P-13 Julian Barnes "Sense of an ending as a postmodern novel"

                                                            Name: Rinkal D. Jani

Roll No: 21

Batch: 2016-18

SEM: 4

Enrollment no: 2069108420170012

Email Id: rinkaljani1807@gmail.com

Paper No 13: The New literature

                    Topic: Julian Barnes "sense of an ending as a postmodern novel"

Submitted to:  Dr Dillip Barad

Department of English,

Smt. S. B. Gardi

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinghji Bhavnagar University

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About the Author:

Julian Barnes is an ironist, a post-modern fiction writer and literary critic who occasionally moonlights in the crime and mystery genre. Julian Barnes is a contemporary English writer of Postmodernism in literature. He was more famous for his prosaic style, who was born in Leister on 19 January 1946 and was educated at the city of London school and magladen college Oxford.

           He has written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. His brother, Jonathan Barnes, is a philosopher specialized in ancient philosophy. After working as a lexicographer on the oxford English dictionary, he began a career as a journalist, reviewing for the Times Literary supplement and became a contributory editor for the New Reviewin 1977.He was assistant literary editor and television critic for the New statesman Magazine (1977-81) and deputy literary editor for the Sunday Times.

      Barnes prose is elegant, witty and playful, and he often employs techniques associated with postmodern writing unreliable narrators, a self-conscious linguistic style, an inter-textual blending of different narrative forms-which serve to foreground the process of literary creation, The gap between experience and language and subjectivity of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. However, despite this playful experimentation with language, style and fiction and Form Barnes fiction is also foregrounded in psychological realism and his themes are serious poignant and we can say that Heart-felt. He frequently addresses the nature of love, particularly its dark side, exploring humankind’s capacity for jealousy, obsession and infidelity.

His exceptional works are

                   Talking it over

                   England England

                    The Lemon table

                    Nothing to be frightened of

                    Flaubert’s Parrot

                    Levels of Life

                   The sense of an Ending etc.

     As a postmodernist writer he has written some wonderful postmodern novel which is Flaubert's Parrot, apart from this there are some other works in which we may find the postmodernist twist or witting style, like in “Sense of an ending”. The Sense of an Ending is no exception to the rule when it comes to Booker Prize winners being very post-modernist in style. Winner of the 2011 edition, Barnes’ book does not read like a normal, classic story. The plot itself is very original, as Barnes crushes stereotypes and places plot twists in areas where we would expect to see clichés. The finale besides is a superb example of post-modernist literature. So let’s have a Bird eye view on “Sense of an ending 
as a Postmodernist novel”

What is postmodernism?

               The basic difference between the two crucial isms,  i.e., Modernism and postmodernism. Modernism believes in holding a center, an authority; whereas Postmodernism rejects the notion of holding a center and hence things fall apar. The term ‘Postmodern seems odd itself, paradoxically evoking what is after (post) the contemporary (modern). The prefix ‘post’ means after, and ‘modern’ can be taken to mean current or up-to-date. But how is it possible to be after and modern at the same time? The structure of the word ‘postmodern’, therefore does not lead to any meaningful definition. Strictly speaking, the postmodern should be thought of as a term of periodization: the postmodern challenges us to see the present in the past, the future in the present, and the present in a kind of no-time. 

       Postmodernism queries every aspect of what is known as realism. It presents the world with no assured and fixed facts. Certainty is replaced by uncertainty. From the postmodernist perspective, age is cut from the past traditional values as it is rather preferable to doubt and suspect everything than certitude and conviction. Everything has melted into destruction (Pritam 42). Postmodernism adopts Jacques Derrida’s idea of deconstruction 3 which does not mean destruction; yet it refers to firmness and veracity opposition, as it is explained by Mowery “It [deconstruction] does not mean destruction, but rather it is a critique of the criteria of certainty, identity, and truth.” (622) the theory of postmodernism is based on its refusal that there is no complete explanation to things because human knowledge is incomplete and fragmented due to subjective conditions such as facts that result from emotions which make them changeable and unstable (Mulley 10). Mowery hints that postmodernists are concerned with “being self-conscious, experimental and ironic.” (615) further, he emphasizes that they are fascinated by “imprecision and unreliability of language and with epistemology, [and] the study of what knowledge is.” (615), that is to say, the language being used is inaccurate and untrustworthy and knowledge is put under question.

