Legendary past
The story begins with the tale of two woodworms trying to gain their entry to Noah's Ark. Then, later, the story of Jonah is retold alongside two modern narratives. The use of the legendary past from Bible times is a clever device used to create tension between art and religion, a theme that is revisited in "The Mountain," and in "Three Simple Stories," and then in a different way, in "Upstream!" In "Project Ararat," the quest is literally to find the ancient artifact or relic, Noah's Ark.
Surreal futurism
The novel takes a few stories and drops them into futuristic scenes. In a way, "The Survivor" is a futuristic horror, except it happened in the past, but the protagonist is clearly having a surreal, sci-fi experience. The reality of the situation is the part that matters least in that particular story. Then, in "Project Ararat," we are suddenly in a space race for a surreal, religious artifact—Noah's Ark (hence the name "Ararat"). The astronaut scenery shows the part of world history pertaining to the growth of technology and space exploration.
Renaissance and Romantic painting
These stories often employ elaborate descriptions and analyses of paintings done during the Renaissance and Romantic eras. Most importantly, of course, is Gericault's famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa. This painting depicts a scene that the author details through stories before analyzing in "Shipwreck," although the painting returns in a few other stories as well. In the narrator's "Parenthesis," he discusses Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco. In that section, the discussion of painting is coupled with metafiction, perhaps to suggest that the discussion of art within the book is also a discussion of art itself (including the book).
Death at sea
For a broad subject like the literal History of the World, one might suspect this book would try to talk about a lot of different kinds of scenery, but actually, most of the imagery describing human life in the book has to do with humans dying at sea. Noah is the only survivor of an epic flood. Jonah almost dies at sea but is saved by a sea monster (literally, "a great fish"). There is a retelling of the horror story of the Titanic. The Jewish refugees are turned away in "Three Simple Stories," to die at sea. In "Upstream!" a character dies in a rafting accident. Perhaps understanding water as a mythic symbol for chaos could add some depth to this frequent imagery.
