THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR THE MEETING POINT OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION IN JULIAN BARNES S SELECTED WORKS

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1 Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR THE MEETING POINT OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION IN JULIAN BARNES S SELECTED WORKS Máthé Nóra PhD Student, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca Abstract:Julian Barnes has been called the Ŗchameleon of British lettersŗ by Mira Stout when she had tried to define his style. His attitude changes with every book he publishes; the only constant detail one can identify in Barnesřs work is his need for stylistic change and his humour, which always finds its way to the surface of his stories. This drive to experiment with time, history, fiction and non-fiction results in a narrative voice which cannot be easily identified as truthful or as reliable from the readerřs point of view. The aim of this paper is to identify the narratorřs voice in some of Julian Barnesřs works, with the help of Philippe Lejeuneřs description of the autobiographical pact and his guidelines about how to decide whether a work of literature is fiction or non-fiction. The agreement provided by Lejeune does not account for philosophical ideas such as truthfulness and for postmodern ideologies such as new historicism. In my paper I attempt to examine the narratorřs behaviour and his use of uncertainty as a tool to keep his truth hidden from his readers. Keywords: Julian Barnes, autobiography, essay, contemporary literature, non-fiction. In a New York Times article Mira Stout calls Julian Barnes the Ŗchameleon of British lettersŗ1 due to the fact that the author changes his style and his topics with each new book he comes out with. The writer is prolific and well appreciated in both fiction and non-fiction, although in most cases it is not so easy to decide whether he takes a confessional standpoint or a fictional one. This ambiguity is deliberate on Barnesřs part; his beliefs align with the ideas of new historicism, which he declares in A History of the World in 10 and ½ Chapters: ŖHistory isnřt what happened. History is just what historians tell us.ŗ2 He does not only question and challenge traditional historiographical discourse, however. His own works focus largely on the narratorřs role and influence, he deliberately plays with the boundaries of autobiographical and fictional narration, thus inventing hybrid genres and styles. One of the greatest examples of such hybridity is the above mentioned A History of the World in 10 and ½ Chapters which can be linked to many genres. As its title suggests, the book contains ten chapters plus one which is not considered a full chapter; it also suggests that one would read a historiographical text, although that illusion is quickly shattered by the presence of the half-chapter. Rarely do we come across such titles or descriptions in a history book. The first chapter further disrupts the idea of a traditional history because it is narrated by a woodworm who is travelling on Noahřs ark, recounting the terrible details of how badly Noah treats the animals, even saying that there were five arks, not only one. Every chapter of the book treats history this way, twisting and turning every factual detail and creating a different, new story. The only text which stands out and which is stylistically different compared to the rest is the half-chapter entitled Parenthesis which takes up a more autobiographical tone and its topic is an episode from Barnesřs life 1 STOUT, Mira: ŖChameleon Novelistŗ. New York Times, 22 November Online: Last viewed: Barnes, Julian: A History of the World in 10 and ½ Chapters. London: Vintage Books,

2 together with his wife. It is a recollection of memories and a documentation of their habits. It is quite significant that the author includes this half-chapter in a book supposedly about the history of the world. History, in Barnesřs view, is not only about what had been written down, it is not just about the facts and the dates. This belief aligns with Hayden Whiteřs perspective on what history is. In his view history is in fact a narrative, a story which is written by historians who had to select some dates and events to create a continuous narrative. 