       The web of words postmodernism creates to establish itself is: fragmentation, hybridity, relativism, play, parody, pastiche, an ironic, anti-ideological stance etc. which makes a proper context for it, if not a proper definition. Postmodernism, therefore, can be understood in terms of its seven defining principles: no truth, no reality, only images, no meaning, multiplicities, equal representation, and total doubt.

The Postmodern elements which these writers trace out for their practice are mainly plurality, detachment as well as the intertextual elements; which help in creating a significant narrative considerable for the Indian terrain. This concept of finding an alternative out of the isms has started becoming notable as Alter modernism

Postmodernism borrows from modernism disillusionment with the givens of society; a penchant for irony; the self-conscious “play” within the work of art; fragmentation and ambiguity; and a distracted, decentered, dehumanized subject. But while modernism presented a fragmented view of human history (as in Eliot’s The Waste Land – [1925]), this fragmentation was seen as tragic. Despite their pessimism, modernist works still hope, following Matthew Arnold a generation before, that art may e able to provide the unity, coherence, and meaning that has been lost in most of modern life, as church and nation have failed to do. One can locate this hope, faint as it sometimes is, in such memorable passages as the Molly Bloom section that closes Joyce’s Ullysses (1922). In contrast, postmodernism not only does not mourn the loss of meaning but celebrates the activity of fragmentation. Whereas modernism still seeks a rational meaning in a work of art,

 Postmodern Fiction

          [Postmodernism] stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism...focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Thus, postmodern literature examines through its narratives the nature of knowledge, both deconstructing established beliefs and purporting new interpretations.

Characteristics of postmodernist Fiction/Writing

          Postmodernism is the philosophical proposal that reality is ultimately inaccessible by human investigation, that knowledge is a social construction, that truth-claims are political power plays, and that the meaning of words is to be determined by readers not authors. In brief, postmodern theory sees reality as what individuals or social groups make it to be. Retrospective narrative

•       Intertextuality
•       Metafiction
•       Pastiche
•       Minimalism no
•       Irony playfulness, black humor
•       Hyper reality
•       Paranoia
•       Fragmentation
•       Late Capitalism
•        Subtlety
•        Pretentious
•        Juxtaposition
•        Fragmentation
•        Discontinuity
•        Inability of Face the Real World
•        Ambiguity
•        No proper Beginning as well proper ending

 There are several characteristics of postmodernism are found in Barnes “sense of an ending” and some Postmodernist narrative techniques through that we can say that Barnes text is as postmodernist novel. It has the characteristics of a postmodern text. The characteristics of a postmodern text are Intertextuality, juxtaposition, fragmentation, discontinuity, inability to face the real world and ambiguity.  

    Intertextuality: 

The Sense of an Ending has Intertextuality. Intertextuality means the echo of one text into another. Intertextuality usually uses devices like an epigraph. Though this novel does not have an epigraph, its title is taken from Frank Kermode’s book The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Kermode’s book aims to make sense of the way human beings try to make sense of their lives. The Sense of an Ending echoes the theme of Kermode’s book. The protagonist of this novel, Tony Webster, tries to make sense of the lives of his and his friends.

    Juxtaposition:




 The Sense of an Ending has juxtaposed past and present of Tony’s life. For example, after getting the photocopy of his letter to Adrian and Veronica, the aged Tony feels guilty for not accepting their relationship and for writing such hurtful words in his youth. Tony says-

    “All I could plead was that I had been its author then, but was not its author now’ (Barnes 91).

This juxtaposition shows how a person’s view of life changes with time and age. It also shows how a person’s past has an influence over his present.

    Fragmentation: 

  
   The Sense of an Ending is fragmented. The events of the novel are not chronologically told. These are presented in a disjointed way through the stream of consciousness style. For example, in part ‘One’, the narrator tells that Veronica does not dance, but in part ‘Two’, he tells that Veronica has danced with him. Again, in part ‘One’, the narrator tells that he has seen the Seven Bore without Veronica, but in part ‘Two’, he tells that Veronica has been with him in that event.

