Editors Reads Verdict
One of the most honest and stylishly intelligent books ever written about death — Barnes neither consoling nor nihilistic, just precise, funny, and relentlessly clear-eyed about what mortality actually means.
What We Loved
- The sustained wit does not dilute the seriousness — Barnes uses comedy as a form of honesty rather than evasion
- The family history — his philosopher brother Jonathan, his French grandmother's death — gives the abstract meditation personal grounding
- The literary references (Flaubert, Stendhal, Montaigne, Shostakovich) illuminate rather than decorate
Minor Drawbacks
- The book is resolutely atheist in its conclusions — readers seeking consolation will not find it
- The conversational register can occasionally feel too comfortable for a subject that perhaps deserves more visible discomfort
Key Takeaways
- → Fear of death is rational and need not be resolved — it can be acknowledged, examined, and then lived alongside
- → The French literary tradition, which has always confronted mortality more directly than the English, offers resources that Barnes finds more useful than religion
- → How we remember the dead is the last gift we can give them — and like all gifts, it involves as much projection as truth
| Author | Julian Barnes |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vintage |
| Pages | 256 |
| Published | June 10, 2008 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-Fiction, Memoir, Philosophy |
Nothing to Be Frightened Of Review
Julian Barnes has been preoccupied with death for most of his literary career — it appears in Flaubert’s Parrot, in A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, in the novella-length The Sense of an Ending — but Nothing to Be Frightened Of is the book in which he confronts it directly, without the protective devices of fiction. Published in 2008, it is memoir, meditation, family history, literary criticism, and philosophy by turns, all organized around the central question that Barnes considers unanswerable but impossible to stop asking: what is it like to be dead?
The book is organized loosely around Barnes’s own fear of death — not a generalised philosophical position but a visceral terror that wakes him at night, a response to the thought of non-existence that is both irrational and, he insists, entirely rational. He examines this fear through his family: his philosopher brother Jonathan, whose materialism leads to equanimity about death in ways that Barnes cannot quite achieve; his parents, whose deaths he catalogues with the precision and sorrow of a son who was not close to them; his French grandmother, who died in a manner both dignified and heartbreaking.
He then examines it through his writers — Flaubert, Stendhal, Montaigne, Shostakovich — who have each confronted mortality in ways that Barnes finds illuminating, consoling, or instructive. The French, he notes, have always been more willing to face death directly than the English, who prefer euphemism and evasion. Barnes does not seek consolation, and he does not find it. What he offers instead is company: the sense that you are not alone in finding this frightening, and that clear-eyed acknowledgement is more valuable than false comfort.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Nothing to Be Frightened Of" about?
Barnes meditates on death — his own, his family's, his writers' — with the clarity and wit that characterize his fiction. Not quite memoir, not quite philosophy, the book is a sustained confrontation with what it means to live knowing the end is coming.
What are the key takeaways from "Nothing to Be Frightened Of"?
Fear of death is rational and need not be resolved — it can be acknowledged, examined, and then lived alongside The French literary tradition, which has always confronted mortality more directly than the English, offers resources that Barnes finds more useful than religion How we remember the dead is the last gift we can give them — and like all gifts, it involves as much projection as truth
Is "Nothing to Be Frightened Of" worth reading?
One of the most honest and stylishly intelligent books ever written about death — Barnes neither consoling nor nihilistic, just precise, funny, and relentlessly clear-eyed about what mortality actually means.
Ready to Read Nothing to Be Frightened Of?
Check the current price on Amazon.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)Prices and availability are subject to change. See Amazon for current price.
Review last updated: