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47SECTION 2
ARTICLES ON INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS
УДК 821.111-31
Love Discourse as a Multiple Dialogue in Julian Barnes's Fiction ('Parenthesis'; Talking It Over; Love, etc.; 'Carcassonne')
Olga Veliugo
Minsk State Linguistic University, Associate Professor
220034, the Republic of Belarus, Minsk, Zakharov str., 21; ely@tut.by.
The article considers love discourse in writing by Julian Barnes. It demonstrate that contemporary love discourse can be viewed as a multiple dialogue with the multiple Other. The Other is primarily represented by the actual reader, and sometimes, the fictional reader. The aim of the dialogue is the pursuit of meaning together with the reader, i.e. the pursuit of the truth, beauty, and harmony.
Key words: love discourse; discourse analysis; dialogue; the Other; Julian Barnes.
Discourse analysis is one of the holistic approaches to the discussion of literary matters: it provides a deep insight into both form and content of the text which ensures a full, harmonious interpretation. Still another advantage of the approach consists in its obvious humanistic idea. Understanding fiction as discourse implies its dialogic nature: firstly, its tight connection to the extralinguistic context, and, secondly, its being addressed to the reader (Плеханова, 2011: 26).
Generally, discourse analysis is meant to be an interdisciplinary approach which comprises literary, linguistic, psychoanalytic and other means of interpretation. The given paper is a modest attempt to apply discourse analysis as a solely literary approach to interpreting Julian Barnes's fiction. We aim at revealing the author's dialogical strategies in love discourse, a thematic kind of discourse. By love discourse we understand here, in the narrow sense, Roland Barthes' interpretation, i.e. the way a lover's discourse unfolds (Барт, 1999).
® Olga Veliugo, 2012
The end of the twentieth century witnessed the development of a love discourse of a qualitatively new type, formed on the basis of realist and modernist traditions mingled with postmodernist aesthetics. Alongside Barnes, there are a number of contemporary writers Jeanette Winterson, Ian McEwan, David Lodge, Doris Lessing, Angela Carter, etc. who have contributed to the process. The love discourse in Barnes's fiction, however, stands out in the way that it not only testifies to the eternal value of love, but also extends far beyond personal relationships, individual happiness and love affairs, and positions love as a cornerstone of the author's outlook and philosophy. Barnes connects love with history, religion, art, and the existence of the human race.
The above stated issues are considered in Barnes's 'Parenthesis', a half chapter from A History of the World in 10 У2 Chapters (1989). 'Parenthesis' is an essay where the author attempts to define the essence of love. Barnes makes use of Socrates' technique in Plato's dialogues (Платон, 1993) and asks a series of questions to the reader, beginning in this way every new paragraph to introduce a new idea: 'If we look at nature, do we see where love comes in?' (Barnes 1990: 232); 'So where does love come in?' (Barnes 1990: 232); 'Is it a useful mutation that helps the race survive?' (Barnes 1990: 233); 'Then is love some luxury that sprang up in peaceful times, like quilt-making?' (Barnes 1990: 233). And then, among some other ironic metaphors, again: 'Do you remember this paradox of love, of the first few weeks and months of Passionate Love... the paradox about time?' (Barnes 1990: 236); 'Is it normal, this state of love, or abnormal?' (Barnes 1990: 237). Barnes then provides the reader with his answers, thus unfolding his argumentation strategy. As a Belarusian scholar, T. Plehanova, states, 'the question-and-answer structure of the author's discourse highlights its dialogical nature - the discourse proves to be not the final product of the individual self-expression, but a dynamic communication process where addressing the Other is the author's discursive strategy' (Плеханова 2011: 200).
Notwithstanding postmodernist deconstruction of binary oppositions resulting in total pluralism and avoidance of the author's commentary lest it should impose a definite opinion upon the reader, Barnes's 'Parenthesis' is nonconventionally didactic. But
its obvious didacticism is of different sort (Радченко 2008: 41): the author does not intend to give the reader direct instructions ('This is not an advice column' (Barnes 1990: 238)), but yet he can tell us 'why to love' (Barnes 1990: 238). And the author uses stylistic means that suggest obvious didacticism: interrogative sentences still occasionally occur, but alongside with them there are plenty of imperative sentences and modal verbs denoting strong obligation, e.g.: 'Still we must [italics supplied] believe in love, just as we must [italics supplied] believe in free will and objective truth' (Barnes 1990: 244). Repeated several times, coming close to the very end of the half-chapter, that is, put in the strong position of the text (the modal verb 'must' in the meaning of obligation appears 10 times on the last two pages of 'Parenthesis'), these words acquire a special importance, and are understood as the conclusion, the moral. Here the narrative reaches the climax of the author's argumentation strategy. The imperative mood is one of the markers of a dialogical structure of the text as well (Плеханова 2011:11).
