Stories We Tell About Ourselves And Others: Identity And Narration in Julian Barnes’s Oeuvre

Julian Barnes’s second to last book to date, The Man in the Red Coat (2019), is a work of non-fiction, devoted to the life of the renowned Parisian surgeon Samuel Jean de Pozzi. It is, however, a special kind of nonfiction – in fact, the book illuminates in many ways the narrative practices in Barne...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ladislav Nagy
Format: Article
Language:ces
Published: Karolinum Press 2023-03-01
Series:Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Philologica
Online Access:http://www.karolinum.cz/doi/10.14712/24646830.2022.41
Description
Summary:Julian Barnes’s second to last book to date, The Man in the Red Coat (2019), is a work of non-fiction, devoted to the life of the renowned Parisian surgeon Samuel Jean de Pozzi. It is, however, a special kind of nonfiction – in fact, the book illuminates in many ways the narrative practices in Barnes’s work in general. At the same time, it touches on a theme that permeates all of Barnes’s fictional work, namely the construction of identity through the stories we tell about ourselves and that others tell about us. Storytelling thus emerges as a fundamental human trait: it is our responsibility to narrate, for it is only in telling stories that we can grasp the world around us.
ISSN:0567-8269
2464-6830