plus pages, you can see the author conjuring examples of daring and discovery, love and loss, and creating a language of metaphor with which to describe it.

My assumption was that in the third and longest part, "The Loss of Depth," he would apply these things directly to his wife, giving us a portrait of her more intimate and revealing even than those Nadar took of "the divine Sarah." But no, he does almost exactly the opposite; in photographic language again, what he gives us is the negative, leaving it for us to develop. Almost immediately, he plunges into a description of grief, the constant reminders of things no longer shared, the intolerable intrusion of friends with euphemistic circumlocutions or bracing suggestions, or worse still avoidance of the subject altogether. Pat (whom he never names except in the dedication) is present only in the spaces she has left in his heart; one of the things that turns him away from thoughts of suicide is the knowledge that he retains the mould of her memory; without him, that too would be lost. He comes back, to a degree, through art: through the discovery of opera, through reading, and above all through writing. As you read on, you see him using links to the earlier sections, a phrase here, an idea there, and you think: "Ah, now he is going to pull it all together, and himself too." But it is never as easy as that. Barnes has great skill, but also the daring to leave doors open and loose ends untied; I am sure that "closure" is one of those words he hates. And that is fine, because this strange asymmetrical hybrid is Barnes' tribute to a love that will never end, and probably the best book he has ever written.

barnes states that there are two essential kinds of loneliness: that of not having someone to love, and that of having been deprived of the one you did love. the first kind, he asserts, is worse. he describes his first trip to paris at 18 by himself without a love interest to share his experiences. barnes' statement strikes me as startling and disturbing, but not original, i'm fairly certain that an adolescent experience of not having a sexual companion equated with the loss of a wife is not what tennyson intended when he penned in IN MEMORIAM: `tis better to have loved and lost/ than never to have loved at all.

barnes discusses his grief over the death of his wife, and how to go on. grief, as barnes makes clear, is extremely personal. barnes gives us the perspective of a man with a large collection of books who has devoted just about his entire life to books, collecting, reading, and writing them.

grief, barnes writes, is the opposite of love, the negative image of love, not necessarily as associated with a positive image, but as the negative image of a photograph.

photography is one of the two metaphors which barnes begins his book, the second metaphor, is the balloon and the men and women fascinated with the thrill of unguided flight, that is, aircraft not piloted. the two images, barnes alludes later in his book, are a triangulation and not, as i believed them to be when reading the first sentence of the book: `you put together two things that have not been put together' a cinematic montage.

but before reading barnes' remark on triangulation, i viewed the statement couched in the first sentence of the book, and the same words as well as the opening sentence of the second part of the book, as a kind of centaur. the putting together of two things is not new to barnes. the structure of several of his books, this one included, is a mixture of fact and fiction. in the first section of LEVELS OF LIFE, barnes gives us the facts of several balloonists, some of them intrigued by aerial photography. in the second section of the book, barnes fictionalizes some of the events surrounding the meeting of two balloon afficionados on the ground, the section entitled ON THE LEVEL, the actress, sarah bernhardt and one of her lovers, fred burnaby, traveler, military man.

THE LOSS OF DEPTH, the third part, the disquisition on grief proper, derives its title from the view of looking down into the grave at the coffin containing the loved one. as an athetist, barnes swiftly brushes away the solace of christianity a little too swiftly for me, which i hope will provoke readers of this book to conversation; there is an opposing viewpoint put forth in the writings of john updike, ironically, one of barnes' favorite authors, worth developing.