Thus, 'Parenthesis' turns out to be not a monologue, a purely aesthetic reflection on love, but a dialogue with the reader. Modern love discourse often reveals the transformation of the dialogue with the Other: the place of the Other is occupied not by the beloved person, but by the reader. According to Barthes, a lover is a person who speaks in a certain way: (lovingly) speaks in front of the other (loved), who is silent (Барт 1999: 81), so that the lover's discourse is in total loneliness (Барт 1999: 80). Curiously, this is precisely the way the narrator of 'Parenthesis' is whispering the words of love into the nape of the sleeping woman. She cannot hear him, and he decides not to wake her up: 'It may seem great truth now, though in the morning it may not seem worth disturbing her for' (Barnes 1990: 244). A kind of double-dialogue - a dialogue with the beloved one, and that with the reader - takes place in 'Parenthesis'. The aim of the dialogue is the pursuit of meaning together with the reader, which means the pursuit of the truth, beauty, and harmony.
The dialogue can also take place between the main characters and the reader, and in contemporary fiction this form of dialogue is the more widespread. The vivid example is Barnes's Talking It Over (1991) and its sequel Love, etc. (2000). Both the novels are characterized by a very specific narrative strategy: the three main
characters take their turns to 'talk' directly to the reader, the author being 'excluded' from the narrative altogether. The narrative organization of the novels reminds one of a play; it is not accidental, that the story is staged in the theatres of Chicago and Ljubljana (http: //julianbarnes.com/bib/tio.html).
The conflict lies in a conventional love triangle: Gillian marries Stuart and then leaves him for their friend Oliver. Ten years later Stuart finds Gillian and Oliver, and Gillian is ready to come back to her former husband. It is the aim of the conversation that is nonconventional: not to solve the conflict and come to an agreement, but to win the sympathy of the reader, to prove that their version of the events is true to life. There is no real communication between the heroes (Васильева 2006: 181), the dialogue occurs between the protagonists and the fictional reader, whom the protagonists construct themselves. But there is also an actual reader with their responses and likings who is another participant of the conversation.
Again, as we have observed it in 'Parenthesis', the reader, instead of the character, represents the Other of the love discourse. The conversation with the reader turns into an open never-ending game, the protagonists' love discourse - into the reflection upon love, addressed to the reader. E.g.
'... The world divides into two categories: those who believe that the purpose, the function, the bass pedal and principal melody of life is love, and that everything else -everything else - is merely an etc.; and those, those unhappy many, who believe primarily in the etc. of life, for whom love, however agreeable, is but a passing flurry of youth, the pattering prelude to nappy-duty, but not something as solid, steadfast and reliable as, say, home decoration. This is the only division between people that counts,' Oliver shares his philosophy with the reader (Barnes 1992,141).
As for the traditional I love you, in this love discourse it occurs in the form of indirect speech, being retold by the addressee to the reader. Likewise, Gillian tells the reader about Oliver having declared his love to her. In the process of retelling the protagonists face the problem of the choice of words and the inevitable change of
the elusive meaning. E.g. Gillian tries to match the reality with its description without much success: 'When we were making love -no, when he was raping me - no, let's say when we were having sex' (Barnes 2002: 220).
Thus, both the novels can be seen as a matrix of multiple dialogues. Each protagonist constructs a dialogue with the fictional and with the actual readers, incorporating the dialogues between the protagonists within.
'Carcassonne', a short story from Barnes's latest collection of stories Pulse (2011), is another example of the author's discourse. Like 'Parenthesis', it has a clear dialogical strategy, marked by imperative structures and interrogative sentences. The author addresses the actual reader from his own standpoint, obviously sharing his personal experience. E.g. Barnes confesses: 'I put his words into a novel' (which is true), and reflects upon writing fiction in general: 'Life's astonishments are frequently literature's cliches' (Barnes 2010). This makes 'Carcassonne' sound more like an essay, than a short story.
