Julian Barnes and the Diminishing of the English Novel

By GEOFF DYER

Published: December 16, 2011

The narrator of Julian Barnes’s acclaimed novel “The Sense of an Ending” is told by Veronica, a girlfriend from his university days, that he just doesn’t get it. Then, after more clues have come his way, she tells him that he still doesn’t get it. There are so many things he doesn’t get that he even considers using the line as his epitaph: “Tony Webster — He Never Got It.”

My feelings exactly. I didn’t get the book when I first read it. I still didn’t get it when I reread it after Barnes won this year’s Man Booker Prize, and Stella Rimington, chairwoman of the judging panel (and former head of MI5), said there was more to get each time you read it. To me, there seemed less to get second time around. If such a thing is possible, I didn’t get it even more than I hadn’t got it first time around. However, to pick up on one of the book’s themes, the accumulation of not getting things can add up to a kind of understanding.

“The Sense of an Ending” is a very short novel in which Tony keeps circling back to memories of Veronica, particularly to a mildly anxious weekend he endured at her parents’ house. This was back in the ’60s, before the ’60s really became the ’60s, when all but a few pockets of England were stuck in a slightly less austere addendum to the late ’50s. That weekend begins to makes sense only in light of what comes after — which in turn has to be seen in the context of what came before, when Tony and two friends were at school. These school days are actually rendered rather brilliantly, especially the moments in which a new boy, Adrian, bursts on the scene, startling the friends with his precocious intelligence. Later, after Tony has broken up with his girlfriend, Adrian commits suicide. This would be my first objection. Obviously people commit suicide, for a variety of reasons, but in fiction they tend to do so primarily in the service of authorial convenience. And convenience invariably becomes a near-anagram of contrivance.

Plotwise, not a lot happens. Veronica’s mother dies, leaving Tony, by now retired and divorced, some money and a “document” that turns out to be Adrian’s diary, only a copied fragment of which Veronica is willing to release to Tony. This excerpt ends tantalizingly, “So, for instance, if Tony.” The rest of the book, not surprisingly, involves Tony trying to get his mitts on the diary.

The paucity of action gives Tony ample opportunity to reflect on — and enact — the self-serving and self-deceiving workings of memory. “Again, I must stress that this is my reading now of what happened then. Or rather, my memory now of my reading then of what was happening at the time, ” Tony declares in one of several reiterations of the book’s central ideas.

These ideas might better be termed commonplaces. But while commonplaces tend to dress themselves up in their Sunday best to assume greater weight, Barnes has always treated them lightly so that, by a kind of negation of the negation, they are taken . . . seriously! (Note Barnes’s pre-emptive body swerve: announced early on, one of Adrian’s pet aversions is “the way the English have of not being serious about being serious.”) Something similar operates at the level of feeling. The author’s famous restraint and withholding take on the form — and are evidence — of a powerful emotion that is being held in. How do we detect this submerged pressure of emotion? By the fact that it has been so thoroughly restrained as to appear nonexistent. Absence is proof of presence.

We must be fair. Quizzed by a master at school, Adrian comes up with a breathtaking aphorism: “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” It turns out Adrian is quoting a Frenchman, Patrick Lagrange. Proof that Barnes doesn’t have any ideas of his own! Except that Lagrange has been invented by Adrian (on the spur of the moment), and self-evidently by Barnes, which means he does have ideas of his own! But this then throws up a rudimentary technical problem, namely, that we are expected to believe that Adrian could have come up with a formulation — and an alleged source — not only implausibly beyond the capacities of even the most precocious adolescent but distinctly sharper than anything else his creator manages in the course of the book.

