The new book of Julian Barnes was published

This is the novel-Estate “Portrait of a Men in Red”-about the beautiful era in the history of Europe (and in fact about “Brexit”)

Literary critic Galina Yuzefovich talks about the new novel-Estate of the British writer Julian Barnes “Portrait of a Men in Red”. Describing the life of Samuel Pozti - the hero of the painting by John Singera Sargent, a successful surgeon and favorite of the High World - the author draws a portrait of a European beautiful era . And draws the reader's attention to the modern world in which the UK is cut off from neighbors.

Julian Barnes. Portrait of a man in red. SPb: ABC, ABC-Atticus, 2020. Translation by E. Petrova

All the novels of Julian Barnes are divided into two large categories: those that are actually more likely novels, and those that are actually rather expanded essays. The last book of the writer “Portrait of a man in red” refers to the second category: not so much prose in the full sense of the word as a difficult collage from documentaries, the artistic value of which is born from a whimsical and unexpected combination, and the place of a static plot frame is flexible and mobile author's thought.

The starting point of the book is, in fact, the picture made in the title is a portrait of the work of the American artist John Singher Sargenta, who captured the young (and, according to Alice, Princess Monaco, “disgustingly beautiful”) a French surgeon named Samuel Pozti. Seeing the picture in 2015 at the exhibition, Barnes became interested in the fate of the man depicted on it, and the result of this interest was a small book, which today can hold in his hands, including the Russian reader.

Samuel Pozti, a native of the bourgeois family of Italian Protestants, who had settled in France, was a figure bright even by the standards of his exceptionally generous on bright figures of time (Pozti was born in 1846 and died in 1918, so that the years of his heyday came to the famous Belle Epoque , but of all European culture as a whole). The handsome man, the freedom and the translator of Darwin (it was he who first introduced the French reader to the work “Expression of emotions in people and animals”), a lover, and after the closest friend of the incomparable Sarah Bernard, a friend and interlocutor of almost all Parisian celebrities, at the same time remained one of the largest surgeons of his time, the founder of gynecology, and the main thing is genuine. The revolutionary in matters of aseptics and antiseptics. It is this combination of the painstaking, everyday work of a doctor in a large state hospital with the involvement of the dazzling secular life of Paris of Paris of the Border of centuries that makes Pozti perfect for Barnes a hero - colorful and self -sufficient, but at the same time capable of providing an excellent “entry point” in his era.

Honestly, this second role of the hero of the “portrait of a man in red” for the most part turns out to be noticeably more important and interesting for the author. The endless branching paths, in different directions, scattering from the figure of Poczi, captivate Barnes much more than the complex relations of the “Doctor of God” (so called the hero who saved her from a huge ugly cyst, grateful Sarah Bernar) with his wife or the details of the only fight, in which he happened to participate on the rights of a duly, and not a medic.

Here, Potsi goes “to shopping”, as we would say today, to London as part of a “strange trio” - along with him, a native of the middle class, and besides heterosexual, his influential friends, two brilliant aristocrats, aesthetes and homosexuals - Prince de Polinyak and Count de Montezyu, go to the British capital. Count de Montesquyu is a character that is primarily notable for him that the French writer-student Zoris-Charles Huisans wrote off his Duke of Essent-the hero of the novel “On the contrary”, an exemplary saturated discordant, who, in turn, inspired many of the madness of Oscar Wilde (Belle Epoque literature with exaggerated seriousness) indirect reason for Wilde at the court of a conviction . As for the Polinyak, then, trying to improve his shaken welfare, he will marry the heiress of the famous Empire Zinger, who - terribly by the way - is also prone to homoerotism, and at the same time shares the cultural addictions of the spouse, so contrary to all forecasts their marriage is extremely harmonious and happy. Polinaks create a fashionable salon, in which the whole European elite is from Wagner to the Rothschilds and from Redon to Prokofiev.

Sometimes - as in the above example - we are still able to restore the course of the author's reasoning, leading us from Ovtsi to Prokofiev. Sometimes it turns out to be difficult: many heroes and circumstances arise on the pages of the “Portrait of a Men in Red” due to some unobvious associations arising in the head of Julian Barnes and the text indicated on the surface at best intermittent dotted line. However, the main idea is read, in general, without difficulty: in a slightly simplified form, it boils down to bewitching connection with everything in Europe at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The British, Germans, Italians, the French, quite openly dislikes each other and make fun of each other, learn a lot from each other (for example, it is the great Scottish surgeon of the Lister. The Frenchman foresaw a new way to lay seams), English and French art nourish each other, and in general, European culture appears as a continuum - diverse, in the highest degree, in the highest degree. The motley, not to say that perfectly friendly, and at the same time quite definitely one, holistic and harmonious.

In principle, the same technique is to show culture as a universal mycelium that penetrates and unites the most far from each other at first glance, we already observed in the best, perhaps, barns, the Floretra Parrot. However, in the “parrot”, Gustav Flobert himself, a genuine favorite of Barnes, served the point of intersection of all threads, which provided the book much greater compositional integrity and harmony. With all his charm and charisma, Samuel Pozti is obviously not able to arouse the love of comparable power in the heart of the author, so the “portrait of a man in red” remains a large extent a novel without a center: Barnes woven by Barnes does not bend under the weight of the protagonist, the power field around him is not poured with exciting stress and does not spark.

However, this property (to call it the drawback will still not be quite correct) “portrait” is an explanation that almost completely lying, however, outside the text itself - except for a short author’s imprisonment, which serves as a kind of key to the novel. And this explanation fits into one painful word for each English intellectual - “Brexit”. Dr. Potzzi, Patriot and Cosmopolitan, loved to say that “chauvinism is one of the forms of ignorance,” and, according to Barnes, it was the triumph of chauvinism (and with it and egregious ignorance) is now experiencing Britain, artificially torn from pan -European values. And in this context, a reminder of how rich, complex and beautiful can be a world that is in fruitful and active symbiosis - such as in the restless and brilliant times of Belle Epoque, becomes a more important thing than the harmonious harmony of the novel structure. And in this capacity - as an alarmed reminder and an attempt to present an encouraging example from the contrary - the “portrait of a man in red” works, if not impeccably, then in any case it is quite effective.

Galina Yuzefovich