The Only Story

Hello Monks...
I am Riddhi Bhatt. Today I want to talk about  "The Only Story" by Julian Barnes. This book is part of our syllabus. This task is assigned by Prof. Dr.Dilip Barad sir, Head of the English Department of Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU). As a part of the syllabus, students of the English Department are learning the paper called Contemporary Literatures in English. It is a requirement of our studies that we complete a thinking activity following each course. So, I'll respond to 'The Only Story's' queries in his blog. We have a group task in this paper. There are four units and four groups in our class. So here I am, putting together a group task presentation. This group effort included me as well.

📌Here is the link of the professor's blog CLICK HERE

📌Brief Sketch of Julian Barnes & Novel :

Julian Patrick Barnes is an author from the United Kingdom. With The Sense of an Ending, he won the Man Booker Prize in 2011, after being shortlisted three times before with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes also uses the alias Dan Kavanagh to write mystery novels. Barnes has also written anthologies of essays and short tales in addition to novels. He was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004. The Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize are among his other accolades. He was given the Jerusalem Prize for 2021.

The short novel tells the narrative of Paul Roberts, a 19-year-old Sussex University undergraduate who returns to his parents' home in London's green southern suburbs (Sutton, in Surrey, is suggested as a model.) The setting is the early 1960s, with a few allusions to present events. Paul joins the tennis club, which is one of the few social activities available in such settings. He is paired with Susan MacLeod, a 48-year-old married lady with two kids older than Paul, in a mixed doubles match.Surprisingly, Paul and Susan fall in love, and Susan finally abandons her family to live with Paul in South London. Susan quickly slides into drunkenness and dementia due to a lack of activities other than housework. Paul sets out on a journey around the world, picking up jobs and ladies as he goes.Paul is a figure that epitomises alienation. He has no interest in politics or religion, and no specific aim, so he just goes with the flow. He readily confesses that recollection is fallible and that he may not be telling us the truth when he recounts his life in this book.

Here is the Official Website of the Author : http://www.julianbarnes.com/

📌Memory Novel - Structurally as well as thematically :

Julian Barnes explores the concept of memory in this storey in a fascinating way. When we recount a narrative, such as the one told in this novel The Only Story, memory takes precedence. It's been said that :

"History is collective memory; memory is personal history"

Whenever we look into the history of a nation, civilization, or human people, we may wonder what it is, and it is possible that it is everyone's memories. And history is written from that communal memory. So, what truly is memory? Our personal history is written in our memories. It's a private existence that takes place in private locations. The life that is recounted or not narrated, told to everyone or not only to self, or a history that is just written for self and not shared with anyone else is only created for self. So it's memory, which would be personal history, which may or may not be shared with others, but which is just for oneself.

In the genre of writing, we discover that when one individual (Paul Roberts) is sitting there in his old age, reminiscing about his own life and telling us about it. That individual will return to recollection, which is the only way we can convey the self-story. To inform others, we'll have to go back to our memories. So, what exactly is memory, and how do we approach it? When someone revisits a recollection and tries to piece together historical information from his life in order to give us his life narrative. Is it trustworthy or not? Can we argue that this is a real narrative because true stories are usually regarded histories? Is it possible for someone to narrate a narrative on their own?

• Trauma is memory :

Dipesh Chakravarty writes on this in "Memories of Displacement: The Poetry of Prejudice of Dwelling," but not in the same way as Memento or Julian Barnes do, but rather in the framework of postcolonial and subaltern studies. Sir, I'd like to show you a piece of partition literature.The partition literature is riddled with pain; it's all about recollection, what went wrong, and Nas is a part of that memory. On that, storytellers were working. As a result, the encounter was quite upsetting. Trauma is thus a memory in and of itself. The historical and memory narratives are diametrically opposed. Memory storey is highly personal, but historical narrative is quite public. Historical narratives focus on external trauma, whereas memory narratives focus on an individual's interior trauma.

In the novel, When Eric was beaten at the time, Paul fled and later claimed that he went to assist the police, therefore all of these events indicate that Pual is a coward, a failure, and has lost his character. He's made a lot of bad judgments in his life, and his regret is never acknowledged.

📌Theme of Love (Passion + Suffering) :

"Remember,as you read this small book , generally and specifically about love, remember that suffering is,after all, the Latin root for passion".

(Ellen Prentiss Campbell)

• According to Murrah, “The Etymology of Passion.”...

The word ‘passion’ is one of those words where the modern application appears disconnected from the original meaning. The word itself comes from the Latin root word, patior, which means to suffer. It’s first use in English appeared around 1175 AD. Oddly enough the word is more frequently used in writing than in speech.