3 This selection which Hayden White calls a Ŗnarrative techniqueŗ 4 is what constitutes todayřs history. However, for a witness, for a person who lived through a historical event, their own experience is the most significant. Barnes uses a very important part of his life and adds it into this context in order to underline the fact that micro-history is just as important as the macro-histories written in order to explain how the world works. Thus, Barnes seems to accept that autobiographic texts are indeed part of history. What one considers to be an autobiography or an autobiographical text, however, is not as clear as it seems at first glance. According to the Oxford Companion to English Literature Ŗin its modern form may be taken as writing that purposefully and selfconsciously provides an account of the authorřs life and incorporates feeling and introspection as well as empirical detail.ŗ 5 This would put quite a few texts under the umbrella term of Ŗautobiographyŗ, however the Oxford Companion ends it with a warning: ŖThe truthfulness or not of an autobiography however must find its authentication by the degree to which it can correspond to some approximation of its context.ŗ 6 This is of key importance when one reads Julian Barnesřs works because he enjoys playing with the concept of truthfulness and of the reliable narrator. Furthermore, the concept of truthfulness is generally quite important as it is aligned with works of literature. The word itself, Ŗautobiographyŗ suggests that everything in said book is a recollection of real events, presented by the narrator in the most realistic way. However, in many instances, this is not the case. The adjective Ŗautobiographicalŗ is used more often due to the fact that it refers to a theme or a topic in a book, an autobiography is not necessarily a theme or a style of writing. 7 Thus, the adjective is needed to point out that there are aspects of a text that focus on true events which took place in the narratorřs life. In Self-Impression Ŕ Life-Writing, Autobiografiction & the Forms of Modern Literature, Max Saunders points out that there are books which are not called autobiographies, but they contain many details about the authorřs life (e.g. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce) 8, so it is quite difficult to make a decision about what one may consider autobiographical detail and what should be excluded. Also, it is important not to falsely identify a fictional part of a book as a confessional detail in order not to mislead the readers. In his famous theory, The Autobiographical Pact, Philippe Lejeune attempts to define what autobiography is without taking into account any philosophical ideas such as truthfulness. 9 He comes to the conclusion that we can consider a text a true autobiography when the author, the narrator and the protagonist are the same and this is declared in some 3White, Hayden: Metahistory Ŕ The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, Ibid. 5 ŖAutobiography.ŗ The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, Ibid. 7 Max Saunders argues that the mere existence of the word Ŗautobiographicalŗ proves that there are more uses of the term than the simple listing of oneřs life events. Saunders, Max: Self-Impression Ŕ Life-Writing, Autobiografiction & the Forms of Modern Literature. Oxford University Press, Ibid. 9Lejeune, Philippe: On Autobiography, ed. Paul John Eakin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

3 way (e.g. in the preface). 10 Of course, this argument is quite flimsy when one looks at texts because it is quite common for authors to either not declare such a thing or to mislead the audience by either denying the autobiographical qualities of his text or to falsely claim that the text is indeed a recollection of their life. Lejeuneřs formula is a good tool to identify ambiguous works: if the books is marked with the authorřs name but the protagonistřs name is different, and especially if the text is written in the third person, it is most likely a work of fiction. If any of these markers are changed, we encounter an unclear genre. Lejeuneřs theory focuses quite a bit on the relationship between the author and the reader. In his view the author is responsible for presenting the text to their reader and to claim what they are about to read because the reader will be led into the book with those first impressions made by the writer through the title, name, preface etc. 11 So, if the author claims the work is purely fiction, the reader has to accept that, although in reality that is not the case: Ŗif the identity is not stated positively (as in fiction), the reader will attempt to establish resemblances, in spite of the author; if it is positively stated (as in fiction), the reader will want to look for differences (errors, deformations, etc.).