Tony’s less startling observations often take the form of rhetorical questions posed by “a pedantic, unignorable bore” who does not like “mess” and, as he puts it in one of his endless perambulations round the point, can “only be straightforward.” Not that he is a pathologically unreliable narrator. He is a reliably unreliable narrator, a representative of the national average. Ever since he left school, Tony reliably informs us, he has been “average”: “Average at university and work; average in friendship, loyalty, love; average, no doubt, at sex. There was a survey of British motorists a few years ago which showed that 95 percent of those polled thought they were ‘better than average’ drivers. But by the law of averages, we’re most of us bound to be average.”

Now, the delineation of ordinariness is not a peculiarly English preoccupation. The narrator of Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe trilogy leads “the normal applauseless life of us all,” and tells us about it in a “no-frills voice that hopes to uncover simple truth by a straight-on application of the facts.” In Ford’s hands, this becomes an ambitious undertaking that has the sprawling amplitude of a prose continent at its disposal. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, Barnes’s infolded scrupulousness seems every bit as well adapted to a reduced idea of English fiction, to a habit of reading that appeals (I get it!) and wearies (yeah, I get it!) in equal measure. The English Ford — Ford Madox Ford — prepared the narrative formula in “The Good Soldier” (“Is all this digression or isn’t it digression?”) in 1915; instead of being patented, however, it was, so to speak, nationalized. A recomposition of the passively active ingredients can be found in Kazuo Ishiguro’s narratives of wanly undermined self-evasion, most notably “The Remains of the Day.” The efficacy of the mixture is tried and tested even if the precise sources remain obscure — but if they are recognized then so much the better. Thus Barnes’s title gives averagely well-informed readers a preparatory pat on the back as they recognize that it has been lifted from a well-known book of criticism by Hugh Kenner.

This was not one of those years when the Man Booker Prize winner was laughably bad. No, any extreme expression of opinion about “The Sense of an Ending” feels inappropriate. It isn’t terrible, it is just so . . . average. It is averagely compelling (I finished it), involves an average amount of concentration and, if such a thing makes sense, is averagely well written: excellent in its averageness!

Two final points. First, unreliability is not the sole preserve of fictional narrators. Second, the pleasure of patting oneself on the back for seizing on instances of unreliability and ignorance is, as the late Frank Kermode may or may not have pointed out, considerable.

Geoff Dyer is the author of “Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews, 1989-2010” and other books. His column appears regularly in the Book Review

Appendix 6

Tips on How to Write a Good Essay

1. Think of the problems, raised by the author, and choose one (or several interconnected problems) as a topic for the essay.

2. Make up a title which would reflect the topic in a laconic but, at the same time, informative manner. Mind that extremely long titles prevent the reader from grasping the idea.

3. Put down the ideas you would like to share in connection with the problem. They will make the background arguments of the body of your essay.

4. Reveal the idea, contained in the background argument (3-5 sentences for each argument), by making comments, citing the text, giving examples from life, establishing links with other literary works (films), employing statistics etc.

5. Write an introduction (3-5 sentences) which would give your reader a notion why the problem you’ve picked is worth being discussed. Speak briefly of what you are going to write about in the main part (the body).

6. Pass over to a conclusion (3-5 sentences). Remember that this part should not contain any new ideas. It is recommended that you refer to the introduction and once again speculate on the problem in general.

· There shouldn’t be semantic gaps between the ideas you share. Try to organize your thoughts in a logical order thus creating a single line between the introduction and the conclusion.

· To make the narration smooth and easy to follow do not forget to use the so-called linkers, or linking words (see Table 1).

· When advancing an argument support it with quotes from the text. Do not forget to mention the page you cite.

· Your essay will benefit if you manage to find an appropriate epigraph to impress the reader and tune him for comprehending your ideas.

· Try to keep balance between the parts of your essay. It is a drawback if one of the parts is too small while another is extremely prolonged.

Sample

Politzeimako Ks.

4^th – year student

the Faculty of Foreign Languages,

Kursk State University

THE VERITABLE FAITH

In the chapter «The Mountain» Julian Barnes touches upon several profound, moralistic and complex problems, and some of them are quite controversial. However, I’d like to dwell on a question, which seems to be the most essential and topical for me. To be more exact, I am going to point out the problem of faith, raised by Julian Barnes in this very chapter.

