A review by nemesislore
Nothing to Be Frightened of by Julian Barnes

3.0

This work is Barnes’ attempt to “get this whole death thing straight,” as he puts it. He walks through philosophical questions about death, belief in afterlife, the ways his loved ones have died, whether or not there is a way to “succeed” at dying well. He has a very lighthearted way of dealing with such a truly heavy topic, and it left me feeling oddly comforted to be reading so much about death. The pace definitely putters along and lingers on stories of certain French authors that Barnes admires; in many ways, reading it feels like taking a long stroll with an old friend. It’s the right pace for a book like this, definitely. It gave me a few good chuckles, a few sobering thoughts, and some questions I’ll need to answer for myself as time goes on.