Its central theme is the beginning of love. As one of the literary critics has put it, '[f]or Barnes, 'Carcassonne' turns out to be code for coupledom' (Benfey 2011), that is, the town of Carcassonne is the symbol of falling in love, of most acute love experience. The author's logic here is a parable with an extensive digression. As the author is interested in the love discourse itself, the text reveals its metadiscursive strategies:
'And yet our language doesn't seem to represent that moment very well. We have no equivalent for 'coup de foudre', the lightning strike and thunderclap of love. We talk about there being 'electricity' between a couple but this is a domestic not cosmic image, as if the pair should be practical and wear rubber soles to their shoes. We talk of 'love at first sight', and indeed it happens, even in England, but the phrase makes it sound rather a polite business. We say that their eyes met across a crowded room. Again, how social it sounds. ... Perhaps it is too alarming a moment to be looked in the face at the time; so perhaps the English language is right to avoid Gallic flamboyance' (Barnes 2010).
In conclusion, love discourse in contemporary fiction often turns into multiple dialogues addressed to the multiple Other. Primarily, the Other is represented by the actual reader, and sometimes, the fictional reader, whereas the beloved one is present as a silent shadow. This is partly due to postmodernist aesthetics (interest in language, ironic reconsideration of the previous texts, etc.). As a result, love discourse itself transforms from the traditional expression of sentiments to metadiscursive reflection upon love and, which is more, love discourse itself.
Literature
Barnes J. A History of the World in 10 V2 Chapters. N.Y.: Vintage international, 1990.
Barnes J. 'Carcassonne' // The Spectator, 18 Dec. 2010 [electronic Source]. Mode of access: http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/6543658/the-spectator/
Barnes J. Love, etc. N.Y.: Vintage international, 2002.
Barnes J. Talking it Over. N.Y.: Vintage international, 1992.
Benfey Ch. Julian Barnes on Not Talking About Love // The NY Times, May 20, 2011 [electronic source]. Mode of access:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/books/review/book-review-pulse-by-julian-barnes.html
Барт P. Фрагменты речи влюбленного. М.: Издательство Ad Marginem, 1999.
Васильева А.В. Фикционалъная дискурсивностъ сюжетосложения в романе Джулиана Барнса «Как все было»-. Дисс. канд. филологических наук: 10.01.03. - Н. Новгород, 2006.
Платон. Собр. соч.: в 4 т. М.: Мысль, 1993. Т.2. Пир. С. 81-134.
Плеханова Т. Дискурс-анализ текста: Пособие для студентов вузов. Тетрасистемс, 2011.
Радченко Д.А. Проза Джулиана Барнса: жанровая природа, проблема героя и нравственная философия автора-. Дисс. канд. филол. наук: 10.01.03. Воронеж, 2008.
Любовный дискурс как множественный диалог в произведениях Дж. Барнса («Вводная фраза», «Как все было»,
«Любовь и так далее», «Каркасон»)
Ольга Велюго
Минский государственный лингвистический университет, доцент 220034, Республика Беларусь, г. Минск, ул. Захарова, 21; ely@tut.b>.
Данная статья посвящена любовному дискурсу в современной художественной прозе Великобритании. На примере избранных
произведений Джулиана Барнса демонстрируется, что современный любовный дискурс обладает диалогической природой и представляет собой множественные диалоги с множественным Другим. Место Другого занимает преимущественно читатель, как действительный, так и, в ряде случаев, вымышленный. Ярко выраженная диалогическая структура любовного дискурса связана с метадискурсивными стратегиями текста, преобладающим размышлением о феномене любви. Цель диалога состоит в совместном поиске смысла - поиске истины, красоты и гармонии.
Ключевые слова: любовный дискурс, анализ дискурса, диалог, Другой, Джулиан Барнс.
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УДК 821.111-31
Hanif Kureishi's Novels as the Discourse of Identity
Boris M. Proskurnin
Perm State University, Professor
614990, Russia, Bukirev str., 15; bproskurnin@yandex.ru
The novel Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi represents a break in the author's preoccupation with post-colonial themes. Kureishi explores the sense of identity of his hero in Intimacy in terms which bring him closer to the English traditions of literature of self-knowledge and of satirical reconstruction of a social milieu. This essay examines the psychological treatment of the hero's painful journey to self-understanding.
Key-words: English literature, Kureishi, novel, identity, postcolonial, psychological approach, literary character, narration
Whenever critics of English Literature speak about post-colonial discourse they remember Hanif Kureishi and his works - the novels The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album, his film for the screenplay of which he was nominated for the Oscar Prize - My Beautiful Laundrette, his short story - and the film based on it - My Son is a Fanatic, and other works. The majority of those who have written and thought about him stress his Anglo-Asian origin - half-English, half-Pakistan. That stereotyped approach to his works has dominated so much that eventually has limited the perception of the whole complex of the writer's ideas, and our understanding of
® Boris Proskurnin, 2012
