British author Julian Barnes' "Levels of Life" Gradations of Grief

British author Julian Barnes, is an acclaimed writer, (Sense of an Ending '11 - Man Booker Prize.)  He has also been shortlisted for this award for 3 of his other works.  Both "Levels of Life" & "Sense of an Ending" are explorations of love & grief and the mysterious, ephemeral memories that remain.  Barnes remarkable gifts as a writer are paramount in this memoir which is a triptych of historical fiction, lyrical fiction & personal lamentations on grieving since the death of his wife.  The historical fiction gives depth to the scientific inventions of airborne vessels & photography.  "Advances which allowed us to look at ourselves, better, with increasing truth."  Barnes also quotes Maj. Gen. Anders, on his Apollo 8 mission to the moon in 1968 "…we'd come 240,000 miles to see the Moon and it was the Earth that was really worth looking at."  The eloquent fiction mid-section of the triptych discusses the romantic liaison artists in the late 19thC between the bohemian actress Sarah Bernhardt  & British balloonist Burnaby as a paradigm for quantifying love.  "Together, in that 1st exaltation, that 1st roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their 2 separate selves."  The poignant bookend to "The Sin of Height" is "The Loss of Depth."  It is here that Barnes, assembles his candid & poignant thoughts on love, grief, memory and meaning to life.  Barnes recalls his wife saying shortly before her death, "It's just the Universe doing its stuff."  He asks himself "what extent am I missing her, or missing the life we had together, or missing what it was in her that made me more myself, or missing simple companionship or (not so simple) love, or all or any overlapping bits of each?"  LEVELS of LIFE is a searing biopsy of the heart that focuses a lens into humanity.