If chapter three’s faux translation of court documents was a departure from the standards of fictional forms, this one is even moreso. In fact, it splits into two parts. The first is a measured retelling of the wreck of a French ship named the Medusa, and the sufferings and final rescue of the survivors of that wreck, in July 1816. The second, complete with a gorgeous full colour gatefold reproduction, is an essay on the subject of how that event came to be painted by Gericault.
It’s one of the more fascinating pieces in the book, a meditation on art and catastrophe, on hubris and intention, and all the moreso for not being explicitly fictional (although there is a certain amount of speculation as to the mindsets of both the shipwrecked men and the man who painted them). The inclusion of the painting itself, so that we can see for ourselves whether the lecturing narrator of the second part is right or not, only makes it more precious. Again, more subtly, Barnes asks: What is truth? What do you believe?
Sea-voyages and catastrophes are both recurring motifs in the stories so far, and this one returns us also to Noah and woodworms, while adding Chernobyl (referred to in this chapter and the previous one) to our list of recurrences. It also contemplates mortality more nakedly than any of the other stories thus far.
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