barnes continues to disturb with his tenuous supposition of a deity who might make a wager of a substitution of the deceased loved one for something equally as valuable, in barnes' case, his books, which harks back to what barnes writes at the beginning of loss of depth: Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still-at least, if we are lucky (or, on the other hand, unlucky)-it divides into those who have endured grief, and those who haven't....' is it the authorial voice which asserts: these divisions are absolute; they are tropics we cross?' again, let us not argue with a man grieving over the death of a loved one, let us, instead, expand the discussion among ourselves. do the absolute divisions mirror the three sections of the book? the second part of the book is the story of Burnaby and his love for the divine sarah, and the third part is about grief. the first part of the book, however, is an accumulation of historical anecdotes and accrued facts, none of them pertaining to sex. unless, yes, unless, and there it is, the `those who haven't' and here we are looking at that adolescent in paris. does that alter the tone of barnes' statement about the lack of love of the adolescent being greater than the love of a lost one? can this be sarcasm, disdain and bitterness in opposition to the world's crudity? instead of sex, the first part of the book, not about sex, is about the life of books, an early and ongoing important passion of barnes, a passion more constant than sexual activities, which often occur late in life, remain elusive and fleeting and are much too infrequent, unlike the immediacy of a voluminous personal library. but to pause before trading so singular a passion for the return of a loved one? a high premium on the love of books, indeed.

one thing for sure, on the level of writing, you can't produce a work like this from trolling the internet and garnering tidbits. for a book like this, a large library is required, an old fashioned personal library of books, many of them on similar subjects. and you need a keen eye for objects mentioned, objects which appear at a glance as a word in passing by the author, this is the glitter of gold in the stone which leads to fever. most men live on level land, seldom soaring higher.

barnes entitles his first highly metaphorical section SINS OF HEIGHT. without religion there is no such concept as sin. and there is no heaven and no hell, except, of course, then, in myth and story. harold bloom preaches in the synagogue of literature, that the bible is a work of literature, but he does not deny that solace and wisdom can be found there, even as he claims the bible to be a book among other books.

i enjoy reading julian barnes' books. i wish him well.

Beautifully crafted look at loss and grief. Julian Barrnes has captured the myriad emotions and inner dialog of loss, death and grief which will at sometime touch most of us. The thing that struck me most is the anger that the world and others could go on almost as a rebuke: that it dared not to deal with or feel my own tragedy. His ability to observe the lack of logic in his feelings amazed me...he is correct that logic and assurances about that healer time have no meaning during the process, seem to be total absurdities.
Also true that the greatest grief is assigned to those who have never loved or been loved.
Moving beyond expectation.

In recent years, Didion, Oates, Trillin and others have written about the loss of a spouse. Julian Barnes' slim "Levels of Life" is an intriguing addition to the subject.

Rather oddly, it seems at first, Barnes begins by writing about the early days of ballooning. Isn't this book about grief? Yet he masterfully ties this opening section to the latter part of the book, where he talks more directly about his loss.

The early balloonists saw the earth from a new perspective; and so do those in grief. Barnes writes, "You are a first-time astronaut, alone beneath the gasbag, equipped with a few kilos of ballast... [indeed], one grief throws no light on another... one grief does not explain another." We all know people who have grieved, but it's no preparation for our own, unique, highly personal loss - a loss which inevitably and permanently changes our perspective and everyday life.

If we're lucky, we can soar but, Barnes writes, "no matter how high, you return to beneath the earth (literally or figuratively)."

Some soar with art, more with love, he notes. Colonel Fred Burnaby, of the Royal Horse Guards, was a daring, pioneering balloonist. But his spirits were lifted highest, perhaps, by his dalliance with the intoxicating actress Sarah Bernhardt, also a ballooning aficionado.

Talking eventually about his own devastating loss, Barnes is alternatively raw, emotional and analytic. He was together with his wife for thirty years, and then it was thirty-seven days from diagnosis to death. He covers anger - anger at his spouse for leaving him, anger at those who opine he's grieved enough and it's time to get on with it. He discusses loneliness and the loss of life's special, irreplaceable gift of togetherness. And he hesitantly begins to wonder where the new winds of life may blow his "balloon."

Levels of Life contains many elegant, dazzling passages. It's a book to be read slowly and savored, a gift from a superb writer at the height of his skill.

"Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still--at least, if we are lucky (or, on the other hand, unlucky)--it divides into those who have endured grief, and those who haven't. These divisions are absolute; they are the tropics we cross."

LEVELS OF LIFE is a book that demands hyperbole, but also repels it. It's the best thing I've read in a good long while, and I could go on in that vein: how beautiful the prose is, how elegant the structure, how much it moved me.