ŗ 12 Even if the contract is clearly stated, the reader will check to see if it is legitimate. If the pact is not declared, then both the reader and the writer has the possibility to play with the narratorřs role and to offer more ambiguity, the reader, on the other hand, has more possibilities to speculate about the storyřs truthfulness. Julian Barnes uses the above mentioned possibility to its fullest in some of his works. In A History he places the half-chapter titled Parenthesis among chapters of fiction. The other chapters are clearly not written in an autobiographical manner: the narrators include a woodworm and different historical figures. Parenthesis differs in both style and theme and its placement between the fictional texts allows the reader to wonder whether or not it is plausible to read it as a confessional piece or not. The narrator himself addresses the ambiguity of the ŖIŗ he uses in this chapter: ŖPoets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own a flexible ŘIř (when I say ŘIř you will want to know within a paragraph or two whether I mean Julian Barnes or someone invented; a poet can shimmy between the two, getting credit for both deep feeling and objectivity).ŗ 13 He uses his own name in this passage, but he does not affirm any contract with it (the way Lejeune describes it), he actually reinforces the ambiguity of the narrator. He also utilizes the pronouns Ŗyouŗ and Ŗweŗ to address the reader, to ask questions or to generalize authors. The half-chapter adds layer after layer of ambiguity about the narrator, even though it also describes pure, raw emotion: ŖMy eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love.ŗ 14 These outbursts of emotions, paired with autobiographical details 15 lead the reader to accept this text as autobiographical, even if the author questions his equality with the narrator at times. When Parenthesis is read as a single essay, out of the context of the full book, it stands alone as a personal essay about love, married life and Barnesřs musings about the way history and narrative works. In the context of A History, however, it functions as a statement about historiography and the importance of acknowledging micro-histories. 10 Ibid. 11Lejeune, On Autobiography..., Ibid. 13Barnes, A History, Barnes, A History, For example, Barnes mentions that he is writing this text in his friendřs Michigan home. In this instance the author and the narrator are clearly the same person. 631

4 The ten full chapters in A History retell the story of humanity through different methods and from the point of view of many people and even animals. These texts seem disconnected from one another, they can stand alone as essays, but when they appear in this volume, they are regarded as chapters of a hybrid novel. Barnes uses themes and archetypes such as ships to tie these essays together, although they are very different from one another. For example, the fifth chapter, Shipwreck revolves around Théodore Géricaultřs The Raft of the Medusa, a painting which depicts a historical event. Barnes applies many techniques in this chapter: he starts by describing the event which is unfolding in the painting: ŖIt began with a portent. They had doubled Cape Finisterre and were sailing south before a fresh wind when a school of porpoises surrounded the frigate. Those on board crowded the poop and the breastwork, marveling at the animalsř ability to circle a vessel already gaily proceeding at nine or ten knots. As they were admiring the sports of the porpoises, a cry was raised. A cabin boy had fallen through one of the fore portholes on the larboard side. A signal gun was fired, a life-raft thrown out, and the vessel hove to.ŗ 16 These events are not present in Géricaultřs painting; it only depicts the end of the journey. As Barnes himself explains in the second part of the chapter, the Medusa crashed into a reef in 1816, the survivors made a makeshift raft and tried to escape on that. 17 The painting itself shows the end of the journey, the moment where the raft crashes and even the survivors lose their lives. It enhances that point in time, the tragedy of the people who could not escape, even after their second chance. In the chapter titled Shipwreck Barnes chooses to create a narrative about it, he chooses to write the story which leads on the building of the raft and then the end, depicted by Géricault. As the above inserted quote demonstrates, the authorřs story begins on the Medusa and he takes his reader on the whole voyage, meticulously describing over ten days on the ship. The first part of the half-chapter aligns itself with the style of a novel presented in A History..., the second part, however, is written in a different style, it resembles an essay in which the author discusses the painting in detail. Barnes gives new purpose to the chapter titled Shiwpreck when he adds it into his essay collection, Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art. In the 2015 book the title is changed to Géricault: Catastrophe into Art, which focuses more on the second part of the chapter. The second part is introduced with a question: ŖHow do you turn catastrophe into art?