Julian Barnes

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Julian Barnes, 2019

Julian Patrick Barnes (born January 19, 1946 in Leicester ; as a pseudonym occasionally Dan Kavanagh ) is an English writer.

life and work

Barnes worked after studying languages ​​at Oxford and then studying law as a lexicographer and journalist. He has been a writer since around 1980.

Julian Barnes wrote four detective novels in the 1980s under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh . At about the same time as the first, he published the book Metroland , a novella about a young city dweller and his travel experiences in Paris and London.

His international breakthrough came in 1984 with his third novel, Flaubert's Parrot (original title: Flaubert's Parrot ), which is one of the canonical works of the postmodern British novel. With an experimental mixture of novel narration , literary critical essay , quote collage and story box, the novel stages the attempt of the French country doctor Braithwaite to suppress the grief for his deceased wife Ellen by looking for traces in the relics of the life and work of the French novelist Gustave Flaubert goes.

His wife Ellen not only shares her initials with Flaubert's character Emma Bovary ; However, the first-person narrator Braithwaite does not succeed in his search to obtain a consistent biographical picture of the French author. The past, both in the person of Flaubert and in the figure of his wife, is beyond his grasp; the attempt to capture a person's life authentically is doomed to failure.

A central and multi-layered symbol of the Barnes novel is a stuffed parrot, which Flaubert once served as inspiration , but which can no longer be clearly identified due to the large number of parrots in question.

Flaubert's parrot represents much of what characterizes Barnes' narrative in general: diverse intertextual references to Flaubert, Vladimir Nabokov or Philip Larkin and other writers, a special penchant for French literature and culture, a typically English sense of humor or subtle irony as well a stylistic tendency towards essays or epigrams with brilliantly polished formulations.

Barnes' recurring themes are primarily the relationship between literature or art and reality, the distinction between being and appearance, and the obsession with preoccupation with the past both as an externally factually documented history ( historia ) and as an internally experienced or remembered history in subjective memory ( memoria ). In Barnes' literary work, this obsession with the past repeatedly becomes the starting point for an epistemological, often aporetic search for truth and meaning.

A huge success in 1989 as Barnes' novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (dt. A History of the World in 10½ Chapters , 1990). In this work, Barnes addresses the question of the past through a critique of universal historical conceptions. The inability to grasp the "truth" applies here all the more to world history; History and historiography are fundamentally called into question by Barnes.

In terms of form and narrative, the novel is an experiment. It presents itself as a collection of ten short stories on the fringes of world historical catastrophes, which is supplemented by an authorial essay on love, half the chapter. The narrative context is not created through a uniform repertoire of characters or a uniform setting, but through the repetition of narrative elements that refer to one another. Even more so than in the leitmotif of parrots in Flaubert's Parrot , “strange links and impertinent connections” arise in the idiosyncratic history of the world from the multiple mentions of woodworms and other leitmotifs .

Similar to Flaubert's parrot , A History of the World in 10 ½ chapters can also be assigned to the mixed genre of historiographical metafiction . In principle, this also applies to most of Barnes' other novels, although they are less experimental in terms of their formal design. The three novels Staring at the Sun (1986; German Seeing the Sun , 1991), The Porcupine (1992; German The Porcupine , 1992) and England, England (1998; German England, England , 1999) deal with different issues Wise historical constructs and the pursuit of truth, authenticity and meaning in life. In England, England , Barnes turns, as before in the short story volume Cross Channel (1996; Ger. Dover - Calais , 1996) again to the Anglo-French relationship against the background of the connection between cultural memory and national identity; The novel depicts in a kind of semi-farce the megalomaniac project of a giant company to miniaturize England in an amusement park on the Isle of Wight .

Numerous other novels, stories and essays followed. Characteristically, in Barnes' works neither history nor memory nor art nor religion endure as meaningful entities; a way out of general relativism or cynicism seems to be indicated in Barnes only in the privacy of fulfilled love, which here stands for personal freedom. In the autobiographical novel Metroland (1980, German Metroland , 1989), the antihero of the novel develops from a youthful rebel to the average citizen, but often shows the destructive dark side of jealousy and fraud.