But that doesn't seem appropriate for a book about grief. A book that starts out measured, impersonal, like an essay (the first section, a history of ballooning, reminded me very much of W.G. Sebald) before crossing a fragile bridge into narrative non-fiction.

A Proustian bridge, featuring Sarah Bernhardt, passing by the Rue Fortuny, into an apartment that resembles Odette's. Barnes never mentions Proust directly--he doesn't have to; if you know Proust he's omnipresent--but what struck me is that the model for Proust's Albertine, Alfred Agnostinelli, died in a plane crash. That is the link between Barnes' essay on ballooning, THE SIN OF HEIGHT, and the third and final section of the novel, THE LOSS OF DEPTH. A meditation on the heights that Proust reached, his novel fueled by grief, and the sense of being dulled and diminished that Barnes experienced

THE LOSS OF DEPTH is about being widowed. This section of the novel reminded me of reading Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING...it's personal, and honest, and unvarnished--Barnes writes that he used the mantra "It's just the universe doing its stuff" while his wife was dying, repeating the same sentence to himself to get through the day, and in such an exquisitely crafted book there is something devastating about this phrase, which has no glamor of craft or eloquence.

Actually, the use of repetition in this book is incredible. I loved it from the opening line: "You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn't matter. The world has been changed nonetheless." And the first section has a weightless, gleeful feel. "I could hear myself living," Barnes quotes one early balloonist as saying.

But the phrase changes with each iteration. At first 'the world is changed' sounds sort of...hopeful, or expectant. By the end it's a death knell, the beginning of Barnes' grief. LEVELS OF LIFE is a short little book. Easy to read in a sitting. And there's a simplicity to it, a directness. But the repetition of words and images is like a roundel or motet, making a simple phrase (a little phrase? Is this book meant to be the literary equivalent of Vinteuil's sonata?) increasingly complex.

Anyway. LEVELS OF LIFE is incredible. It is moving, and it should be read, and I would like to give a copy to everyone I know. I will finish with my favorite quote from the book.

"Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that--if it is not moral in its effect--then love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure."

One of my favorite authors but this was slow going at first, weird history lesson (common with him), then he ties it all together, moves (surprisingly) into an honest memoir about loss and grief. All of his books are unique and full of surprises. Don't give up if the beginning doesn't seem important or worth the effort, he always rewards you. The history lessons are usually something you never heard of and don't think you will be interested in, keep going. My favorites: "The Sense Of An Ending", "Arthur and George" and "England, England". He can do humor and darkness, brilliant writer, wide range, can throw in as many twists as the best mystery writers.
If you start with one of the other three books I mentioned you will be hooked, but they are all wonderful.

I only got through around 25% of the book. To me the Booker Prize list is there as a warning of what not to read - and this book should probably be on the same list. More erudite readers than me will no-doubt disagree. But seriously - stay away from this book if you are reading for entertainment.

Julian Barnes crafts great sentences. From his personal grief at the death of his wife, Barnes has written a powerful 140 page essay titled, Levels of Life. The power of love dominates this essay, and Barnes pulls readers into the beautiful writing as he packs a wallop through his spare prose infused with strong underlying emotion. Whatever form grief has taken in one’s own life, there is an expression of that grief in this essay. Readers who have both loved and experienced loss will be overpowered by the beauty of this essay.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

I had not made the time to read the work of this author. When I did select the book it was based on his reputation. Before I opened it I did a bit of research on his life, his marriage and his work.

I interpreted the three sections (144 pages total) as the three parts of a relationship, that rare occurrence, where you find your soulmate, that person who understands you and loves you and who you wear as a second skin so easily do they become a part of your life.

The first story is the feeling of new love, of being grounded and flying high and uses words that are so evocative to falling in love with THE ONE. The second story gives the deep rich feeling of being in love, sustaining love, even learning to love that person all over again and appreciating them even more. The last story is the soul crushing pain of loss, unrelenting emptiness of having your joy ripped out without a chance of getting it back.

