I must admit that initially I did not entirely get this
book. “You put together two things that have not been put together before. And
the world is changed” begins this short novel. And more than two things are put
together in the story, indeed more than two stories that do not intersect,
except in the passing. What does develop is a theme; of longing and the
perennial ache of the aftermath of loss. And to carve this tale of love and
loss The Levels of Life relies on stories from the early days of ballooning and
aerial photography. In the very end, Barnes moves into a most luminous terrain,
the one inside him, and unfolds a devastating landscape of grief.
The depth of the feeling of loss, the stark relief in which it is etched, the universality of emotion it evokes even in someone who has not experienced it firsthand, the bottomless pain that must alternate between a dull throb and sharp infliction – both equally unbearable – are so obviously autobiographical. Indeed the inside cover informs us of the early passing away of Barnes’ wife Pat Kavanagh who married him in 1979 and died in 2008.
Unlike Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, the story here is not linear. Indeed, it is largely bereft of a plot but still flows like a silent stream.
It is clearly a work of deep and abiding love. Such is the heartfelt-ness of the contours of pain that one feels envious of the love that must have been shared in its wake. The accolades from critics are fulsome and surely well-deserved. And even though I could not get the point of the story early on, I came away deeply moved in the end.
The depth of the feeling of loss, the stark relief in which it is etched, the universality of emotion it evokes even in someone who has not experienced it firsthand, the bottomless pain that must alternate between a dull throb and sharp infliction – both equally unbearable – are so obviously autobiographical. Indeed the inside cover informs us of the early passing away of Barnes’ wife Pat Kavanagh who married him in 1979 and died in 2008.
Unlike Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, the story here is not linear. Indeed, it is largely bereft of a plot but still flows like a silent stream.
It is clearly a work of deep and abiding love. Such is the heartfelt-ness of the contours of pain that one feels envious of the love that must have been shared in its wake. The accolades from critics are fulsome and surely well-deserved. And even though I could not get the point of the story early on, I came away deeply moved in the end.
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