The Only Story By Julian Barnes
Hello readers ,This blog post is a response to an activity assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. This worksheet is part of the study of the contemporary novel The Only Story by Julian Barnes.
This video introduces the major characters of the novel and provides a plot summary for the viewers. The Only Story is a recently published novel by Julian Barnes, released in 2018. The novel is divided into three parts and begins with the classical definition of the novel, as given by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 1755 Dictionary of the English Language.
Novel: A small tale, generally of love.Samuel Johnson
"Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question"
In the end, Paul attends Susan in the hospital, but he does so without any visible emotion. Instead of worrying about Susan's condition, he finds himself preoccupied with his empty petrol tank, highlighting his emotional detachment from Susan and the life they once shared.
The narrative structure of this novel follows a classical framework. The protagonist, Paul Roberts, is an unreliable narrator, and the novel employs a mix of first, second, and third-person narration. While Julian Barnes adheres to traditional storytelling techniques, he also incorporates postmodern elements into the novel. Themes of memory and history are intricately explored through Paul’s unreliable narration, highlighting the fluid and subjective nature of personal recollections.
Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. You may point out – correctly – that it isn’t a real question.Because we don’t have the choice. If we had the choice, then there would be a question. But we don’t, so there isn’t. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn’t love. I don’t know what you call it instead, but it isn’t love.Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there’s only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.
Consider the novel's opening and the philosophical reflections on the first page how Paul, the narrator, contradicts himself. At first, he asserts that we all have only one story worth telling, yet in the same passage, he claims there are countless stories to tell. This self-contradiction becomes a crucial motif throughout the novel. Additionally, we tend to narrate stories in which we portray ourselves as heroes rather than acknowledging narratives that slip beyond our control. This is precisely the case with Paul. He recounts his love story, but it is possible that he presents only one side of it, while the actual reality might be entirely different. Similarly, Paul initially states that he is not keeping a diary, yet later in the novel, he confesses that he is indeed maintaining one. The entire narrative is intricately woven, employing the warp and weft of memory, and it unfolds through the flashback technique.
At the end of this video, a comparison is drawn between Thomas Hardy and Julian Barnes. However, while Hardy tells a story and embeds philosophical reflections within it, Barnes offers only fragments of a story, focusing primarily on philosophical musings.
Reading this novel was a profound experience. Initially, I expected a straightforward love story between two lovers, but as I progressed through the narrative, I realized it was much more than that. The distinct narrative style in each part is striking, demanding the reader’s active engagement. The use of flashback, while enriching, can also be disorienting at times.
The theme of love is undeniably central to this novel, as it revolves around the relationship between Paul and Susan. At 19, Paul holds a naive and immature perception of love, primarily tied to sexual gratification. He is unaware of the responsibilities that love entails. Love in the novel is closely intertwined with passion and suffering an important linguistic connection, as the Latin root of "passion" (patior) means "to suffer." Although the word no longer carries this meaning in everyday usage, the novel explores how love transforms into passion and ultimately leads to suffering, not just for Paul and Susan but also for their family members.
'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart'Tis women's whole existence
This quote appears in the novel, where Barnes critiques the traditional notion of love through the characters of Paul and Susan. It is Susan who falls in love with Paul, making him her third partner, whereas Paul remains unmarried his entire life out of love for Susan and a lingering sense of remorse.
A Lacanian interpretation is also embedded in the video. As humans, we have repressed desires that we seek to fulfill through our love objects whether they are human, non-human entities, or even abstract things. In pursuing these love objects, we attempt to fill the void or lack within our lives. This idea is particularly evident in Susan’s marriage, she does not receive love or sexual fulfillment from Gordon, but she finds both in her love object, Paul.
However, love also brings responsibilities, that Paul repeatedly fails to fulfill. He is powerless against Gordon’s domestic violence towards Susan, unable to confront him, and ultimately flees from the Macleod household. Similarly, he does not intervene when Eric is attacked in the street, later considering himself a coward. As Susan ages and becomes incapable of taking care of herself, Paul ultimately abandons his duty once again by handing her over to her daughter, Martha, rather than taking care of her himself.
- Trauma is memory
- Imperfection of memory
- Memory priority
- Memory and morality
'History is collective memory; memory is personal history, trauma is memory'
The video draws a comparison between The Only Story and the movie Memento, in which the protagonist suffers from short-term memory loss, forgetting everything within 15 minutes. The film raises a crucial question, if memory is taken away, does moral responsibility for one’s actions also disappear? In postmodern times, the concepts of history and memory have become increasingly complex. Every time we revisit our memories, we unconsciously distort them, shaping them according to our emotions and biases. The very facts we store in our minds are often colored with lies. This is precisely the case with Paul’s memory and narration he keeps deceiving himself and the readers because of his remorse. For Paul, it is not about erasing memory but rather about reconstructing it in a way that serves his purpose. His unreliable narration reflects his guilt and his attempt to justify his actions.
The novel also touches on the idea that all human beings have at least one deeply significant story they cannot share with anyone. In this sense, everyone is a subaltern there are always things we cannot speak about. Paul, too, struggles to openly share his love story because, in reality, he is the villain of that story. Instead of presenting the full truth, he shapes the narrative from his own perspective to avoid confronting his own failings. He cannot tell his actual story because he knows he is the one at fault.
