This book was recommended to me by Dhanaraj a while back. It's the story of love and grief told with candor. The book is divided in three parts, the first one being about nineteenth century balloonists with emphasis on the French photographer/balloonist/writer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon who was the first person to do aerial photography, the second part of the book is a fictionalized love and heartbreak affair between the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt and British officer Fred Burnaby, and the final part an account of the writer's (Julian Barnes) grief and living after his wife's death.

At first when I started reading, I expected a memoir of the writer and so was confused reading about European balloonists in the 1800s but Barnes manages to make such striking and, later, fitting parallels with the metaphors and stories from the preceding parts of the book with his own account. This book doesn't pretend to be instructive on how to deal with grief, instead, it is remembrance, it is tribute to a love and wife, it is a man mourning and grieving. A wonderful book. ( )

There are only three chapters. The first two are sort of biographical, while the final is autobiographical.

1) "The Sin of Height" - freedom of flight ~ (This part was mostly boring. It follows three balloonists in the 19th century.)
2) "On the Level" - A fictional relationship between Sarah Bernhardt and Fred Burnaby (I really enjoyed this chapter)
3) "The Loss of Depth" - Barnes tells us about his wife's death and his grieving. (This was the best chapter. It was so sad and hard to read. I've cried several times. I had to stop a couple of times. It was so overwhelming.)

This is my fourth Barnes' book . Even though this one differs from the other three, it was beautiful and really quotable. I really like that the chapters tell the complete story of life or as the title puts it "Levels of Life". Sometimes we're up in the sky and happy, sometimes it's just okay and sometimes we get our fair share of sadness. But that's life. ( )

Barnes mette a nudo il dolore per la perdita della sua compagna, preparando la strada all'introspezione con un racconto di un amore che non ha raggiunto la felicità. Sfruttare questo racconto e le metafore che porta con sé significa per Barnes mostrare che l'amore è il rischio più grande che corriamo nella nostra vita e che vale sempre la pena di correrlo. ( )

Levels of Life is a series of three connected essays that Julian Barnes wrote in memory of his wife. He first looks at life above the ground, writing about the dawn of the aeronautical age and its impact on human technology and philosophy. Then he segues to life on the ground and discusses love and its potential disappointments, using an Englishman’s courtship of Sarah Bernhardt as his exemplar. Finally he moves to the real point of this book: life below the ground, what happens after the death of a loved one. While the first half of this book is interesting and chatty, it does not prepare you for the second, where the author changes gear. Barnes writes a compelling and moving treatise on grief, as he experienced it. It is full of wisdom and deep feeling. Very much worth reading. ( )

As a fairly recent widow, I think that this book captures what grief is and how it feels better than anything else I have read. If you are looking for a way out of grief, or for a way to make it less painful, there is little comfort here. Barnes is an atheist who does not belief in an afterlife, so that escape route is closed off. Nor does he understate the solitariness of grief, the loneliness, and the impossibility of making sense of loss. But he does say what grief is like, and that is something to hold on to -- recognizing that one is not alone. I skimmed through the other essays, I am ashamed to say, being rather narrowly focussed these days. ( )