I read it for the beautiful words as and the bravery to share them. I am hoping if it is my fate to go first in my own love life I can read it again and find a lifeline in despair.

I only got through around 25% of the book. To me the Booker Prize list is there as a warning of what not to read - and this book should probably be on the same list. More erudite readers than me will no-doubt disagree. But seriously - stay away from this book if you are reading for entertainment.

Julian Barnes crafts great sentences. From his personal grief at the death of his wife, Barnes has written a powerful 140 page essay titled, Levels of Life. The power of love dominates this essay, and Barnes pulls readers into the beautiful writing as he packs a wallop through his spare prose infused with strong underlying emotion. Whatever form grief has taken in one’s own life, there is an expression of that grief in this essay. Readers who have both loved and experienced loss will be overpowered by the beauty of this essay.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

I had not made the time to read the work of this author. When I did select the book it was based on his reputation. Before I opened it I did a bit of research on his life, his marriage and his work.

I interpreted the three sections (144 pages total) as the three parts of a relationship, that rare occurrence, where you find your soulmate, that person who understands you and loves you and who you wear as a second skin so easily do they become a part of your life.

The first story is the feeling of new love, of being grounded and flying high and uses words that are so evocative to falling in love with THE ONE. The second story gives the deep rich feeling of being in love, sustaining love, even learning to love that person all over again and appreciating them even more. The last story is the soul crushing pain of loss, unrelenting emptiness of having your joy ripped out without a chance of getting it back.

I read it for the beautiful words as and the bravery to share them. I am hoping if it is my fate to go first in my own love life I can read it again and find a lifeline in despair.

There are only three chapters in Julian Barnes' short but penetrating book, "Levels of Life."
In chapter one, "The Sin of Height" Barnes not only tells the fascinating history of ballooning that began in England and France in the nineteenth century but also the pleasures, fears and theology of the people.
The critics believed "to mess with flight was to mess with God." When accidents occurred some thought it confirmed, "The sin of height is punished." Others saw flight as freedom and redemption where an "aeronaut experiences health of body and health of soul."
Barnes said the "sin of height was later purged" especially after the astronauts saw the first "earthrise" on the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
Chapter two "On the Level" is about the pain of a mismatched love affair between a French actress and an English Captain who is also a balloonist and writer in the the nineteenth century. Barnes says, "Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later." Yet we continue to aspire to love, "Because love it the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth as in photography; magic, as in ballooning."
The final chapter "The Loss of Depth" is Barnes' heartbreaking grief after the death of his wife after 30 years of marriage. He says, "I do not believe I shall ever see her again...I believe dead is dead."
Barnes describes his wife as, "The heart of my life; the life of my heart." His vivid, haunting pros offer insight and wisdom about love and loss.

This is a deeply personal yet universally relevant book about grief and coming to terms with loss. Perhaps more than that, it is about living.

The book floats about, touching on a number of stories, but is anchored in the death of Barnes' wife. Touching, insightful but counter-intuitively perhaps not a good place to become first acquainted with the author.

A better book about love, life, and loss can't exist. At first you are like wtf? Why am I reading about hot air ballooning in nineteenth century France? But you start to realize the first two chapters are slowly building metaphors, describing the feelings of ascent we all experience or yearn for in the midst of love, an emotion setting us simply aloft. You are amply rewarded in book three as you come crashing down intimately with the author in his grief. Your own story of loss inserts itself and embraces you as the writers words etch at your soul, turning you inside out, making you weep onto the pages. What a ride! This is what books should do. Make you feel as you think, taking you somewhere mentally as well as emotionally. Thank you Mr. Barnes for this slim but fantastic voyage. I envy others reading this for the first time. I wish I could get back in line and relive the magic.

For me this was a new experience in grief. I felt some of what Barnes feels - that is what this book accomplishes. From that grief my emerge something beautiful.

The author shows his natural response to his loss, and it is such a deep loss. This is not like other losses in some ways since every relationship is unique, yet we can all relate to it.

The expressions in the book feel healthy and natural to me.

