"The Whisper of History" vs "The Noise of Time": historical understanding in the work of Julian Barnes

The subject of the study is the understanding of the historical in the work of the English writer Julian Barnes. The author analyzes Barnes' methods of working with historical material on the example of the novel "The Noise of Time" (2016). Special attention is paid to Barnes' attitude to the problem of historical truth. The writer's work is traditionally considered in the context of narrativistic concepts of historiography. Barnes is indeed associated with them by some characteristics: textuality of history, secondary interpretation, variability of the past, addition of historical reality by fiction. This article hypothesizes that Barnes' use of narrativistic concepts is largely declarative. He deliberately uses them and parodies them, but Barnes' ultimate goal is not to recognize epistemological helplessness, but on the contrary, to try to find at least elements of the authentic in history. The methodology underlying this study is based on a cultural and historical approach. The compositional analysis of the novel "The Noise of Time" in combination with the intertextual analysis of Barnes' other works revealed a common understanding of the historical in the writer's work. The main contribution of the study is the description of Barnes' special, complex and sometimes contradictory attitude to the question of historical truth. Despite the obvious use of the provisions of narrativistic historiography, the writer remains an attentive historical reenactor. The exposure of the techniques of the narrativistic philosophy of history becomes, among other things, a warning for him. Barnes demonstrates the mechanism (in fact, the rewriting of history), but behind this is the desire to convince the reader to be harder in search of the truth and not to fall into the "traps" that the authors of historical narratives set. Thus, Barnes once again implements his creative program: removes the historical plot "from the anchor of history" and expands it to existential significance. Shostakovich's biography becomes for him a way to contrast "the noise of time" with "the whisper of history", and music and love with tyranny and fear.

narrativistic historiography, postmodern literature, philosophy of history, new historicism, historical understanding, historical relativism, truth, Julian Barnes, Shostakovich, the noise of time