Dual Narrative Progression and Metaphors for Noise in Julian Barnes’s <i>The Noise of Time</i>

Abstract

In <i>The Noise of Time</i>, Julian Barnes once again turns to the writing of biography after <i>Arthur & George </i>(2005), and this time he experiments by tactfully setting dual narrative progression which is the combination of the overt plot and the covert progression. Also, the word “noise” in the title <i>The Noise of Time </i>has double metaphorical meanings, which correspond to the theme and characterization in the dual narrative progression. So, the present article aims to probe into the relationship between the dual narrative progression and the respective metaphorical connotation of the word “noise” in the title. In the overt plot centering on Shostakovich’s three Conversations with Power, for the sake of his friends and associates, in the struggle between life and death, the protagonist Shostakovich is depicted as a coward disciplined by the multiple mechanisms of “incarceration”, such as arrest, being taken to the concentration camps, forbidding his music, and banning his opera performed, in the service of the former Soviet government; and the word "noise" is a metaphor for the totalitarian society of the former Soviet Union which influences Shostakovich's musical composition. However, in the covert progression, by mainly adopting indirect satire (irony), verbal defence, perfunctory behaviors and physical absence, the author characterizes the composer Shostakovich as a hero who follows the inner voice of his ego, and expresses his ridicule, resistance and intransigence in different ways, thus becoming an outsider or a stranger rebelling against the absurdity of the totalitarian society, and the metaphor for “noise” refers to the composer Shostakovich himself who strives to compose an artistic noise that is not compatible with the totalitarian society. Therefore, the overt plot and the covert progression form a striking contrast, and by so doing, Barnes creates an artistic paradoxical image of both a coward and a hero.