Julian Barnes is a wonderfully elegant writer, and one never finds a sentence of his with even the slightest flaw in it. In Nothing to be Frightened of, he brings his precision of prose and of thought to bear on his own life, on art, on family, and, most especially, on death.
Barnes’s brother is a philosopher, while Barnes himself is a novelist. These are related but wholly different genres of thought and writing. Their exchanges on death and other matters that litter this book are a wonderful way to appreciate the difference. Where Barnes wants to find the poetry in everything, to shape the narrative of his life into a novelistic whole, his brother looks for patterns of logic, and for ways of classifying phenomena in terms of the philosophical canon.
What’s also a great pleasure is that the book itself has been beautifully made and bound, with actual sown binding and everything. This was also true of Barnes’s Arthur and George, but of so few other books published today. If Barnes can persuade his publishers (Jonathan Cape) to produce such lovely objects, why can’t other authors of similar stature?
This is a fascinating, discursive book full of reminiscences, aphorisms and asides. It feels like a random ramble through a writer’s brain, but in fact is a carefully controlled piece of work. It’s one of the most beautifully poised memoirs I’ve ever read.
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