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Essays on Julian Barnes's Fiction barnes_zold-bordo.indd 1 11/8/14 11:36 PM Stunned into Uncertainty: Essays on Julian Barnes’s Fiction Book-Barnes2.indb 1 2014.11.23. 21:15:44 ELTE Papers in English Studies Judit Friedrich series editor Book-Barnes2.indb 2 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 Stunned into Uncertainty: Essays on Julian Barnes’s Fiction Eszter Tory and Janina Vesztergom editors Department of English Studies School of English and American Studies Faculty of Humanities Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, 2014 Book-Barnes2.indb 3 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 The publication was supported by Eötvös Loránd University Student Union (EHÖK), Division of Literary Studies Association of Hungarian PhD and DLA Students (DOSZ) Copyright © WOJCIECH DRĄG, JUDIT FRIEDRICH, ÁGNES HARASZTOS, DOROTTYA JÁSZAY, MIKLÓS MIKECZ, PÉTER TAMÁS, ESZTER SZÉP, ESZTER TORY, DÓRA VECSERNYÉS, JANINA VESZTERGOM, 2014 All rights reserved Editing copyright © Judit Friedrich, Eszter Tory, Janina Vesztergom, 2014 Cover design by szabógabi Layout by Zsuzsanna Simonkay Printed by Pátria Nyomda Zrt. Published by the Department of English Studies School of English and American Studies Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, 2014 All rights reserved ISSN: 2061-5655 ISBN: 978-963-284-554-8 Book-Barnes2.indb 4 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 Table of Contents Introduction: Selenelion in October 7 Abstraction 13 Dorottya Jászay 15 “Supernormal Simulacra”: The Relation of the Human Psyche and the Theme Park Phenomenon in Julian Barnes’s England, England Dóra Vecsernyés 29 With His Watch on the Inside of the Wrist: Time in Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending Janina Vesztergom 41 “The Voice Above”: Manacles of Responsibility in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George Anxiety 55 Eszter Szép 57 “Your Species”: The Rupture Between Man and Animal in Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10½ Chapters Ágnes Harasztos 71 Lacanian Subject Formation and Liberal Ideology in Julian Barnes’s The Porcupine Péter Tamás 85 “If I Were a Dictator of Fiction”: Readerly and Writerly Anxiety of Inluence in Julian Barnes's Flaubert’s Parrot Ascendance 97 Wojciech Drąg 99 Thwarted Quests for Meaning: Religion, Art and Love in the Early Novels of Julian Barnes 5 Book-Barnes2.indb 5 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 Eszter Tory 115 The Courage to Believe: Mediocrity and Faith in Julian Barnes’s Staring at the Sun Miklós Mikecz 129 Personal as National/National as Personal: Interactions between Narrative Strands in Julian Barnes’s England, England Epilogue: The Barnesian Text 145 References to Julian Barnes’s Works 167 References to Critical Works on Julian Barnes’s Fiction 169 6 Book-Barnes2.indb 6 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 Introduction Selenelion in October There was a special celestial event at the time this volume was being edited: a total eclipse of the moon was visible with the sun rising si- multaneously, which, according to geometry, should not be possible to see. What could be seen were merely images made possible by the atmosphere around the Earth. Except, none of us involved in the pro- duction of the volume could in fact see this selenelion; it was not vis- ible from Hungary, Poland or Britain. The perfect Barnesian metaphor: take your own shadow; cast it over what you are trying to observe; observe the resulting images until you are convinced that whatever seems to be there is merely a trick of perception; colour in the shadow by iltering light through the pollution you have contributed to; then proceed to undercut it all by irony: wait until it is all over and some- body tells you about your selenelion, since you were not there to see it yourself. This volume of essays on Julian Barnes’s iction is the result of the collaboration of a group of doctoral students to mark the occa- sion of establishing a Division of Literary Studies of the Association of Hungarian PhD and DLA Students (DOSZ). The publication was supported by the University Student Union (EHÖK) of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest. The contributors were students at the Modern English and American Literature Programme of the Doctoral School of Literary Studies at ELTE, studying Julian Barnes’s novels and irony at a semi- nar course hosted by the Department of English Studies within the School of English and American Studies. The guest contributor from Poland was already known to the group as the author of an MA thesis accessible via the JulianBarnes.com website and was invited to join the volume once met in person at the 2014 conference of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) in Košice in September. The authors of the essays are all exploring various aspects of modern literatures in English for their dissertations, whether to be written about British or American authors, about