Many of the modern applications of ‘passion’ no longer convey the idea of suffering at all. It’s present use is one describing an intense desire, which is often sexual in nature. 

"Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question" (Barnes, 2018, p. 3)

Love is a desire, yet it cannot exist in isolation from sorrow. This is how Barnes intends to approach the subject of love from a philosophical standpoint. Passion turns to pain in The Only Story. The narrative of Paul, a 19-year-old young man, and his deep attraction to Susan MacLeod, a 48-year-old married lady with two kids. This is a storey of how passion can turn into suffering. But then we find counter argument by the speaker…

 "You may point out – correctly – that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have the choice. If we had the choice, then there would be a question. But we don’t, so there isn’t. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn’t love. I don’t know what you call it instead, but it isn’t love."

📌Paul - the unreliable narrator :

The novel's unreliable narrator is Paul. Because whatever he tells the audience is based with his own memories. He claims he's never maintained a diary. So, how can we trust our own memories? It's a huge problem. Paul isn't sure what he's been through in his life. He is debating the issues raised in this work.

“You understand, I hope, that I’m telling you everything as I remember it? I never kept a diary, and most of the participants in my story – my story! my life! – are either dead or far dispersed. So I’m not necessarily putting it down in the order that it happened. I think there’s a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer. “

📌Susan - madwoman in the attic :

• The Madwoman in the Attic :

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's book The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, published in 1979, is a feminist examination of Victorian literature. Rochester's wife (Bertha Mason) is kept secretly trapped in an upstairs apartment by her husband in Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre. Gilbert and Gubar's book covers the work of Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and the Bront sisters, as well as the angel/monster archetype in women's fiction. They say that 19th-century female authors were filled with wrath and frustration as a result of the sexist environment they lived in and the primarily male literary culture they attempted to enter, and that this female dissatisfaction affected their creative output.

Gilbert and Gubar claim that the figure of the mad lady was frequently used to express their fury. They finish by imploring female authors to break free from the patriarchal divide and not to be bound by its constraints.

• Character of Susan :

People may draw parallels between Bertha and Susan Macleod's personalities. Bertha was afflicted by his spouse, and Susan is afflicted by something similar. She develops an alcoholic personality. To Paul, she tells falsehoods. She is tethered to responsibilities in some way. His own spouse assaulted her. She had an adulterous affair with Paul, and she yearns for love and warmth, but she is continually the victim of hatred and sexual pleasure, and she has been beaten several times. When Susan went to his uncle Hemph's house, she became a victim of abuse as well. When she eventually travelled there with Paul, she felt lonely, but she became an alcoholic like anyone else at that time. Paul also renounces her and her kid Clara in the end.Clara is looking after her. Susan's character is intriguing since there is a character that serves as a counterpoint to Susan's.

📌Joan - one who understood existential enigma :

Joan is a tennis player and Paul's partner. Joan has several relationships with wealthy men. When Gerald died, Joan was heartbroken by life. When people are upset by life, they turn to pet animals for comfort. Joann did the same in this storey. Sibyl was her final companion.. Susan is telling Paul a storey. Gerald's sister is Joan. Joan grieved greatly after Gerald's death because Gerald was a close relative of Joan's, and his passing caused Joan a great deal of pain. Joan has the ability to protect herself from the harm. We could wonder whether there was nothing wrong with Joan because Susan is going through a difficult time in her life. Joan used to live with yeppers/dogs and now has another dog named Sibyl. Sybil is a legendary figure . Joan's character is described as follows in the novel:

"She was a large woman in a pastel-blue trouser suit; she had tight curls, brown lipstick, and was approximately powdered. She led us into the sitting room and collapsed into an armchair with a footstool in front of it. Joan was probably about five years older than Susan, but struck me as a generation ahead. On one arm of her chair was a face-down book of crosswords, on the other a brass ashtray held in place by weights concealed in a leather strap. The ashtray looked precariously full to me. No sooner had Joan sat down than she was up again."

📌Whom do you think is responsible for the tragedy in the story? Explain with reasons. :

Because of Paul, this disaster occurred. He was born with the ability to escape an unpleasant and difficult environment. Because of his departure, his childishness, the ark of his relation was destroyed. When his relationship ended, he began to place blame on others. Because, at the time the love tale begins, Paul is 19 years old and Susan is 48 years old. Here Paul is criticizing Gordon for domestic abuse, implying that the this tragedy would not have occurred if Gordon had not acted violently with Susan.

📌 Work Cited :

• Barnes, Julian. The Only Story. Penguin Random House UK. 2018. Book. 24 January 2022. 
• Gilbert, Sandra M. The Madwoman in the Attic : the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
• Julian Barnes: Official Website, http://julianbarnes.com/