To live better embellished memories that allow with the past, and the question of personal responsibility are the two main issues that narrator I in The Sense of an Ending (2011, dt. The Sense of an Ending , 2011) when he tried to take stock of his life in old age. This novel was voted one of the 100 Greatest British Novels in 2015 by an international panel of literary critics and literary scholars .

Julian Barnes is one of the most versatile contemporary English writers, whose versatility is also evident in his journalistic contemporary satires . In addition to his writing activities, he also made a name for himself as a translator of French literature, for example by Alphonse Daudet and Gustave Flaubert . In addition, in 1988 he translated Volker Kriegel's little dog news into English. The German-language editions of his works have been published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch since 1999 ; until then his books were published by Haffmans . Barnes is considered a representative of postmodernism .

In 1979 Barnes married his then agent Patricia Olive Kavanagh, to whom he also dedicated most of his works and whose last name he chose as a pseudonym. She died on October 20, 2008 of complications from a brain tumor .

Julian Barnes lives in London. He is the younger brother of the philosopher and historian of philosophy Jonathan Barnes . He describes himself as a happy atheist .

Narrative style

His often ironic narrative tone is particularly appreciated. In his novels About Talking and Love etc. he depicts a relationship story in which each of the characters tells the story from their point of view, a narrative form that one u. a. also in William Faulkner's novel When I Was Dying and Yasushi Inoue's novel The Hunting Rifle Finds .

In an interview with Der Spiegel zu Liebe etc. , Barnes says: “This trick of letting people speak to the reader individually gives me a lot of freedom as an author. It's an intimate story, it's about love. So I was wondering what would be the most intimate way to express the story? The shape should reflect the fact that every person who is involved in a relationship has their own understanding of this relationship ... "

Honors

Barnes has received major literary awards for his novels . In 1985 he received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize , the following year in France the Prix ​​Médicis for Flaubert's Parrot and in 1992 the Prix ​​Femina Étranger for Talking About It . In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize of the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS . In 2004 he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature . The Sense of an Ending , published in 2011, was awarded the prestigious Booker Prize that same year . Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur & George (2005) had previously been shortlisted for the award. Also in 2011 he received the David Cohen Prize for his life's work . In 2013 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 2016 Barnes was awarded the Siegfried Lenz Prize .

Works

As Julian Barnes

  • 1980: Metroland (novel).
  • 1982: Before She Met Me (novel).
  • 1984: Flaubert's Parrot (novel).
    • Flaubert's Parrot , German by Michael Walter; Haffmans, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-251-00104-3 .
  • 1986: Staring at the Sun (novel).
    • Seeing the sun , German by Gertraude Krueger; Haffmans, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-251-00191-4 .
  • 1989: A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (novel).
    • A history of the world in 10 ½ chapters , German by Gertraude Krueger; Haffmans, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-499-22134-9 .
  • 1991: Talking It Over (novel).
  • 1992: The Porcupine (novel).
  • 1995: Letters from London (reports for the New Yorker).
    • Letters from London. 1990–1995 , German by Gertraude Krueger and Robin Cackett; Haffmans, Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-251-00300-3 .
  • 1996: Cross Channel (short stories).
  • 1998: England, England (novel).
  • 2000: Love etc. (novel).
    • Love etc. , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-462-03076-0 .
  • 2002: Something to Declare (essays).
    • Tour de France , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2003, ISBN 3-462-03305-0 .
  • 2004: The Pedant in the Kitchen (essays on cooking).
    • Finely chopped and roughly diced. The pedant in the kitchen , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-462-03419-7 .
  • 2004: The Lemon Table (short stories).
    • The lemon table , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-462-03616-5 .
  • 2005: Arthur & George (novel).
    • Arthur & George , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2007, ISBN 3-462-03706-4 .
  • 2008: Nothing to Be Frightened Of (autobiography).
  • 2011: The Sense of an Ending (novel).
    • From the end of a story , German by Gertraude Krueger; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-462-04433-1 .
  • 2011: Pulse (short stories).
  • 2012: Through the Window (essays).
    • At the window. Seventeen essays on literature and a short story, German by Gertraude Krueger, Thomas Bodmer, Alexander Brock and Peter Kleinhempel; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04864-3 .
  • 2013: Levels of Life (essay).
  • 2015: Keeping an Eye Open (essays).
    • Seeing Art , German by Gertraude Krueger and Thomas Bodmer; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2019, ISBN 978-3-462-04917-6 .
  • 2016: The Noise of Time (novel).
  • 2018: The Only Story (novel).
  • 2019: The Man in the Red Coat .

