I'm Latta Baraiya and I'm a student of the English Department mkbu. We have a paper on Contemporary Literature. In which we have four novels. Today in this blog I'm going to discuss "The Only Story" by Julian Barnes. This thinking activity is assigned by Dilip Barad sir. This novel is very complex to read. You can't read it in one sitting. Click here to visit sir's blog.
It is good to read about the author first, because we can understand the mentality of the writer that may be reflected in the text. So let's first see about Julian Barnes.
Julian Barnes is the author of several books of stories, essays, a translation of Alphonse Daudet's In the Land of Pain, and numerous novels, including the 2011 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Sense of an Ending and the acclaimed The Noise of Time. His other recent publications include Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art and The Only Story. His book The Man in the Red Coat was published in the UK in 2019 and in the US in 2020. He also selected and introduced a collection of John Cheever stories titled A Vision of the World (Vintage Classics, 2021). His new novel Elizabeth Finch will be published in 2022.
Barnes has received numerous awards and honours for his writing, most recently the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011, the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the 2021 Jerusalem Prize, and the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award. Also in 2021, he was awarded the Jean Bernard Prize, so named in memory of the great specialist in hematology who was a member of the French Academy and chaired the Academy of Medicine. Now let us throw some light on the novel The Only Story.
‘‘Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there’s only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.’’
-The Only Story
The Only Story is a very complicated novel by Julian Barnes. It is also very hard to read. The whole novel is based on the memory of the narrator Paul Roberts. The Only Story is not about belligerent politicians, refugees fleeing for their lives, or schoolchildren being gunned down, but it's a tragedy nonetheless — albeit on a much smaller scale. The Only Story concerns the pained recollections of an aging Englishman's life-changing only love. Fifty years after he fell hard for a woman nearly 30 years his senior, Barnes' narrator scavenges his memory and probes the scar tissue of his cauterized heart in a way that's frequently painful to read. He recognizes that this failed relationship is central to his identity — the only story that really matters about him.
Let's discuss some points about the novel :-
Memory Novel - Structurally as well as Thematically :-
We can say that this novel 'The only Story' is a memory novel. Because it is based on the memory of Paul Roberts. It is a major theme of the novel also. We can't rely on memory only, because Paul as a narrator told his story but even he is not sure about his story. We can see four points about memory,
1)History is collective memory; memory is personal history
2)Trauma in memory
3)Memory and morality
4)Memory prioritizes
If we read the novel we find that these all points we find true. When we read any history it is a collective memory of events, and memory is personal history. Paul says about his memory; his history. So he obviously tells good things about him. We haven't any other perspective in the story. All we know is what Paul told us. Sometimes it becomes hard to keep all the memories in mind. So it may cause trauma in memory.
If someone is talking about themselves they will say good things. They should be moral in telling the things, but we know human nature, and always speak good about ourselves. Paul also wants to prove that he is a good person, he did everything for Susan. But reality was different. Whole story is based on the love story of Paul. So his memory is the first priority of the novel.
“You understand, I hope, that I’m telling you everything as I remember it? I never kept a diary, and most of the participants in my story – my story! my life! – are either dead or far dispersed. So I’m not necessarily putting it down in the order that it happened. I think there’s a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer’’.
-Paul (The Only Story)
So memory is playing a vital role in the novel.
Postmodern Novel - theme of existentialism :-
The Only Story is a postmodern novel. It thinks about the situation that is happening now and may happen in future also. People who tell their story based on their memory are problematic. These points prove that it is a postmodern novel.
✍️Postmodernists rejected the view which culminated with realism, that literature was a reliable source of universal truths, though such view was never before questioned. Thus, 'The Only Story' questions the memory narration of Paul who, earlier in the novel, considers himself as a truth-teller.
✍️The very assumption that art imitates life is questionable; it could be that life imitates art. Thus, Paul's falling in love with a middle-aged woman is seen by him as some 'literary-moment'. Though it does not turn out to be so romantic as literature imagines it to be.
✍️There is no realm that contains objective reality and objective truth, according to postmodernist, and in this context we speak of relativism, which is another typical postmodernist trait. Thus, our narrator Paul is in search of objective truth about human relations and tries to make sense of whatsoever is happening, but ultimately fails and starts looking at everything in terms of relativism.
✍️Modernists also believed in the cult of the genius, which they inherited from the Romantics, according to which artists were the elite, hypersensitive persons who can grasp the ultimate truth, which was another idea of modernists that postmodernists rejected. Thus, the protagonist through which 'The Only Story' is narrated has no grasp over the objective truth and neither is he a hypersensitive soul. Through narrator, Julian Barnes rejects the idea that writers are genius who have grasped the universal truth
✍️Modernists still pretended that their novels were not constructs but that they somehow revealed the truth, which again the postmodernist challenged. Even the notion of consciousness, personality, mind, were rejected by the postmodernists, who claimed that consciousness was rooted in language which describes nothing but itself according to them. Thus, the world view constructed by the word ‘love’ is questioned in this novel. The word ‘love’ is supposed to give us a worldview of happiness, togetherness, blissfulness, idyllic, peaceful, harmonious, joyful, ecstatic, heavenly life. In this novel, ‘love’ shatters family life, it brings pity and anger, it makes people alcoholic and liars.
