MEMORY AS AN UNRELIABLE SOURCE OF HISTORY AND/OR THE SIMULACRUM OF THE PAST IN JULIAN BARNES’ ENGLAND, ENGLAND

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 23 Sayı: 1, 67 - 78, 15.04.2019

Yiğit Sümbül

Öz

Writer of a great number of novels, short stories and essays, Julian Barnes
has always been reckoned into the post-modernist canon of English literature
especially with the theme of suspicion and defiance of metanarratives
dominating his fiction. Much of Barnes’ reputation in the last decades of the
twentieth century stems from his fearless questioning of totalizing and
blindly-accepted narratives that have a claim to ultimate knowledge and
meaning. Barnes’ England, England,
his eighth novel written under his own name, presents the reader with the
problematic nature of issues like national identity, Englishness and documented
history with a satirical tone and political implications. Barnes emphasizes the
fallibility of human memory in his questioning of history writing and the
notions of reality and authenticity, which is reminiscent of Baudrillard’s
considerations of meaning and history in the modern world. In this respect,
Barnes’ post-modern novel England,
England openly problematizes history writing with explicit references to
Baudrillard’s theory of the ‘simulacra’, asserting that documented history is
nothing but unreliable copies of the actual past created by a defective memory
system.

Anahtar Kelimeler

simulacrum, history, Julian Barnes, England

JULIAN BARNES’IN İNGİLTERE İNGİLTERE’YE KARŞI ROMANINDA TARİHİN GÜVENİLMEZ BİR KAYNAĞI VE/VEYA GEÇMİŞİN TAKLİDİ OLARAK ANILAR

Öz

İngiliz roman, öykü ve deneme yazarı Julian Barnes, özellikle eserlerinin
büyük kısmına hâkim olan ‘üstanlatılara karşı duyulan şüphecilik ve muhalefet’
teması göz önünde bulundurularak, genellikle post-modern bir yazar olarak
değerlendirilir. Yazarın 20. yüzyılın son dönemlerinde artan ünü, onun
sorgulanmadan kabul edilen, tümleyici, mutlak anlam ve bilgiye ulaşma savına
sahip anlatıları korkusuzca sorgulamasından kaynaklanmaktadır. Barnes’ın kendi
adı altında yayımlattığı sekizinci romanı olan İngiltere İngiltere’ye Karşı da okuyucularına ulusal kimlik,
İngilizlik ve yazılı tarihî materyaller gibi konuların özünde yatan çelişkileri
iğneleyici ve politik imalarla yüklü bir anlatımla sunar. Romanda yazar, tarih
yazımı ve gerçeklik/orijinallik olgularını sorgulamasıyla, Baudrillard’ın
modern dünyada anlam ve tarih üzerine düşüncelerine paralel olarak, insan
hatıralarının ve hafızasının yanılma payının yüksekliğini vurgular. Bu
bağlamda, bu çalışmanın amacı Julian Barnes’ın post-modern romanı İngiltere İngiltere’ye Karşı’da yazarın
Baudrillard’ın ‘simulacra’ teorisine açık açık göndermeler yaparak tarih
yazımını nasıl sorunsallaştırdığını gözler önüne sermek ve yazılı tarihin,
insanların sorunlu hafıza sisteminin ürünü olan, geçmişin güvenilmez kopyalarından
ibaret olduğunu kanıtlamaktır. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

: simulacrum, tarih, Julian Barnes, İngiltere İngiltere’ye Karşı

Kaynakça

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