iction, drama or graphic novels, in the period of the second half of the twentieth cen- tury or in recent years. As a result, the set of tools and the theoretical backgrounds mobilised for the essays are quite diverse. The points of 7 Book-Barnes2.indb 7 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 intersection between the contributors’ respective research areas and Barnes’s iction draw a map which shows intriguing paths leading to great vistas, detours from well-travelled highways, roads with surpris- ingly sharp turns or trails climbing over dificult terrain. The structure of the volume attempts to reveal converging ele- ments within the individual articles. The opinions of the individual au- thors were not edited for greater coherence or harmony; references, however, are presented at the end of the volume as a combined list of all works of Julian Barnes discussed in the articles, and all critical sources mentioned by the authors in their footnotes. In the section labelled “Abstractions,” the authors focus on con- cepts that might enrich our interpretation of Barnes’s iction by cast- ing a strong beam of theoretical light over a facet of individual texts, even as they explore central images. Dorottya Jászay examines interdisciplinary theories that might ex- plain the success of what she comes to call “supernormal simulacra” of Englishness in England, England, creatively and productively combin- ing the concept of the simulacrum on the one hand and that of super- normal stimulus on the other, the latter borrowed from ethology. Dóra Vecsernyés explores the time-bound existence of humanity and, in particular, the way time can be seen as the concept govern- ing the narrative of The Sense of an Ending. Vecsernyés applies and expands the modernist concepts of time and duration to reveal the in- timate similarities among the low of time, the low of blood and the low of life. At critical moments, the novel offers the vision of revers- ibility for them, but, Vecsernyés concludes, with the inal revelation Barnes reverts to the unidirectional quality we have come to expect from these lows. Janina Vesztergom inds an abstract treatment of responsibility in Arthur & George, a key to explaining the success of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a novelist, which comes at the expense of his failure as a de- tective fashioned after the ictional character of Sherlock Holmes he himself had created. The dialogic nature of this novel is explored here on several levels, from the textual through the structural to the on- tological, while the exploration itself is presented along the division between intrapersonal and interpersonal responsibilities. In the “Anxiety” section, the authors concentrate on one of the core human experiences presented in Barnes’s iction around questions of identity: the anxiety generated by the attempt to deine the position of humankind in general, and the place of the ambitious individual in 8 Book-Barnes2.indb 8 2014.11.23. 21:15:45 particular, within the world of all living beings, in the context of poli- tics or in terms of literary traditions. Eszter Szép, who takes a fundamentally visual approach to lit- erature, presents the anxiety Barnes projects on humans in contrast with animals. This is the anxiety of imagining what we would look like being seen from the outside, for instance in the eyes of animals, as in A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. Szép uses the approach of a fairly new area, Critical Animal Studies, and relies mainly on John Berger and Jacques Derrida for theoretical support. Ágnes Harasztos is interested in the representation of Eastern and Central Europe in British iction. For her, The Porcupine is a nat- ural choice. In this article Harasztos explores the political anxiety surrounding liberalism. According to her argumentation, liberalism requires a background of authoritarian politics, against which it can emerge and which then stays internalised in it. Harasztos brings to- gether questions about father-son relationships and political succes- sion with the political issue of how liberalism may or may not develop against a background of a collapsing totalitarian state, examined via the process of the emergence of the self as described by Jacques Lacan. Péter Tamás explores the anxiety of literary inluence in Flaubert’s Parrot in terms of Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Inluence. Tamás takes the stance that it is not so much the direct inluence but the misreading of Flaubert that could be an interesting focus of analysis. In his view, it is not Barnes but Geoffrey Braithwaite who is affected by the pains of trying to grow into an independent author from under the shadow of a genius. Within this framework, the most promising path to success for Braithwaite is to prove to himself that Flaubert was not as good as everybody else seems to think, and, if Flaubert is found weak, there is space for Braithwaite to grow into an author.
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