An Analysis Of The History Views Reflected From The Writings Created By Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes is a one of the most popular contemporary novelists in British. He is also a rare genius in literary who has published more than twenty books up till now. He is so interested in history that his view of history goes through all his books. This dissertation is intended to take his five books which have been translated into Chinese as a main line to analyze. I try to explore Barnes’ viewpoints and his attitudes towards history and how he understands and pursues the historical richness.The first chapter shows that Barnes has a positive attitude to the history even when he faces the fact that the objective history is hard to obtain. Although there are a variety of subjective and objective factors which will influence people to search for historical truth, and even sometimes it is difficult for people to get the historical materials, Barnes would not despair of exploring or discovering the history. Instead, he chooses the historical diversity and richness as perspectives to reinterpret history. The second chapter focuses on Barnes’ critical interpretation of history. Barnes believes that the complexity of the power can make historical objectivity difficult to obtain. The third chapter pays attention to how Barnes uses his novels or his writings as a method to present the richness of history. Barnes studies history from the perspective of literature, he takes the theories of the postmodernism as a method to illustrate the unreliability of history. He calls upon the readers that they should not believe in the one-side action of a single logic of history as it is always controlled by power, he calls upon us how to learn to accept various versions of history.Barnes takes his novels or his writings as a way to explore history, which is inspiring for us. He lets us see the specific variety of diverse possibilities of history. Only by maintaining such an open mind to the view of history, there will be more people explore the richness of history, and they are sure to obtain the real aspects of history.