Thinking activity: The Only Story

Hello Readers...

This blog is the part of my thinking activity in Google classroom. This blog is about the one famous memory novel The Only Story by Julian Barns. In this we will  have to ponder and explain the some points which is given by our professor Dr Dilip Barad sir.

So first of all let's throw some light on the novel and author:-

Julian Barns:-

Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having being shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes also writes crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh.[1] In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.

The Only Story :-

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.

(The Only Story)

The Only Story is a novel by Julian Barnes. It is his thirteenth novel, and was published on 1 February 2018.

The short (273 pp.) novel is the life story of Paul Roberts, who we first meet as a 19-year-old Sussex University undergraduate returning to his parents' house in the leafy southern suburbs of London (Sutton, in Surrey, is suggested as a model.) The time is the early sixties, and there are a few references to current events. Paul joins the tennis club, which is the one of the few opportunities such places offer for socialising. In a random-draw mixed doubles, he is thrown together with Susan MacLeod, a 48-year-old married woman with two daughters older than Paul. Improbably, Paul and Susan become lovers and she eventually leaves her family to set up house with Paul in South London. Having nothing to do but a little housekeeping, Susan soon descends into alcoholism and dementia. Paul departs and embarks on foreign travels, picking up jobs and women at random.

Paul is a quintessentially alienated character. With no interest in either politics or religion, and no particular ambition, he takes life as it comes. As he narrates his life in this book, he freely admits that memory is unreliable and he may not be telling us the truth.

Points to ponder:-

1) Memory Novel - Structurally as well as thematically:-

The novel majorly talks about the theme of memory. ‘The only Story’ is a memory novel. It is based on the memory of Paul Roberts. Sometimes memory should be happy or sometimes it should be something that is unbreakable. This novel wildly talks about how Memory sorts and shifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer. We come to know four aspects of memory. 

 In the novel the narration of Paul connects with this memory dilemma. Plot of the novel woving around the memory of the novel. He might be hiding something more terrible or we can say ’Trauma in Memory’. It might be possible that he understood that his grief is more than anything and to escape from that he narrates things in a different way. We also find the story of Eric and his love affair. So it is the best example of a memory novel. Paul suddenly talks about him. Eric had a relationship with American women and Eric was ready to leave earthly things but at the moment he realised that he was going the wrong way and he saved himself but Paul was not able to do this. 

2) ‘The only Story’ as Postmodern Novel:-

If we look at this novel as a postmodern novel, we come to know that Postmodernists rejected the view which culminated with realism, that literature was a reliable source of universal truths, though such a view was never before questioned. Thus, 'The Only Story' questions the memory narration of Paul who, earlier in the novel, considers himself as a truth-teller.

It seems that Modernists also believed in the cult of the genius, which they inherited from the Romantics, according to which artists were the elite, hypersensitive persons who can grasp the ultimate truth, which was another idea of modernists that postmodernists rejected. Thus, the protagonist through which 'The Only Story' is narrated has no grasp over the objective truth and neither is he a hypersensitive soul. Through the narrator, Julian Barnes rejects the idea that writers are geniuses who have grasped the universal truth.Modernists still pretended that their novels were not constructs but that they somehow revealed the truth, which again the postmodernist challenged. Even the notion of consciousness, personality, mind, were rejected by the postmodernists, who claimed that consciousness was rooted in language which describes nothing but itself according to them. Thus, the world view constructed by the word ‘love’ is questioned in this novel. The word ‘love’ is supposed to give us a worldview of happiness, togetherness, blissfulness, idyllic, peaceful, harmonious, joyful, ecstatic, heavenly life. In this novel, ‘love’ shatters family life, it brings pity and anger, it makes people alcoholic and liars.

Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t

mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives:there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there’s only one that matters,only one finally worth telling, this is mine (Barnes,2018, p. 13).

3)Theme of Love (Passion + Suffering):-

“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. You may point out – correctly – that it isn’t a real question. Because we don’t have a 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.” (TOS)

This novel is a love story, which talks about the theme of love that love turns into passion and later on sufferings. Most of the novel's quotes describe this theme. This novel is about nineteen years Paul Roberts and 48 years old Susan. The beginning of the novel talks about these things. Julian Barnes very passionately describes this thing. It is not only about a romantic love story. 

The protagonist of the novel Paul who becomes the victim of these things. He is a 19-year-old university student; she, a 48-year-old married woman and a mother of two; they, in London’s suburban “stockbroker belt”, sometime in the 1960s. It is not a romantic, peaceful and happy ending kind of Love. It is described the horre reality of life, Paul’s mistakes, Susan’s over-drinking, the disaster of love, Nothingness of life Paul’s sexual desire, Susan’s rigidity, and Joan’s philosophy towards life and love.

This novel talks about the failure of love and suffering in love. Joan is one of the best examples. She very idealistically represents this idea of love. Another example is Ellen and Paul’s story is at the center. Which describes that love is passionate and turns into suffering. 

“In love, everything is both true and false; it's the one subject on which it's impossible to say anything absurd.”

4)Critique of Crosswords:-

Crosswords are the symbol that is very significantly used by Jullian Barens. In this Novel two people are playing crosswords, one is mr. Gordon Macleaod and another is Joan.