    Discontinuity: The Sense of an Ending has discontinuity or abrupt beginning and ending of a text. For example, the novel begins abruptly with a list of bits of the narrator’s memory. And the novel ends abruptly with the narrator’s realization of Adrian’s situation when he has committed suicide, but without any resolute explanation.

    Inability of Face the Real World: The Sense of an Ending shows the narrator’s inability of face the real world. For example, Tony says in the beginning of part ‘One’-

      “I’m not very interested in my school days, and don’t feel any nostalgia for them (Barnes 4).”

The above line shows that Tony tries to escape from the reality that his friend Adrian is dead by repressing the memories. Again, Tony’s clique used to wear their watches with the face on the inside of the wrist. This shows that they have tried to escape time or reality.

    Ambiguity:

The Sense of an Ending has ambiguity. For example, the novel does not reveal what Adrian has written in his diary after

 “So, for instance, if Tony: (Barnes 81)”.

Tony as well as the readers is not sure whether Adrian has blamed Tony for his situation and suicide like Veronica or not. There is also an ambiguity about the reason why Veronica’s mother dislikes her so much to destroy her love relationships.

      Subtlety
As mentioned above, The Sense of an Ending is an apt example of post-modernist literature. As such, certain parts of the story tend to be elusive, hence engaging the author to imagine what could have happened in the plot holes. Moreover the subtlety with which Barnes crafted the story is laudable. All key moments are input in the story, yet they are so subtle that one might not pay enough attention to them. If you’re an admirer of post-modern fiction, then you might end up liking The Sense of an Ending very much.

   

   Meta fiction

              Meta fictional novels often end with a choice of ending [o]r...with a sign of impossibility of endings.”   ‘sense of an ending is often open for interpretation, there is not clarity of things like what is the happy ending? What happened with veronica, does Adrian really is died or still alive, many kinds of interpretation are opend. There is no clear cut end to the novel.  Contemporary writings, in which meta fiction is used, are deemed to give a sense about reality as being provisional and a world that no longer contains a fixed veracity , only constructed artifices. The perception of reality maybe questioned through met fictional devices. Also memory or truth or social assumptions can be challenged. The question of identity can be raised. The reader’s assumptions maybe undermined. As a literary device meta fiction lends itself to many superb extra opportunities for the writer who is prepared to take a chance or two: for example the text might become unreliable, or incomplete, or deniable by other characters. It is a powerful and compelling technique. (01) Metafiction is a tool that can help in questioning reality. The assumptions that are made by individuals as well as identity can be challenged and all the postulations that are made by readers can be then destroyed and any text may be apt to be disbelieved, denied or incomplete as Barnes write here that

“We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--- it's not useful--- to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.” 
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Incomplete in the sense that Barnes novel with the quote that  “There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. There is great unrest” There is no completeness.

Postmodernist narratives


         What characterized the postmodernist story line is that “it is marked by a tendency to question the legitimacy of the narrative itself, the refusal to offer any universal truths and multiple points of view.” (Sim 10) There can be noticed also that as postmodernist writers are dubious about certainties; they no longer trust ideas of completion and wholeness which are aspects associated to traditional stories. Therefore, they rely on different ways for structuring narrative, the so called the multiple-ending in which closure is not advocated stands as an example. Postmodernists; however, insist on providing numerous probable results for the plot (Sim 174). Postmodernist novels are interested in the technique of telling4 rather than showing5 , as it is stated by Malpas “Many techniques such as frame narratives, ontological indeterminacy and unreliable narrators […] were identified as crucial to the postmodernism.” Postmodernist narrators are characterized then by complexity and their unreliability is deliberate and results from false ideas.

