Julian Barnes in conversation with Peter Florence
Julian Barnes's new novel tells the true story of Dmitrij Šostakovič, one of the 20th century's finest composers, who, by refusing to go into exile, he spent many years reckoning with Stalin's musical tastes as well as the suffocating and oppressive Soviet machine. After winning the Man Booker Prize in 2011, he managed to transform this dramatic tale into an indelible meditation on art, its power and its limitations.
The author has worked on the story and character for years, as well as an in-depth study of the complex historical contextualisation with a focus on the moral greyness that was prevalent in that period. Barnes's book could not be termed a historical novel, nor is it a fictionalised biography, but an investigation plumbed out of the torn conscious of an artist overwhelmed by totalitarianism who, somehow, managed to maintain his dignity. Expanding on the different between music and language, Barnes stated that writing a novel on Šostakovič is like creating a ballet on Louis Armstrong. It is not a paradox to say that music is different from the novel, even if in its composition, you need to listen to it and feel it deeply. What really matters, however, is to stop and reflect on the power against art.
Perhaps the primary objective of Barnes's reflection is to investigate the convoluted mechanisms of power and its relationship with culture, seeking to shed light on the points that are still murky today. Each novel comes from the question: "How do you inherit violence?". As one of the greatest South American authors Vàsquez stated during the presentation of his latest novel La forma delle rovine, you don't write novels to look for answers but to find the right questions. It is unlikely that the age-old question on the clash between art and power will ever find a definitive answer. However, Barnes opens up a wound: he focuses on the weaknesses of the past to reflect on those of the present.