Bookends

A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10 1/2 CHAPTERS

by Julian Barnes

Knopf; 307 pages; $18.95

The tone of the title -- both grandiose and self-mocking -- accurately reflects the contents. Julian Barnes, whose third novel, Flaubert's Parrot (1985), earned an army of readers outside his native Britain, has here gathered a collection of prose pieces, nominally fiction, that cohere chiefly by virtue of being bound together in one book. The affair kicks off with a termite's view of the adventures of Noah and his ark. (Noah, it turns out, was not a particularly nice fellow, and his epic voyage was less than heroic in its details.) Matters then proceed through a number of other diverting incidents, among them the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Arab terrorists, Jonah's sojourn in the belly of the whale, the historic wreck of a French ship and the religious experiences of an American astronaut. The localized pleasures in each chapter -- Barnes is both erudite and witty -- are somewhat diminished by the suspicion that the end design will amount to no more than academic playfulness. There is much to savor in this book and a little to deplore, including the author's determination to indulge himself instead of his readers.

ROOSEVELT AND MARSHALL

by Thomas Parrish

Morrow; 608 pages; $25

"Dear George: You win again. F.D.R." The George was George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and the F.D.R. was, of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was congratulating him for persuading a reluctant Congress to pass a bill they both deemed essential for Allied victory in World War II. Short as it was, the President's letter summarized his admiration for the co-architect of American strategy: without Marshall in Washington, he said, he could not sleep at night. In fact, that justifiable anxiety cost Marshall the job he so greatly coveted: Supreme Commander in Europe, which went instead to his protege Dwight Eisenhower.

Yet the relationship between Roosevelt and Marshall was not always easy, as this stylishly written book makes clear. To find out what schemes the sometimes impetuous President was cooking up with Winston Churchill, Marshall often had to ask Britain's chief military representative in Washington. He would then protest loudly, putting out a restraining hand that benefited both the President and the country. In his own way each man was a genius without whom the war would have been even longer and more terrible.