略论《终结的感觉》中巴恩斯的历史观

Language: Correction and Subversion——An Analysis of Barnes' Historical View in The Sense of an Ending

语言实验和文字游戏是英国后现代作家创作的主要手段之一。正是通过这样有效的语言实验,他们展开了对历史的关注以及对历史真实性的思考。《终结的感觉》是一部对历史的真实发出追问的作品。通过借用第一人称叙述者"我"的不可靠叙述,巴恩斯深度剖析了个体记忆与历史真实之间的关系,展示了在不可靠的语言叙述背后,重构个人历史以及认识自我的复杂过程。只有剥去语言和文字的外衣,才能修正记忆,重构历史真实。

Language experiments and wordplay are the primary techniques of postmodern writers. It is through these effective language strategies that they explore what is history and what is historical reality. Julian Barnes, often crowned as one of the "Big Three" in the contemporary British literary arena, published his The Sense of an Ending in 2011. By the use of the first-person narrator "I", an unreliable narrator, Barnes enquires in this novel the relationship between individual memories and the historical reality, showing the complex process of individual historical reconstruction and self-understanding. The implication is that only by going beyond memory and language can we see the real nature of history.