Talking It Over By Julian Barnes NY Vintage

Talking It Over By Julian Barnes (NY: Vintage, 1992) Prepared by Cecilia H. C. Liu

Julian Ø Barnes Ø Born in Leicester, England on January 19, 1946. Ø Educated at the City of London School, 1957 -1964, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he graduated in modern languages (with honors) in 1968. Ø Worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement for three years. In 1977, Barnes began working as a reviewer and literary editor for the New Statesmen and the New Review. Ø From 1979 to 1986 he worked as a television critic, first for the New Statesmen and then for the Observer (London).

Ø Received several awards and honors for his writing including the Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981), two Booker Prize nominations (Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England 1998), E. M. Forster Award and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Ø Barnes was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1988 and became an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995. In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation.

Ø Barnes has written nine novels, two books of short stories, and two collections of essays. Ø His writing has earned him considerable respect as an author who deals with themes of history, reality, truth and love. Ø As Dan Kavanagh (pseudonym), Barnes has written four crime novels centered around Duffy, a free-lance security system specialist. Ø Barnes currently lives in London where he is busy writing.

Talking It Over A love triangle and two marriages Multiple first-person point-of-view Dramatizes the difficulty of memory Each of the narrators addresses the reader as a confidante, as if the reader were interviewing the narrators or taking depositions from them. Ø Each character strives for fidelity to the truth Ø Ø many different events as well as conflicting interpretations of the same events. Ø Reader: re-establish what the true story of the characters’ pasts really was Ø A novel more overheard than read

“He lies like an eye-witness. ” (p. 222) * The novel announces its theme in its epigraph * a Russian saying * Quotation in the memoirs of 20 th cent. Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich– Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitriyevich Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov. * Writing of history

The Writing of History ØThe details of Shostakovich’s life, especially his relationship to the Soviet regime, have been a point of heated debate in recent years. ØSome hold the Testimony to be little more than an anti-Soviet propaganda piece, designed to arouse the spirits of westerners and having little to do with the composer’s actual allegiances; others take it as a genuine autobiographical document. Whatever the truth-status of the Testimony, the statement itself is compelling, reminding us that one of the bases of our notions of what happened in the past, the testimony of eye-witnesses, is not something we can take for granted.

Stuart, Oliver and Gillian * Gillian: the love interest of both men, more taciturn; when she does speak, her view is often at odds with those offered by the other characters. * Stuart: Practical-minded; focusing on the details with minimum of the rhetorical flourishes or elaborate theorizing we see in Oliver’s account

Ø Stuart is the conservative, practical, and dull man who falls in love with Gillian and managed to get her to marry him. Oliver is the wild, bohemian man-child who managed to steal Gillian away from Stuart. Ø The novel traces the many thoughts of Stuart, Ollie, and Gillian, and the people who knew them, thoughts from their first encounter, the betrayal, and thereafter.

First meeting at a singles social gathering Stuart and Gillian give similar accounts, try to keep secret from Oliver (22 -23, 25 -26, 60) Gillian reveals the circumstances of the first meeting with Stuart after she and Oliver become romantically involved (148). Later, Oliver accidentally reveals his knowledge of the secret to Stuart (160). The circumstances of Oliver’s inadvertent revelation to Stuart are remembered differently by the two participants (161 -62).

The nature of history and memory Ø The characters occasionally make observations about the nature of history and memory. Ø Gillian: how form shapes content (75) Ø Her lack of ability to pinpoint a moment when she and Stuart fell in love (75). She maintains that only reason anyone would feel compelled to pick a particular moment is that other people require it.

Knowledge & Perception Ø A problem of philosophy dates back to Plato’s dialogs Ø In Theatetus: Socrates, Theatetus, and Theodorus have a debate about knowledge and perception. Ø Their task is to discern what can be perceived truly, apart from the obvious limits of subjectivity. • In the end, Socrates concludes that the soul perceives certain things (truth, beauty) directly, while other, lesser things are perceived through the senses, which may introduce error.

* The determining of important things like what is true and what is beautiful is removed from the realm of human confusion and opinion. But such an argument is more than a bit idealistic for most contemporary readers. * Without a soul which perceives directly, we are left with the limitations of our senses and thus must find other ways to determine the true and the beautiful.

Testimonies? ! Ø These testimonies disagree in places Ø Each of them is to be shaded by the motives and personality of the character who speaks it. Ø We’re invited to mentally construct our own master narrative of the true events. Ø There’re certain secrets that only one character knows; without that character, our understanding the facts and motivations involved in this “history” would be diminished.

The ending sequence Ø Gillian & Oliver France. But Stuart spies on them from a hotel room across the street. Ø Gillian stages an elaborate scene in which she antagonized Oliver to such an extent that he finally strikes her. And it has, as Gillian expected it would, the desired effect. Ø Stuart gives up his obsession with the past and goes back to his life. Ø Gillian’s strategy works, but without her testimony of it we would not have the same understanding of the events.

Gillian’s job in painting restoration Ø Serves symbolically as a model for historical research (122) Ø G reveals to Oliver that it is the removing of dirt and “overpaint” which is the true joy of restoration, not the retouching. Ø “There’s no way of knowing exactly” Ø “There’s no ‘real’ picture under there waiting to be revealed, if that’s what you mean. ” (122)

Recording or rediscovering of History