        Bentley Nick (2008) referred to one of the most prominent features of postmodernism that is its suspicion towards grand narratives such as the idea of history and truth. Other scholars such as Sim Stuart (1998), James F. English (2006) and Chalupský Petr (2009) agreed that postmodernist literary works were interested in the theme of the past, re-calling and re-telling it through individuals’ retrospect. Hutcheon Linda (1988) and Bentley Nick (2008) gave less importance to the ultimate truth; they did not care about the truth itself; however, what mattered for them was the source of the truth and where it comes from. Truth and history were no longer taken for granted, they became a moot point and completely dubious according to the position from where they are told and viewed. In her 2012 academic research, Eva Sràmkovà considered that since postmodernist writers were suspicious of an absolute and objective truth, they made use of the unreliable narrator literary device and memory as a way to explore the narrator’s incredibility and untruthfulness. Additionally, Chalupský Petr (2009) argued that in contemporary fiction, unreliable narrators are not motivated by the urge to depict reality as it was but rather as it could have been through the use of subjectivity and imagination.

      A storyteller is neither supposed to be completely true nor is the reader compelled to believe all that he says “the narrator’s role is to tell us what is true in the story, and, like tellers in real life, she may have it wrong, or wish to tell us other than what she believes is true.” (Curries 20) First-Person Narrative- In postmodern technique most of the time this narrative technique is being used. Retrospective narratives are often intended to evaluate the past as pointing to ethical issues. However, narrators are not always reliable; as they cannot be fully trusted when revealing the truth; mainly when this supposedly truth is told from a personal perspective.

Unreliable Narrator

              

           The narrator who narrates a story is not always reliable. Sometimes he may intentionally distort the events in the story and gives false impressions to the reader. Or he may be lacking in the ability to depict the events as they happen and unintentionally give the reader inaccurate accounts of the events (54). An unreliable narrator typically displays characteristics or tendencies that indicate a lack of credibility or understanding of the story. Whether due to age, mental disability or personal involvement, an unreliable narrator provides the reader with either incomplete or inaccurate information as a result of these conditions If an author wants intense sympathy for characters who do not have strong virtues to recommend them, then the psychic vividness of prolonged and deep inside views will help him. If an author wants to earn the readers’ confusion, the unreliable narration may help him (377-378). While Booth considered that one of the functions of an unreliable narrator is to bring the sense of bewilderment, Bushnell and Lodge viewed it from a rather different angle that is to increase a noticeable difference between what the character reckons and believes in and what the reader considers to be true; in other words, there is a gap between what people think they see and what the truth really is which is often misreported by them and this is a reader-task. When the narrator “is discovered to be untrustworthy”, as it has been mentioned by Booth “then the total effect of the work he [the reader] relays to us is transformed.” (158) the text that is being read is then apt to be completely modified.”

“I REMEMBER, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

   So novel starts with this sentence where he/narrator(Tony)Confesses that whatever he is going to tell his reader is outcome of his broken memory because of that wherever he finds some dots are missing ,he has added his own respective and imagination in his narration. So for me he is classified unreliable narrator. Tony Webster is the unreliable narrator as he himself confesses that some of the incident he does not remember properly. He convinced audience that history is the documentation, neither of winner nor of defeated rather it is the description of lay man so how one can rely on that past. Last part and his own words in the novel prove him unreliable. As he revels the secret of Adrian, Sarah and Veronica. Thus we can say that Tony is an unreliable narrator. Barnes use of an unreliable narrator in order to understand the boundaries, limitations, and possibilities of human relationships. Apart from that there is some quotations which may justify that Unreliable narration in the novel

“I can’t be sure of the actual events anymore; I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That’s the best I can manage”

. Past and History from the Postmodernist Perspective



             Theorists believe that history does not mean the past, it rather means a narrative that is based on documents and reports that are produced in the past (Nicol 99). As Tony Webster narrating his story with the help of his past memory and documents like Adrins Diary’s page and Mrs. Sarah fords last will.  Thereby, one of the features of postmodernism is called historiographical metafiction which refers to the limits of humans’ attempts to know about the past and have an access to it for the simple reason that all that is available in the present time is no more than textual documents. Postmodernism raises questions about how the past is constructed as it doubts and suspects its authenticity (Selden 200). It is believed that the gap that exists between the commonly named real past and its representations is never connected and cannot be bridged and that is mainly what boosts and motivates the production of historical novels and increases critics about them (ibid, 103).As it is quoted in sense of an ending