It seems to me that people can be divided into four categories from the point of view of their attitude to religion: the first blindly believe in God and everything preached by the church and the Bible without any doubting; the second trust in God in their own way, without following some church rites and just keeping God in their hearts; the third deny the existence of God and any other divine appearance, treating it like groundless fiction. However, the last group is the worst – they are religious fanatics, who frequently fall mad owing to their perverted religious conceptions. Actually, we face some of these representatives in the story «The Mountain», being given two absolutely contradictory points of view concerning religion.

Trusting «in the world’s ability to progress, in man’s ascent, in the defeat of superstition», colonel Fergusson was extremely disappointed that his daughter did not inherit his opinions towards religion. To be more exact, Mr. Fergusson considered religion and everything connected with it to be «hot air» without any scientific and logical grounds: «Where Amada discovered in the world divine intent, benevolent order and rigorous justice, her father had seen only chaos, hazard and malice». In other words, colonel Fergusson denied religion, considering it to be nothing.

However, colonel’s daughter held a totally different opinion, being exceedingly puzzled with her father’s obstinate refusal to admit the divine plan: «How could her father have failed to recognize God, His eternal design, and its essential goodness». Nevertheless, following the plot of the story we find out that Miss Fergusson is not just a faithful and pious person, but a religious fanatic which can be proved by these quotations: «We shall ascend the mountain. Sin must be purged with water… We shall fill our bottles with snow from the holy mountain. The pure juice of Noah’s wine we came in search of had been rendered impure. We shall bring purging water instead». Besides, we get added evidence that Miss Fergusson was not in her own right mind on learning her attitude towards people, perished after the violent commotion, which had thrown down the whole monastery community near the holy mountain: «It was a punishment they should have foreseen… For disobedience. For fermenting the fruit of Noah’s wine». As we can see, such a position reveals the morbid nature of Miss Fergusson’s faith.

From my point of view, the veritable faith in God allows no harm and no ill-natured designs and intentions towards others. To tell the truth, it is very difficult for me to say definitely right now, what God is and whether I accept everything the church preaches us. On the contrary, I would rather say that I am far from many church rites, principles and opinions. However, I am absolutely sure that the true faith carries only good, light and love, and God, if He really exists, and I hope He does, is something heart-warming, incredibly kind merciful and understanding.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that faith in God is something very personal, and it is impossible to affirm that one or another way of belief is solely right. People can trust in God or deny Him – all in all, the most important thing is to be a good person – honest, kind, moral, able to sympathize and help.

References

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes: A Commentary with Annotations/ Edited by Karen Hewitt with contributions from Alya Ageeva, Irina Charychanskaya, Tatiana Kuznetsova, Natalia Malik and others; Perm State University. – Perm, 2006. – 86 p.

Barnes, Julian. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. First published London: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1989, reprinted London: Picador, 1990.

Contents

Tasks for Introductory Discussion………………………………………………….5

Tasks for Chapter 1………………………………………………………………...5

Tasks for Chapter 2………………………………………………………………...8

Tasks for Chapter 3………………………………………………………………11

Tasks for Chapter 4……………………………………………………………….13

Tasks for Chapter 5……………………………………………………………….15

Tasks for Chapter 6……………………………………………………………….17

Tasks for Chapter 7……………………………………………………………….18

Tasks for Chapter 8……………………………………………………………….20

Tasks for the ‘Half-Chapter’……………………………………………………21

Tasks for Chapter 9……………………………………………………………….23

Tasks for Chapter 10……………………………………………………………25

Final Creative Tasks………………………………………………………………27

Appendix………………………………………………………………………….28

References………………………………………………………………………...50

Умеренкова Анна Валерьевна

Сontemporary British Novel in Class

“A History of the World in 10/2 Chapters” by Julian Barns: Language, Style, Images, Message

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