An interpretation of Julian Barnes novel "England, England"

Universität Hamburg, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Sem II: Die englische Literatur der neunziger Jahre
WS 2004/2005

An interpretation of Julian Barnes novel "England, England"

by: Sirinya Pakditawan

Content

1. Introduction ...3

2. The (De-)Construction of Englishness and the Invention of National History in Julian Barnes’ "England, England"  ...5

3. Conclusion ...8

4. Bibliography ...10

1. Introduction

Numerous contemporary British novels display an almost obsessive concern with the notion of Englishness. Hence, they focus on the myths, traditions and attitudes that are regarded as typically English. This is a subject which is also of central interest to recent literary criticism and cultural history at large. Among the many novels that deal with a literary exploration of England’s past, its cultural memory, and its national identity are such well-known works as John Fowles’ Daniel Martin (1977), Jonathan Raban’s travelogue Coasting (1986), Andrew Sinclair’s “Albion triptych”, including his novels Gog (1967), Magog (1972) and King Ludd (1988), Adam Thorpe’s Ulverton (1992), Peter Ackroyd’s English Music (1992) and Antonia S. Byatt’s and Graham Swift’s novels. These works can be regarded as a kind of echo-chamber of England’s cultural history, for they display “deliberate Englishness”.¹

With its interest in Englishness, the nature of historical truth, and the blurring of boundaries between the authentic and the imitation, Julian Barnes’ novel England, England (1998), which was short-listed for the Booker prize in 1998, shares important concerns with many contemporary British novels. Like a host of other novels published after the 1960s, England, England focuses on the question of how much we can ever know about the past. Hence, this novel shows all the features characteristic of postmodernist historiographic metafiction. That is to say, like other historiographic metafictions, England, England is “both intensely selfreflexive and yet paradoxically also lay[s] claim to historical events and personages”.² What is more, Barnes’ novel also reflects the feature which has been the major focus of attention in most of the critical work on postmodernism, i.e. a self-conscious assessment of the status and function of narrative in literature, history, and theory: “its theoretical self-awareness of history and fiction as human constructs (historiographic metafiction) is made the grounds for its rethinking and reworking of the forms and contents of the past”.³

In addition, by using history as both a reference to the ‘real’ past world and as a discursive construct, England, England “differs substantially from the use of history in the traditional historical novel where history, as a group of facts which exists extra-textually and which can be represented as it ‘really was,’ is never in question”.⁴ However, it would be seriously misleading at best, missing the points of Barnes’ novel completely, to categorize it as merely another example of historiographic metafiction. England, England rather questions and revises conventional notions of Englishness, and it also expresses revisionist ideas of historical authenticity. Thus, the novel also provides ample support for the view put forward by the critic Nicole Fugmann that “postmodern genres expand rather than just problematize our historical understanding”.⁵

One might be justified in saying that Barnes’ novel explores, constructs, parodies, and deconstructs the ‘invented traditions’ known as ‘Englishness’. The novel incorporates a great number of different traces of the English cultural past, including many myths and legends, juxtaposes competing versions of and discourses about Englishness. Additionally, it also explores the complexity of any account of a nation’s organically grown cultural memory and identity. Therefore, Barnes’ novel does not only express a wide range of versions of Englishness, but also offers self-conscious reflections upon both the invention of cultural traditions and the questionable notion of historical authenticity. Hence, in the following analysis, it will be examined how England, England thematizes and explores the invention of cultural traditions, by constructing and deconstructing ‘Englishness’. Thus, it will be primarily focussed on Barnes’ fictional exploration of those invented traditions known as ‘Englishness’ and shown how the content and the form of this novel self-consciously examine and deconstruct the notion of authenticity.

2. The (De-) Construction of Englishness and the Invention of National History in Julian Barnes’ England, England (1998)

[...]

1 Malcom Bradbury, The Modern British Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994) 361.

2 Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (New York: Routledge, 1988) 5.

3 Ibid.

4 Alison Lee, Realism and Power: Postmodern British Fiction (New York: Routledge, 1990) 35.

5 Nicole Fugmann, “Situating Postmodern Aesthetics: Salman Rushdie’s Spatial Historiography“, REAL. Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 13: Literature and Philosophy, ed. Herbert Grabes (Tübingen: Narr, 1997) 333-343, 334.