TOTALITARIAN NARRATIVE IN WORKS OF JULIAN BARNES

Abstract

The article is focused on the ideological and aesthetic deconstruction of totalitarian narrative in the two novels of Julian Barnes – The Porcupine (1992) and The Noise of Time (2016). Inspired by the fall of the communist regime in an East-European country, The Porcupine represents totalitarianism as a political phenomenon, the dramatic core of the novel being an ideological duel with an ambiguous result. The narrative polyphony does not ruin the epic integrity, which is analyzed in the article in keeping with Hanna Arendt’s theoretical premises. Cursorily touched upon in The Porcupine, the theme of art in a totalitarian society is thematized in The Noise of Time. The author uses Shostakovich’s biography to reflect on the nature of art, its trials and tribulations under totalitarianism, on complexities of the dialogue between the artist and the power, on admissible limits for an artist to seek for compromises with the power and with himself. The biofiction flaunts its fragmentary form, the sources of its fragmentation to be looked for in the specific situation of an artist in a totalitarian society: the fragmentary narrative mimics the protagonist’s disrupted and tormented self-consciousness. The narrative fragmentation and ontological pluralism coexist with a synthesizing tendency, which obviously relates to the musicality of the novel. The system of leitmotifs works for the harmony of the novel, substantial structural symmetry goes hand in hand with the fluctuating associative narration. To summarize, by their polyphony and fragmentation, both novels deconstruct the monological essence of totalitarianism.