ŗ 18 So, Barnes himself shifts the focus and, with that, the genre of the chapter, which now becomes more of an essay. The historical aspects do not have that much importance when they are placed in a book of essays critiquing art. In this setting Barnesřs views and ideas become more important, even though the text is the same. In an interview with the New Yorker he explains that these texts are Ŗintended to address the reader who enjoys art in the same way that I do, and isnřt a professional and isnřt an academic and doesnřt have a theory to promote [ ] So, in a wayŕin that wayŕthey relate to my fiction, which I also think of as being companionable and untheoretical.ŗ 19 The mixture of his confessional, analytical style and the context of the book, together with his explanation provided to The New Yorker clearly underline this shift in the meaning of Shipwreck/Géricault: Catastrophy into Art. He discusses the painting with a more or less 16Barnes, A History, Barnes, A History, Barnes, A History, 125. Also found in Barnes, Julian: Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art. London: Jonathan Cape, Delistraty, Cody: ŖJulian Barnes Looks at Artŗ. The New Yorker, October 14, Online: Last viewed:

5 an amateurřs eyes and recreates the story behind it, thus explaining that Ŗthe painting has slipped historyřs anchor.ŗ 20 The novelistic first part is less important in the 2015 setting, Barnesřs opinion and analysis is what gives it a place in Keeping an Eye Open. The reason why the reader may read it differently in the second book Ŕ according to Lejeuneřs theory Ŕ is the fact that the author himself labels the book a collection of essays. The essay is a very vague genre to describe a text with; literary theorists have trouble grasping its most important characteristics, but one thing is certain: it may be considered an autobiographical genre. The essay, as its creator, Montaigne intended, is an attempt on the authorřs part to ananlyse and discuss topics. T. W. Adorno explains that Ŗthe effort of the essay reflects a childlike freedom that catches fire, without scruple, on what others have already doneŗ 21 and Barnes uses this freedom whenever he discusses a given topic. He shares his opinions in a more direct way, although it is unlike the author to delve on his emotions for too long. Barnesřs writing style and his analytical perspective, paired with his desire to experiment with narrative is perfectly expressed in the form of an essay. Shipwreck or Géricault: Catastrophy into Art is the perfect example oh is playful take on how he uses writing. The text is made up of the above mentioned narration about the ship, followed by a part two, introduced by Barnesřs question about history. Barnes continues to discuss the history behind the painting by providing a list of things that had happened: Ŗ1) he Medusa strikes the reef; 2) The moment when the two-ropes were cast off and the raft was abandoned; 3) The munities in the night; 4) The necessary cannibalism; 5) The self-protective mass murder; 6) The arrival of the butterfly; 7) The survivors up to their waists, or calves, or ankles in water; 8) The actual moment of rescue.ŗ 22 He also includes a Notes section in which he explains every item of this list in great detail. The essay is a genre which does not align well with Philippe Lejeuneřs theory of autobiography. It holds autobiographical tendencies because its narrator constitutes an important part of the text. The reader experiences a narrative through the eyes of the narrator who also shares his opinions and even questions, debates the topics. In Barnesřs care the essay becomes even more playful and free, he utilizes it to toy with style and format, creating more and more hybrid works as a result. BIBLIOGRAPHY ADORNO, T. W.: The Essay as Form. New German Critique 1984/32. BARNES, Julian: A History of the World in 10 and ½ Chapters. London: Vintage Books, BARNES, Julian: Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art. London: Jonathan Cape, BARNES, Julian: Through the Window Ŕ Seventeen Essays (and One Short Story), Vintage Books, London, Barnes, A History, Adorno, T. W.: The Essay as Form. New German Critique 1984/ Barnes, A History,

6 DELISTRATY, Cody: ŖJulian Barnes Looks at Artŗ. The New Yorker, October 14, Online: Last viewed: LEJEUNE, Philippe: On Autobiography, ed. Paul John EAKIN. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, SAUNDERS, Max: Self-Impression Ŕ Life-Writing, Autobiografiction & the Forms of Modern Literature. Oxford University Press, STOUT, Mira: ŖChameleon Novelistŗ. New York Times, 22 November Online: Last viewed: The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret DRABBLE, Oxford University Press, WHITE, Hayden: Metahistory Ŕ The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,