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No End of History Evidence from the
Contemporary English Novel

• By Del Ivan Janik
• Twentieth Century Literature 41.2 (Summer 1995)
  160-89.
• Based on EBSCOhost online journal article
• Presented by Sarita Chuang

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Introduction p.1

• According to Baudrillard, Fukuyama, and Jameson,
  we are at or beyond the end of history there
  stands before or about us only a perpetual
  present a world defined only spatially, no
  longer in terms of development through time.
• Literary postmodernism a product of the end of
  history the past as referent has been effaced,
  time has been textualized, leaving only
  representations, texts, pseudo-events, images
  without originals a spatial, rather than
  temporal, order of simulacra (David Bennet 262)

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Authors and Books Discussed p.1

• Possession A. S. Byatt
• The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
• Flauberts Parrot Julian Barnes
• Hawksmoor, Chatterton, First Light, English
  Music Peter Ackroyd
• Waterland, Shuttlecock, Out of This World, Ever
  After Graham Swift

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David Lodges definition of three types of 20th
fiction writing p. 2

• Modernism with its notion of art as an autonomous
  activity
• Antimodernist realism with its insistence on the
  priority of meaning over language
• (The Remains of the Day)
• Postmodernism, which implies that whatever
  meaningful patterns we discern in fiction are
  wholly illusory (5-6, 12)
• (Flauberts Parrot)
• The works of Ackroyd, Byatt, and Swift seem to
  transcend Lodges rubrics.

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Possession A. S. Byatt pp. 3-4

• a distinction between between proper (positive,
  life-enhancing) improper (objectifying,
  life-denying) attitudes toward the past.
• Those who seek to possess power, place, property,
  the past ? villains
• Those who allow themselves to be possessed by
  curiosity, the desire for understanding, history,
  love are rewarded richly in unexpected ways.
• The possession by the force of the past enables
  Roland to rediscover, redefine, and remake
  himself, and to begin to take possession of his
  own life.
• Mauds transformation is brought about by the
  revelation of the end of history of Ash and
  LaMotte. Like Roland, she has entered history by
  recognizing acknowledging her continuity with
  others, past and present.

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The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro pp. 4-5

• Historical events (secret negotiations over the
  fate of Europe between the World Wars)
• Historical figures (Ribbentrop Oswald Mosley)
  fictional figures (Unity Mitford the Duke of
  Windsor, the butler Stevens)
• Stevens is determined to demonstrate that the
  outstanding characteristic of a great butler is
  his dignity, which he defines by an embodiment
  of impersonality. (using dignity to dodge true
  responsibility)
• Through Stevens, Ishiguro reminds us that public
  as well as private history is no more than the
  summing up of such actions omissions.

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Flauberts Parrot Julian Barnes pp. 5-6

• Geoffrey Braithwaite, the narrator It is not
  just the life that we know It is also the life
  that was not led (Barnes 121)
• The past is radically unknowable, and history, as
  Possession also demonstrates, is multiple and
  provisional.
• Braithwaites obsession pursuit of Flauberts
  history ? a diversion from the history of his own
  marriage

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Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd p.7

• The double narrative structure 18th century
  architect Nicholas Dyer v.s. 20th century police
  detective Hawksmoor
• Ackroyd presents history and its intersections
  with the present as a series of such Mystery
  lessons.
• Byatts, Ishiguros and Barnes characters pursue
  knowledge of the past intentionally or
  involuntarily, Hawksmoor finds himself pursued
  and ultimately overtaken by history.

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Peter Ackroyds Three Other Novels pp. 7-9

• Chatterton portrayal of the multiple
  intersections of past and present.
• First Light continuity the connectedness of
  human fear, need, and effort across the
  centuries.
• English Music the idea of being trapped in
  time, defined by ones limited vision of the
  past.

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Waterland Graham Swift pp. 9-12

• Historia
• 1. inquiry, investigation, learning
• 2. a) a narrative of past events, history
• b) any kind of narrative account,
  tale, story.
• Tom Cricks attempt to transcend the individual
  and collective past by telling stories about
  them.
• History is a construct, a human creation that
  intensifies experience ? Histrionics (theatrical
  arts or performances)
• double ending

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Swifts Three Other Novels pp. 10, 12-14

• Shuttlecock The process of examining ones
  relation to the past is shown to be more
  important than any particular facts one might
  uncover.
• Out of This World To reach an understanding of
  the moment, one must attempt to understand its
  context. (involvement imagination demanded by
  narrative)
• Ever After resembles Possession in its
  juxtaposition of invented documents from the
  Victorian era.

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Conclusion p.14

• At the center of each novel is the nature of the
  relation of the individual to the past how the
  pursuit of order that is implied in the word
  history can mediate that relation.
• Taken together they refute the notion that
  history is about to end.
• Historical truth is hopelessly elusive, yet the
  process of historical exploration leads to a
  confrontation with inner reality that may be
  painful but can also be liberating and
  transforming.