Drying Breadcrumbs: Memory mechanisms in the new novel by Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes, who celebrated his 80th birthday on January 19, built his new novel around the theme of memory, mixing and shaking a cocktail of essays and autofixing in his signature manner. The author himself claims that there is also just fiction in the recipe, that is, fiction, fiction, but it is not easy to isolate its elements in the stream of Barnes consciousness, which fans of the British postmodernist have long been accustomed to. We have a new (and last, as the master himself warned in advance) novel by Barnes released simultaneously with the rest of the world, which adds importance to the event. Critic Lidia Maslova presents the book of the week specifically for Izvestia.
Julian Barnes
"Exodus(s)"
St. Petersburg : Azbuka, AZBUKA Publishing House, 2026. — translated from English by E. Petrova. - 288 p —
In Exodus, Barnes, as usual and perhaps even more than before, is absorbed in himself and indulges in careful, sophisticated introspection, but at the same time there are a couple of other main characters in the novel, who, what the hell is not joking, may well turn out to be fictional, in whole or in part. These are the writer's Oxford classmates Stephen and Jean, between whom, before the author's eyes (and one can say, not without his help), a romantic relationship arose, which quickly ended and resumed only 40 years later (again with the participation of their mutual friend, whom they call Jules).
In the story of how characters who have carried their feelings through their lives decide to get married over the age of 60, only to break up again soon (because the wife began to tire of her husband's excessive love), you can really see something not very plausible. But that's the insidious trick of "Exodus(s)": Barnes promotes the idea that no one can really rely on their own memory, and therefore the reader can only guess which details the author took from life and which he added. At the same time, Stephen turned out to be a very pale and inert character, and the sharp Jean, who does not shy away from expressions, serves as a kind of mirror for the writer Barnes, whom she periodically scolds precisely for dubious literary principles, primarily for the fact that his favorite "hybrid" strategy of balancing between truth and fiction is deeply flawed.
The story of a beloved couple who are not destined to unite in any way is much less interesting than Barnes' philosophical, psychological and literary essays. Before turning in the second chapter to the love-matrimonial vicissitudes of his semi-fantasy-semi-real friends, Barnes devotes an entire chapter to the work of the human brain in forming memories with the title "The Great I AM." This abbreviation stands for "autobiographical, remembered, naturally spontaneous thought" and serves Barnes as an aid to the controversy with Proust and his famous memoir from the epic "In Search of Lost Time," where the lyrical hero, dipping Madeleine cookies into lime tea, is magically transported to another time and place. Barnes seems to hint that not only tea, but all this mnemonic construction in Proust is a bit "fake", not spontaneously surfacing from a cup of tea, but artificially and carefully constructed: "...Proust distinguishes between "conscious effort of memory, mental memory" and involuntary memory, which opens access to something hidden, more essential. However, there is definitely a will involved in his description of this process: Marcel tries ten times to bring out deeply hidden memories."
In his attempts to stick a hairpin in the refined Proust with his jewelery nuances, one can see the elementary literary envy of Barnes, who always aspired to filigree psychology, but did not always achieve Proustian craftsmanship. Probably, the British engineer of human souls himself is aware that his tools are sometimes rude, and once again resorts to saving self-irony, they say, I'm a simple guy, I haven't sniffed French cookies.: "Perhaps my skepticism stems from the fact that I've never had such a transcendental memory; I've been eating the stale breadcrumbs of voluntary memory. <...> I can't even predict what kind of sudden olfactory key might trigger in me: certainly not a random piece of soggy muffin. Most likely, it will be the scent of glue and varnish that I used when assembling aircraft models, or the aroma of fried bacon, or the smell of a golden retriever caught in the rain."
In the final chapter of "Going Nowhere," Barnes openly exposes Proust, arguing that the Frenchman invented (or thought up) his "madeleine" in the shape of a shell just for the sake of a red word, an exquisite metaphor, but in fact, most likely, dipped something simpler into tea."Madeleine" is the perfect symbol: it is baked in a mold depicting the shell of a pilgrim clam, and Marcel embarks on his own pilgrimage in search of lost time. And yet... However, in 1907, when Proust was working on the first volume of his epic, he was prompted to embark on an exciting journey into the past by nothing more than a slice of stale bread dipped in tea. In the next version, it was already a piece of toast. And sometime in 1908, a kind of hard biscuits." According to Barnes's mocking remark, a shell—shaped cake is too pretentious and annoying a symbol, while a true artist would still opt for modest biscuits or a crust of stale bread.
Barnes himself uses a completely uncomplicated, common metaphor included in the title of the book: in the original, Departure(s) is a railway play on words, hinting at the departure of an existential train: "Our life begins with arrival, and ends with exodus — without subsequent arrival." The whole human life can be considered a journey from a well-known point A to an equally well-known point B, and, recognizing the inevitable predestination of any life path, Barnes recalls his favorite quote from Flaubert: "As soon as we come into this world, we immediately begin to fall apart." However, since Barnes used this aphorism last time, significant changes have taken place in his body, making the metaphor of "departure" especially relevant: the author of "Exodus(s)" describes in detail how he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, incurable but "controlled."
There are enough medical details that can scare off or at least upset a hypochondriac reader in Exodus (ah), although Barnes tries to do well. At the same time, he always seems to stealthily take out an imaginary pocket mirror and look into it to make sure that he looks brave and ironic enough, which sometimes creates the impression of a man who is extremely self-satisfied and flirtatious even in the face of impending oblivion. But who knows, maybe this is also part of a clever trickster game with the reader. After all, in addition to the permanent admiration of his beloved author, he sometimes feels no less specific pleasure from the irritation that such a virtuoso manipulator as Barnes seems to consciously cause, even managing to deftly adapt his oncological diagnosis to literary needs.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