As Dan Kavanagh

  • 1980: Duffy (detective novel).
  • 1981: Fiddle City (detective novel).
    • Airport rats , German by Michael K. Georgi; Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-548-10185-2 .
    • New translation: Schieber-City, German by Michel Bodmer; Haffmans, Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-251-30001-6 .
  • 1985: Putting the Boot In (detective novel).
    • Gross foul , German by Verena Schröder; Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-548-10483-5 .
    • also as: blocking , same translation; Haffmans, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-453-07299-5 .
  • 1987: Going to the Dogs (detective novel).

Audio books

Film adaptations

literature

  • Peter Childs: Julian Barnes (Contemporary British Novelists) . Manchester University Press, Manchester 2011. ISBN 978-0-7190-8106-4
  • John Clute : Barnes, Julian. In: John Clute, Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction . 3rd edition (online edition).
  • Rudolf Freiburg: 'Just Voices Echoing in the Dark': History as a literary genre in the novel Julian Barnes . In: Rüdiger Ahrens and Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann (eds.): Fiction and history in the Anglo-American literature . Universitätsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg 1998, pp. 431–458.
  • Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs (Eds.): Julian Barnes (Contemporary Critical Perspectives) . Continuum, London and New York 2011. ISBN 978-1-4411-3008-2
  • Vanessa Guignery: The Fiction of Julian Barnes: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [et. a.] 2006.
  • Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts (Eds.): Conversations with Julian Barnes . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson MS 2009. ISBN 978-1-60473-203-0
  • Christoph Henke: Past obsessions: history and memory in the narrative work of Julian Barnes . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2001. ISBN 3-88476-480-2 (Part. Zugl .: Diss., Paderborn, 2000)
  • Frederick M. Holmes: Julian Barnes (New British Fiction) . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [et. a.] 2009. ISBN 978-1-4039-9693-0
  • Merritt Moseley: Understanding Julian Barnes . University of South Carolina Press, Columbia 1997. ISBN 1-57003-140-1
  • Matthew Pateman: Julian Barnes . Northcote House, Horndon 2002. ISBN 0-7463-0978-3
  • Bruce Sesto: Language, History, and Metanarrative in the Fiction of Julian Barnes Lang, New York 2001. ISBN 0-8204-4467-7 (= Studies In Twentieth-Century British Literature 3)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Christoph Henke: Barnes, Julian [Patrick] . In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , 666 pages (special edition Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02125-0 ), p. 30f .
  2. ↑ See Hans Ulrich Seeber, Hubert Zapf and Annegret Maack: The novel after 1945 . In: Hans Ulrich Seeber (Ed.): English literary history . 4th ext. Ed. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-476-02035-5 , pp. 403-422, here p. 416.
  3. ^ The Guardian: The best British novel of all times - have international critics found it? , accessed June 22, 2017.
  4. ↑ See Christoph Henke: Barnes, Julian [Patrick] . In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning , Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , 666 pages (special edition Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-02125-0 ), p. 30f .
  5. ^ The Telegraph. Orbituaries. Pat Kavanagh. The Telegraph . October 21, 2008
  6. ^ A divine invention spiegel.de March 15, 2010 , accessed June 19, 2013
  7. ↑ Angela Gatterburg and Volker Hage. Authors. Bed reading. The mirror . Interview with Julian Barnes. September 9, 2002.
  8. ↑ James Lasdun : The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes review - how Shostakovich survived Stalin , review, in: The Guardian , January 22, 2016.
    Hedley Twidle: Dimitri and the dictator , review, in: Financial Times , January 16, 2016, P. 10
  9. ↑ A dead person on vacation . In: Tages-Anzeiger , February 21, 2017. Book review by Martin Ebel, Editor Culture. Retrieved on March 4, 2017. Michael Maar : Just the music is missing. In: The time . March 2, 2017, Retrieved March 26, 2017 (review).
personal data
SURNAME Barnes, Julian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barnes, Julian Patrick; Kavanagh, Dan (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Leicester