The book is presented in three sections, the first two fairly solidly connected around anecdotes real and imagined involving persons participating in the phenomenon of early balloon flights. The third section, however, takes a deep dive into death and grief, examining JB's reaction to the death of his wife. Not quite the pit-gazing treatise on death that is "Nothing To Be Afraid Of", but it sure will bring your mood down a notch or two!

After a very brief illness, my husband died from ALS in July 2013. Reading Julian Barnes's book Levels of Life said everything I feel in words I am incapable of expressing. To have someone write what needs to be said in support of those of us surviving grief is the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. On a more mundane note, it is easily some of the best writing I've had the privilege to read.
Thank you Mr. Barnes.

In the course of describing his experience of grief, Barnes fleshes out in excruciating detail how traumatic loss entails the collapse of one’s world, a reconfiguring of time and space, a sense of profound estrangement from those who are not grief-stricken, and the dread of a second loss that impends with the passage of time—the fading of memory of the lost beloved. I found in Barnes what I call a sibling in the same darkness, and I think others among the grief-stricken will find something similar in him. I recommend Levels of Life to anyone who wishes to have a better understanding of traumatic bereavement.

The first part begins: "You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed." The second and third parts start with variations of the same thought.

That's just an example of how well this book has been conceived. We start with a section linking ballooning and photography, centering especially on two baloonists, Colonel Fred Burnaby of the Royal Horse Guards and legendary actress, Sarah Bernhardt. The second part links the two in a bittersweet love story. And then there's the third part which may well be the reason for the book, the author's grief for his departed wife.

This is a short book and deserves a thoughtful reading from beginning to ending. This is the only work by Julian Barnes which I've read and I plan on reading more by him. Parts of the book, especially the last part dealing with grief, could be maudlin, but the author gracefully avoids that. He also avoids being self-pitying, but rather is sharing his thoughts with us. This can be rough reading for anyone who's dealt with grief, but on the other hand, it may be very comforting. Either way, this is a book with a lot of heart and I enthusiastically endorse it.

Levels of life works on at least two of those levels. It is informative about ballooning and Sarah Bernhardt and prevailing attitudes of those days but mostly it works as a homage to his wife who Julian Barnes misses with supreme tenderness. Short and bittersweet.

Julian Barnes calls the reader as a Siren to feel his grief on his wife's death. We cannot resist his call, nor can we read through his account unchanged. His tales of balloons and Bernhardt and Nadar strengthen our understanding of his own loss making it more global and more personal.

The book begins with two historical vignettes on ballooning (yes, ballooning) and the rest is an essay on the author's experience grieving the loss of his wife. Barnes makes token attempts to link these disparate topics -- elements from the ballooning stories reappear as metaphors in the third. The effect is clunky and amateurish.

The essay on grief is beautiful and one of the least indulgent accounts of mourning I have ever read. It would have been even more powerful without the jarring ballooning references. The grief essay is only 56 pages long - not long enough for a book; I imagine that Barnes included the ballooning stories in order to lengthen the text and have a book to sell. To do this in the context of mourning a wife, well, shame on Mr. Barnes.

"Levels of Life" by Julian Barnes has to be the longest short book I have ever read. The author goes in so many different directions then stops, then goes back, then ties part of the story in with something from a previous section of the book, and yet I trudged on through. The overly proper pristine voice had me wondering what century this book was written in. The final section made me feel more like the author's therapist and I was really trying to find a way to bring it all together and wrap it up while we still had some time left.

This is a very small book yet it took me 5 days to get through it. There was no good flow, more like a river with a long series of locks and dams. The switch from grandiose story telling to heartfelt prose was jarring.

I found it to be a disappointment compared to other works by Julian Barnes.

I loved Sense of an Ending and thought Arthur & George is one of the most matured books I have read. But in Levels of Life, the author's words failed to form fruition. Yes, he is bemoaning a tragedy, but the other first 2/3rds of a book are painful to read and rather random. Maybe he felt he couldn't write about his own life so he chose to tell us about "aeronauts" ... I'm sorry but I expect much more from the author. I pray him full recovery and while I'm glad others enjoyed this book, lets just say Julian Barnes is more than this.