Freiburg R (2021)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2021
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Edited Volumes: The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture
City/Town: London
Pages Range: 133-165
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-83422-7_6
'Truth', 'knowledge', and 'memory' are recurring issues in Julian Barnes's literary works. This catalogue of standard themes, however, should definitively include 'survival', too. This article analyses the description of physical and psychological survival in The Noise of Time, Barnes's creative adaptation of the biography of Shostakovich. By recounting the tragic encounter between Shostakovich and Stalin as a collision of art and Power, Barnes studies the paradoxical nature of the composer's survival from an ethical perspective. Shostakovich pays a high price for his survival having to betray what he loves and admires most. Survival, for Shostakovich, is tantamount to humiliation, aesthetic mutilation, and to the complete vivisection of his personality. Reluctantly joining Stalin's odious Party, Shostakovich ends up as a 'living corpse'. Survival, for him, is worse than death, and he finally wishes 'never to be born again'. Barnes concludes his biography of Shostakovich in a much more conciliatory tone, emphasizing the fact that music has won the fight against the 'noise of time' associated with the empty uproar of Stalin's time.
APA:
Freiburg, R. (2021). “‘That was what all men became: techniques for survival’: The Paradoxical Notion of Survival in Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time (2016).”. In Freiburg, Rudolf Bayer, Gerd (Eds.), The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture. (pp. 133-165). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
MLA:
Freiburg, Rudolf. "“‘That was what all men became: techniques for survival’: The Paradoxical Notion of Survival in Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time (2016).”." The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture. Ed. Freiburg, Rudolf Bayer, Gerd, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 133-165.
BibTeX: Download