"The stowaway" by Julian Barnes. An alternative version of the Great Deluge?

How many people nowadays are able to analyze and speculate on what they are reading? Why do people prefer to take things for granted?

The basic idea of the novel A History of the World in ЮУ2 Chapters by J. Barnes is searching for the answers to the questions about mankind's nature, our past, our present and the future of human civilization. Mr. Barnes compares human society to the Ark-prison, which is sailing without destination, and the farther it is sailing, the less chances for the salvation. However, the book isn't just another anti - utopia, nothing of the kind. It's a sort of postmodern analysis of the accepted and well-known history, colourful, witty, compelling and sophisticated.

"The Stowaway", the very first chapter of the novel, is the most absorbing for me as it's penetrated with brilliant sense of humour. It seems a little bit strange to begin the narrative with the story of The Great Deluge, but, having a second thought, I find it quite logical as everything what had happened before this punishment of humanity had a little in common with our world.

There are several sense-making points in "the Stowaway". The first is quite obvious (as it's repeated almost annoyingly often) - it is satirical criticism of the Old Testament. Truth to be told, when I read it as a child I treated it as something totally oppressive. Even now, it's beyond my comprehension. How can it be that God is so ruthless and fiendish towards "his creation" and, at the same time, He proposes the mercy? He could have found another way to discipline His children. Moreover, He made all those completely innocent animals suffer and die. Was it merciful? I don't think so.

The second meaningful issue is the analogy between modern environmental policy and the biblical plot. Mr. Barnes is sure that we haven't learnt to value the nature now, and in those times the attitude towards the environment was even worse. Noah as a poacher and consumer, who passes all bounds, looks especially grotesque. Even gorilla seems to be more appropriate choice for the mission than Noah. Look at the following quotations: "Noah wasn't a nice man. He was a monster, a puffed-up patriarch who spent half his day groveling to his God and the other taking it out on us"... "Noah was bad-tempered, smelly, unreliable, envious and cowardly. " [Barnes 2009: 12-13] Do you have the feeling of loathing? Well, I do. However, the most disgusting thing about Noah is the fact that he'd eaten all those wonderful creatures: griffon, hippogriff, sphinx, basilisk, salamander and poor humiliated unicorn. A terrible deed as we lost them forever.

(How could benevolent God let it happen?)

The third distinctive feature is inconsistency in time with the original version of the event. For example, according to the Bible, the voyage lasted 40 days and forty nights, and in our text it prolonged for five and half infinite years!

The other incompatibility is the amount of vessels. The Bible says that there was just one single Ark and that's it, and Barnes offers more realistic version,

I consider, and claims that there were eight vessels ruled by Noah and his family.

By the way, speaking about his family, we find another incongruity in quantity. Do you remember how many sons did Noah give birth? Apparently, there were three of them: Sham, Ham, and "the one, whose name began with a J" (and who must be Japheth, mustn't he?). However, in "the Stowaway" the fourth, an optimistic and fun-loving laughter Varadi appeared: "He could be seen strutting the quarterdeck with a parrot on each shoulder; he would slap the quadrupeds affectionately on the rump, which they'd acknowledge with an appreciative bellow" [Barnes 2009: 6]. Striking difference with the description of Noah, isn't it? That's why he'd been lost in history with the help of his father and some mysterious sea storm.

Then, the third discrepancy is subdivision of animals on the Ark. You definitely remember that separation on "clean and unclean" and in "the Stowaway" a new group appeared - those who were just "Not Wanted On The Voyage" (our griffons, hippogriffs, sphinxes, basilisks, salamanders and unicorns fell into this group as well as Varadi). But Noah got rid of them very quickly having satisfied his food demand. All of them (except for Varadi, maybe, but who knows) were crossbred and Noah's family was very superstitious about this kind of thing, you know.

Another captivating moment in "the Stowaway " is personification. Barnes through the voices of animals appeals to us, highlighting our dogmatic human nature almost on every page. This tool makes us feel sympathetic to all those humiliated living creatures on the Ark. Without any doubt, the main personified creature in "the Stowaway" is the narrator itself. This witty little woodworm, as skeptical and cynical as can be, describes the event as it really happened. He is unbiased as a witness and wise as a philosopher. His reflections about human's behavior, reasons and consequences are just so truthful (and fairly insulting sometimes) that you feel guilty and ashamed for all the mankind.

To my mind, Mr. Barnes's prose is not for everybody, because to understand it fully you should have almost perfect knowledge of the English language, be able to read between the lines, be well-read person and have a spacious mind as well. Yes, it is rather challenging, but no less enjoyable. The most important thing is that it makes you think and widens your horizons. For instance, the following thought-provoking quotation makes you reevaluate the attitude towards the history with a genuine, but bitterly truthful explanation of what it really is:

"History isn't what happened. History is just what historians tell us. There was a pattern, a plan, a movement, expansion, the march of democracy, it is a tapestry, a flow of events, a complex narrative, connected, explicable. One good story leads to another. [...] We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation, we call it history" [Barnes 2009: 242].

The question is whether we are ready not to believe in everything what historians tell us, ready to accept some alternative versions of the events or we're just blind sheep, who are always led by someone?