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” 

A Constructed Truth

            In a postmodernist age, realism and values to morality are no longer given because these are meant to be the product of human thoughts only. Lyon qtd. In Pritam elaborated what is involved here by saying “All that is solid has melted into air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs.” (42) In other words, reality is meant to be reflected not only according to the understanding of humans of it but also to the way it is constructed in that mind which tries to comprehend it, as it is demonstrated by Somatkar “reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to its own particular and personal reality.” (59) These aspects and many others have been found in art and literature because these fields in particular have been influenced by the postmodernist trend. In sense of an ending

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.” 

At the first part Tony Webster had created a lies about himself. He only narrates the constructed truth about himself that he is an innocent, No one Knows the real truth about Robson an Adrian’s suicides It all were constructed truths. Even why Mrs. Sara left some money for Tony that is also a constructed truth, we don’t know the reality.

“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.” 
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

What we believe that later on becomes our truth whether it is really happens or not that we don’t know.

Postmodern crisis of historical understanding :.

        Postmodern culture and a concurrent concern with the irony and cynicism typical of postmodern literary engagement with historical narrative . Equally aware of its own inescapable proximity to the postmodern age, the novel extends a set of postmodern techniques and concerns into a twenty-first century historiography whilst, at the same time, offering a rebuke, a rethinking, of these techniques. Barnes’ novel achieves a concerted exploration of the possibility of situating the personal history of a life, bound up as it is in memory, within objective, chronological time; an exploration that suggests the possibility, through a certain attention, a ‘tuning in’ to the workings of memory, of thinking beyond postmodern relationships to history and time. 

“I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.” 
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Title and post modernism

      “The Sense of an Ending” Title is connected with the postmodernist idea .Postmodernism itself invokes innumerable definitions, depending on the field and the scholar.  Julian Barnes‘s work, ranging from novels with a traditional narrative, to novels that defy convention, to short stories and essays, experiment with themes and forms which prove that he is, ultimately, worthy of study, and an author to whom readers should look with greater seriousness and academic interest.  Barnes has often been categorized as a postmodernist, and an exploration of what, exactly, that term contains is a useful point to begin a discussion of how his texts function.  Here we find further evidence of Barnes‘s departure from postmodernism.

Conclusion:

     Much of the postmodern writings illustrate the alienation of the individuals and meaninglessness of human existence. “Postmodernism has proved to be a snake-like concept whose twists and coils are difficult to pin down ”(Woods 6). So, time in postmodern novels is measureless and infinite, indicating new time and new reality . We ”now inhabit a new sort of reality- the postmodern world”

 … “Postmodernism refers to the non-realistic and non-traditional literature” ( Hawthorn 83). Apart from that Trivia is beauty of postmodernism, which also very well used by the Julian Barnes.
Post-modernism in a book is a double-edged sword. Some people are mesmerized by the style and revel in reading the story while others can be frustrated with the 
author’s unconventionality. For instance, The Sense of an Ending is deemed by many as pretentious, for they reckon that the tending doesn’t make up for the plot holes deliberately placed by the author. Such readers are left unimpressed by Barnes’ peculiar approach to the story and disappointed with the book, as much of the its beauty lies in its style. Julian Barnes gives the touch and Fragment of postmodernism in his Booker prize winning Novel “The sense of an ending”. Though its directly not seems as a postmodernist novel but in a deep level it is as Postmodernist novel. As I considered.

(Paynel) (Rayhane) (Kainzow)

Works Cited

Kainzow. "Why you should read ‘The Sense of an Ending’ (J.Barnes)." Why you should read ‘The Sense of an Ending’ (J.Barnes). 23 04 2015.

Paynel, Oliver. "History and the Claims of Memory in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of An Ending." Stet Home an online postgraduate research journal 4 (n.d.).

Rayhane, Hourari. The Use of the Unreliable Narrator in Postmodernist British Novel: Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001) and Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending (2011). 15 11 2016. 06 04 2018.

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