Terrific, all three parts

Levels of Life

It consists of three titled sections, the first historical, the second fictional and, the third, most affectingly, memoir. Each is linked implicitly as well as symbolically by hot-air balloons.

The opening part, ‘The Sin of Height’, considers the history of balloon flight, deemed unpardonable in its early incarnation for its apparent trespass on God’s domain but treated admiringly here as a quest for freedom, adventure and enlightenment. The cast includes Fred Burnaby, a fanatical oversized aeronaut who crossed the Channel in 1882 in a craft called the Eclipse; the daredevil French actress, Sarah Bernhardt; and Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, otherwise known as Nader, who pioneered aerial photography. Following on from this is a piece of short fiction, entitled ‘On the Level’, which imagines an imbalanced love story between the smitten Colonel Burnaby and the unfortunately less-enamoured Madame Bernhardt.

Both the historical and fictional offerings seem intentionally heavy-handed in using flight’s transcendent nature as metaphorical of the soar and plummet of love, and both are readable without captivating. Yet their muted telling makes it virtually impossible to be prepared for a finale, entitled ‘the Loss of Depth’ which is nothing short of astonishing, a confession of grief so emotively described it leaves the reader cold with awe.

In 2011, and after three previous short-listings, Julian Barnes finally won the Booker Prize for his 11th novel, Sense of an Ending, an intense reflection on the ageing heart’s ultimately tragic complexity. The prize seemed overdue acknowledgement of a talent that has for more than 30 years quietly dominated Britain’s literary scene, shining alongside and often out-punching contemporaries like Rushdie, Amis and McEwan.

His writing career coincided almost exactly with his marriage. In 1979, he married literary agent Pat Kavanagh, shortly before the publication of his acclaimed first novel, Metroland. And while their life together was anything but smooth, the love they felt for one another left Barnes bereft when Pat died of a brain tumour in 2008. It is this sadness, a meditation on grief and love cut short, that lends this book’s final section such weight. “You put two people together who have not been put together before,” he begins, a sentence which, with slight variation, also opens parts one and two. And from those few words everything slips into place, like water filling a bowl. Though she is never named directly in the text, Pat’s presence — or rather, absence — permeates every syllable.