Theme of Love - passion+ suffering :-
The very famous quote from the novel express the thing of love and suffering,
“Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. You may point out – correctly – that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have the choice. If we had the choice, then there would be a question. But we don’t, so there isn’t. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn’t love. I don’t know what you call it instead, but it isn’t love.”
-The Only Story
This quote says about love that if you love the more you will suffer the more and if you love the less you will suffer the less. So suffering is connected with love. And if you can control how much they love, that isn't the love that Barnes said.
Paul is 19 and Susan is 48 year old. Still Paul has a passion for his love. And this passion was the cause of suffering. Throughout the novel we see Susan and Paul both suffer.
Critique of Crossword :-
We see the use of crosswords in the novel. It was popular timepass activity. Paul said about 'crosswords' - "I regarded this traditional British activity with some snootiness." Then he criticised this time-pass activity. He said it is the desire to reduce the chaos of the universe to a small, comprehensible grid of black-and-white squares; the underlying belief that everything in life could, in the end, be solved; the confirmation that existence was essentially a ludic activity; the hope that this activity would keep at bay the existential pain of our brief sublunary transit from birth to death.
Then we see the scene of crosswords between Joan and Paul. When Paul and Joan are playing crossword, Joan cheats Paul. So Paul asked Joan, `` Why do you cheat at crosswords ?" Joan gives an answer that,
'you cheeky bugger. I suppose Susan told you. Well, it's a fair question, one I can answer'. She said, 'you see I hope you never get there yourself but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. And one of the few side - benefits of that is you know you are not going to go to hell for filling in the wrong answers in the crossword. Because you have been to hell and back already and you know all too well what it's like'.
The game of crossword puzzles symbolises problems in life. If you are able to solve the puzzle of a game you will be able to understand the problems of life also and you can also solve them. During the discussion sir told us about the game Wordle (Wardle is a web-based word game invented by Josh Wardle for his partner, it now boasts millions of players daily. Players are given six attempts to guess a five-letter word, with feedback given for each guess in the form of colored tiles indicating when letters match or occupy the correct position. We have challenges with new words in this game).
Here is that challenge given by sir (You can play also) :-
I challenge you to a Wardle 👇
https://www.wordleunlimited.com/?wardle=bWVtb3J5
Hint: a word related to The Only Story.
Paul the unreliable narrator :-
As the novel is based on the memory of the narrator we have to rely on his story only. But while telling the story he is not sure about those things. We can't rely on memory because we can't remember all the things. So when we talk about our past we may forget something. Here we see the complexity of post modern narration. We can't get to the other side of memory. As paul said once,
I don’t much remember what the weather has been like during my life. True, I can remember how hot sun gave greater impetus to sex; how sudden snow delighted, and how cold, damp days set off those early symptoms that eventually led to a double hip replacement. But nothing significant in my life ever happened during, let alone because of, weather. So if you don’t mind, meteorology will play no part in my story. Though you are free to deduce, when I am found playing grass-court tennis, that it was neither raining nor snowing at the time.
-Paul (The Only Story)
So even Paul is not sure about what he is telling. Sometimes he said something different and then he again disagreed with that. And the story is also told from his perspective only, so we can't also identify that he is lying. So we have to doubt the narrator. He is favouring himself about what he has done.
Susan - Made women in the attic :-
Victorian literature talked about the situation of women during that time. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination is a 1979 book by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. They took this title from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. This novel talks about Rochester's wife Bertha Mason who was locked in an attic apartment by her husband. She is not allowed to come out. She is mentally disturbed because of her husband.
Similar to a mad woman in the attic we find in this novel. Bartha was suffering by her husband and beaten by her husband many times. She was abandoned by her husband. She became mad and almost mental. What she wants from her husband is love and care but she only received haterade. Here Susan is also suffer from all these things like sexual desire, became mad, mentally disturbed. She is not having any problem when she starts to stay with Paul at the age of 48 (Paul was of 19year old at that time). But after getting older, she sees the changing behaviour of Paul. She is depressed by this behaviour. She started drinking alcohol.
But here we see that Bartha was forced to do and the situation was not in control of her. But Susan became mad by her choice. Everything happens because of her decision.
Joan - one who understood existential enigma :-
In the whole story she is the only person who understands the philosophy of life. She is the friend of Susan and a tennis player. She has one dog named Sibyl and spends time with Sibyl. She plays crosswords. Once she played crossword with Paul. In their conversation we come to know about what Joan is thinking about life. She can suffer like Susan but she took the situation in different ways and thinks differently.
She is able to understand any kind of pain. If there is any problem, she maintains her life and solves the problem. She understood the existence of the enigma.
Whom do you think is responsible for the tragedy in the story ? Explain with reasons.
I think Paul is responsible for the tragedy in the story. First he chose Susan as his lover 29 year older than him. They face many problems in their relationship mentally and physically. He spent time with Susan and when Susan got older he left her with her daughter Martha MacLeod. Paul easily escaped from the responsibility of Susan. Susan was not able to accept the reality and in depression she started drinking. And the situation became worse. She is hospitalised also. For this situation Paul is responsible. Paul also did not accept his mistake, he thinks that he has done everything good for Susan. He visits Susan in the hospital at last, and she dies after Paul leaves.
We have also studied the theme of responsibility. Where Paul should take responsibility for his lover Susan. If you have an understanding of your responsibility, your relationship will stay stronger. But that kind of morality towards the responsibility is not in Paul.
Thank you !
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