I regularly tune in to CBC Radio’s “Bookends” whose tagline is “when the book ends, the conversation begins.” Clever. This program replaced “Writers & Company,” of which I was a longtime fan, when Eleanor Wachtel retired in 2023 following thirty-three years on the air. The host of this new version of a one-hour literary interview program is Mattea Roach. You might remember Mattea from her lengthy twenty-three game winning streak on Jeopardy in 2022 and placing second in the inaugural “Jeopardy! Masters” in 2023. Impressive, to say the least. Mattea was born in Halifax in 1998 and has already established herself as one of Canada’s most recognizable young public figures. She has a BA in sexual diversity studies, political science, and women & gender studies. “Bookends” seems a perfect fit for someone who learned to read at age three and has continued her love of books since then.
Mattea recently had a conversation with Julian Barnes, a British writer with a lengthy list of writing accomplishments with his thirty books. I tuned in. Julian is referred to as one of the “Titans of Contemporary Literature” and he happily accepts the moniker. “Departures” is Julian’s most recent work of fiction and will be his last, he announced, after four decades of writing. Julian is eighty years old and after reflecting on his life and body of work, he felt he had no new ideas that would inspire him to pick his pen up again, unfortunately for his readers. I’ll be sure to add “Departures” to my reading list.
In his conversation with Mattea, he mused on the concept of memory. He explained that our brain is like a storage unit with memories stacked away, while we have the misconception that they remain unaltered there; not true. Every time we pull a memory out to retell, the memory gets tweaked, even if only slightly. Having said that, all the information is in our brains as to what happened in our lives, but we can’t access all those details. Who, Julian wonders, is making the decision about what exactly we remember.
“The Sense of an Ending” was published in 2011 and earned Julian the Man Booker Prize and is considered his best novel and how it explores memory, regret, and the stories we tell ourselves. Julian provides the reader with a profound examination on how we see ourselves, how our memories can deceive us and how even the smallest of actions echo across a lifetime. It is one of those books that you glean something more from each time you read it.
“Levels of Life”, published in 2013 is the memoir telling of his grief after the death of his wife, who died thirty-nine days after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. Julian doesn’t use sentimentality to describe the devastation of grief, nor does he mention his wife’s name, but it most certainly tells the story of grief and that if we dare to love another, we most certainly will come face to face with loss. “When you rise,” Julian writes, “you risk falling.” Critics have called it “the most honest depiction of mourning ever written”.
I was curious to hear of Julian’s view of death. It is something he has always thought about, since he was the age of sixteen, he explained. His “Nothing to be Frightened About” was published in 2008 and in the book, he takes a rather deep dive into death and our own mortality, using humour and a philosophical approach. In the interview he referenced Michel de Montaigne’s view of death that “to live well, one must learn how to die”. Montaigne was of the mind that death needs to be acknowledged and the acceptance that death walks beside us grants us freedom. I like that perspective. All too often we shy away from conversations about death. I remember several years ago I was driving on a winter’s day where we had an early dump of heavy wet snow. Despite having snow tires on, my car got caught in the slush and slid sideways down the highway straight toward a logging truck with a full load. I was helpless to do anything, and I was surprised by the sense of calm that descended on me. “This must be it,” I thought without fear, but in the last second my tires found some bare pavement and my car righted itself and all was well, after a very close call. The calm at the possibility of death comforts me still.
The works of Julian Barnes reminds us the importance of art, the importance of literature, the importance of story-telling where we come to understand others and maybe most importantly, come to understand ourselves.
wendistewart@live.ca
