By Thomas Achenbach
Thomas Achenbach reviews Julian Barnes’s Levels of Life, describing it as perhaps the best book ever written about grief. It is not a textbook or advice manual, but literature: painful, precise, unusual and beautiful.
Achenbach explains how Barnes first writes about ballooning and then abruptly moves into the death of his wife and his own grief. The review shows how Barnes gives language to the experience of mourners: the continuing presence of the dead, the uncertainty of others, the wish to speak with the deceased, and the strange normality of thoughts and behaviours in grief.
The book is recommended for mourners themselves and for people who want to understand and accompany those in a loss crisis.