In the novel protagonist Paul Roberts describes hidden aspects of these crosswords. It’s signific the leisure of British people. By playing this game people might think that they are solving the puzzles or difficulties of life. 

“Everyone in the Village, every grown-up – or rather, every middle-aged person – seemed to do crosswords: my parents, their friends, Joan, Gordon Macleod. Everyone apart from Susan. They did either The Times or the Telegraph; though Joan had those books of hers to fall back on while waiting for the next newspaper. 

If we take a one incident from the novel that

where Paul asked Joan 'Why did she cheat him in Puzzle?’ 

‘Why do you cheat at crosswords?’ 

Joan laughed loudly. ‘You cheeky bugger. I suppose Susan told you. Well, it’s a fair question, and one I can answer.’ She took another pull of her gin. ‘You see – I hope you never get there yourself – but some of us get to the point in life where we realize that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. And one of the few side-benefits of that is you know you’re not going to go to hell for filling in the wrong answers in the crossword. Because you’ve been to hell and back already and you know all too well what it’s like.’ Both these words in the crossword puzzle seem to signify a taunt on Paul’s middling in between Susan and Gondon’s not-so-happy married life.

5) Paul - the unreliable narrator:-

So first let's see the what is What is an Unreliable narrator? 

The fallible or unreliable narrator, on the other hand, is one whose perception, interpretation, and evaluation of the matters he or she narrates do not coincide with the opinions and norms implied by the author, which the author expects the alert reader to share. 

(MH Abrams) 

In this novel we find the unreliable narrator.Paul is the protagonist of the story. The story is based on the memory of Paul. Memory is something that is not trustworthy. We can say that it shifts according to the individual. Paul during his conversation warns the reader. Here are the quotes which discuss Paul as an Unreliable Narrator. 

“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."These things seem to indicate that Paul is an unreliable narrator.

6) Susan - madwoman in the attic:-

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination:- 

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination is a 1979 book by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in which they examine Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. Gilbert and Gubar draw their title from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, in which Rochester's wife (née Bertha Mason) is kept secretly locked in an attic apartment by her husband.

In the novel Susan was another protagonist. If we compare the Susan with the Bertha then we find some similarities between both of them.

Bartha was suffering by her husband and here Susan is suffering from some kind of this thing. She becomes an alcoholic. She speaks lies to Paul. Somewhere she is stuck with responsibility. She was beaten by her own husband. She had extramarital affair with Paul, she somewhere wants love, some kind of warmness but she was constantly become a victim of hatred, sexual pleasure and was beaten so many times. Susan also become a victim of child abuse when she went to his uncle Hemph’s house. When finally she went with Paul there she felt lonely and that time she became alcoholic like anything. In the end, Paul also abandons her and her daughter Clara taking care of her. Susan’s character is fascinating because there is another character. The story of both Susan and her friend Joan is interesting but Joan might digest the philosophy of life. 

7)Joan - one who understood existential            enigma:-

Joan is the formal tennis partner and friend of Susan Macleod and sister of Gerald. Gerald is the ex of Susan. She is around fifty-three and she kept yeppers with her. One Ypres died and she decided never to keep them because when you are alone and you love someone whatever they were and they died at that time you feel pain as like you lose your person. Later on, she kept another name Sible. Joan is the counter character of Susan. She had digested the philosophy of life. She spent her time with sible, she drinks, smokes,d and played tennis and crosswords.

And in the second part of the story we will come across to know more about this character Joan.There is a long conversation between Paul and Joan. In the novel, there is a very fascinating incident where Paul asked her cheating in crosswords. 

‘Why do you cheat at crosswords?’ Joan laughed loudly. ‘You cheeky bugger. I suppose Susan told you. Well, it’s a fair question, and one I can answer.’ She took another pull of her gin. ‘You see – I hope you never get there yourself – but some of us get to the point in life where we realize that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. And one of the few side-benefits of that is you know you’re not going to go to hell for filling in the wrong answers in the crossword. Because you’ve been to hell and back already and you know all too well what it’s like.’ 

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

There is also one theme of responsibility in the novel. If we look at the life of the main protagonist Paul at the age of seventy is not happy with life. He has described at the beginning of the story that it is his only story, which was ultimately one kind of disaster. He is the narrator of the story. He and Susan were in a relationship. When they came to a relationship Paul was so young and Susan was about forty-eight. This tragedy happened because of Paul. He has the nature to escape from an uncomfortable and tough situation. The ship of his relationship was broken because of his escape, his childishness. When his relationship was broken, he started to blame others. 

So here Paul started blaming Gordon for domestic violence so here Paul blamed that if Gordon had not acted badly with Susan this tragedy might not happen. For understanding more we have to look into the novel ‘The Sense of the Ending’ where Julian Banned gave a metaphor of ‘Link’. When we see these links then what becomes significant is Imagine in Chain on the link is breaking then who or what is responsible for that? What are the possible answers if this chain is made with metals? So here we can say that if the chain is made with qualitative metal it might not break. There is frangibility. Some links very quickly break down and some are still there. So if there is a frangibility link will be there. So here Paul also tries to question the responsibility in a different way. Paul is not so fragile to sustain. 

Thank you….....