POSTMODERN METAFICTION OF JULIAN BARNES IN “A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10 ½ CHAPTERS”

Abstract

The article deals with the literary-aesthetic position of Julian Barnes in metafiction, which is recognized as a special literary artistic tendency of postmodernism through the analysis of his work “A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters”. The study analyses the role of postmodern metafiction in contemporary literature, its emergence and development;. Julian Barnes’s “A History of the World in 10 ½ chapters” reveals that the writer’s perception of the historical stages of the world is based on artistic fragments of metafiction. It was also shown that this work shed light on the prevailing artistic elements of postmodernism, such as parody, irony, and pastiche of metafiction. In the process of literary analysis, it has become obvious that, following the requirements of the literary strategic orientation of the metafiction, the writer departs from the traditionally one-sided approaches of literary prose that have prevailed for centuries to understand the literal essence of well-being. He also condemns humanity’s attempts to create a truthful reality using the artistic skills of literature and art. Overcoming the formalistic, hierarchical tendencies of modernism, he sheds light on his anarchic ideas with the help of his fabulation. He tries to convince the advanced thinkers of postmodern society and readers of all times that, in this way, the apocalyptic state of the world can be improved. It is worth noting that Julian Barnes’s “History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” is considered in reality as a work that brought a fundamental turn in the direction of metafiction, which is the product of new age literature. Considering that existence desperately needs objective thinking and interpretation, “The History of the World in 10 ½ chapters”, written in the style of a meta-prose, is expected to take the present regressive state of postmodern societies to a new and productive stage of progress.