Paul’s mental state is characterized by cowardice. He runs away instead of standing up for his friend Eric. The video also briefly discusses passing references to an American man and F-1 racer Max Verstappen, though their connection to the novel remains unclear.
Joan is the surviving sister of Gerald, Susan’s first husband, who died of leukemia. She comes across as a confident and strong-willed person, naturally taking charge in her relationships, especially with Susan. Her self-assured nature is clear through her casual authority and humorous banter, which subtly reinforces her position in the social hierarchy among her friends. Despite her tough and witty exterior, Joan is also practical, particularly when it comes to managing everyday expenses, as seen in her interest in calculating fuel costs. This mix of humor and pragmatism highlights both her intelligence and her careful approach to money.
Joan is independent and resilient. She never married and spent much of her life caring for her family, creating a self-sufficient and somewhat eccentric lifestyle. While she enjoys small pleasures like gin and cigarettes, she is mindful of her spending and lifestyle choices. Her reluctance to change such as dismissing walking despite its benefits reflects her desire to maintain comfort and control over her life. Joan is a memorable and well-rounded character, combining authority, wit, and practicality in a unique way.
Video 6: Two Ways to Look at Life
There were two ways of looking at life: or two extremes of viewpoints, with a continuum between them.
Life is described in two very different ways. The first view is that life is like being the captain of a ship. In this view, every choice you make whether big or small steers your life in a particular direction, just like a captain deciding which way to guide a paddle steamer down the river. Each decision is important because it determines one path while closing off others, emphasizing the power of free will and personal control.
The second view, however, sees life as more like a bump on a log. Here, no matter what choices you might think you’re making, you’re actually just being carried along by forces beyond your control, much like a log drifting on the mighty Mississippi. In this perspective, life unfolds through inevitable currents and eddies that you cannot steer, suggesting that many events are predetermined.
Paul, the narrator, reflects on these two ways of looking at life and even suggests that sometimes his life feels like it is a mix of both. At times, he experiences the freedom of making choices, and at other times, he feels like he’s simply being pushed along by fate.
Video 7: Question of Responsibility
Using the metaphor of a chain it is explained that each person or event is like a link in a chain. Just as a chain can break if one weak link fails under pressure, relationships and life can fall apart when a part of the whole is damaged. However, the metaphor also asks us to consider whether a broken link is weak by nature or simply overwhelmed by external forces. This idea extends to the notion of blame: rather than simply blaming one person for a failure such as Gordon’s domestic violence the lecture argues that we must look at the entire chain of events and recognize that everyone involved has some responsibility.
Paul Roberts, the narrator, uses this theme of responsibility to reflect on his own life. He questions whether he is to blame for his mistakes or if his circumstances and the actions of others, like Gordon, are more to blame. The lecture suggests that it is easy to assign blame to someone else, but true introspection requires admitting one’s own role in the breakdown of relationships. Ultimately, the message is that understanding responsibility means looking at the bigger picture and acknowledging that our lives are shaped by both our choices and the forces around us, and that we must take a hard look at our own contributions to any harm done.
Video 8: Theme of Marriage
It compares marriage to several everyday objects and situations a jewelry box that mysteriously turns precious metals into base metal, or a disused boat that is no longer seaworthy. These metaphors suggest that marriage, over time, loses its value and becomes a source of routine responsibilities rather than a celebration of love. The speaker also points out that many middle-class people suffer in silence in unhappy marriages, as seen in the case of domestic violence and other struggles within the novel.
While older works like Thomas Hardy's novels questioned marriage, today there are alternatives such as live-in relationships and divorce, which allow people more freedom and less cultural pressure to remain in unhappy unions. The novel does not offer a moral judgment but simply portrays marriage as an institution that may not fulfill its promise of happiness, leaving the reader to consider the complexities and responsibilities that come with it.
Key Takeaway 1: Memory as an Unreliable, Self-Serving Narrative
Explanation:
In The Only Story, memory is not a neutral record of the past but a subjective reconstruction that protects the narrator’s ego. Paul’s recollections function as a “personal history”, where events are sorted, shifted, and edited to maintain his self-image. Happy moments are often prioritized, while trauma or moral failings are buried.
Novel Examples:
Paul alternates between viewing his life as guided by free will (as the “captain” of a steamer) and inevitability (a “bump on a log”), claiming credit for successes while excusing failed relationships.
He explicitly contradicts himself, claiming never to have kept a diary, only to later reference detailed entries he repeatedly revised.
Significance:
This theme establishes the novel’s postmodern framework. It forces readers to question the truthfulness of the narrative, highlighting how language and memory can conceal as much as they reveal.
Key Takeaway 2: Love as Responsibility, Not Romantic Idealism
Explanation:
Barnes de-glamorizes romance, portraying love as a moral and emotional responsibility rather than pure passion. Love evolves from youthful infatuation into a burden that requires resilience and moral awareness, particularly when one partner suffers or relationships become strained.
Novel Examples:
Paul’s journey from a 19-year-old in love to a 70-year-old reflecting on his failures illustrates the shift from innocence to experience.
Paul ultimately “hands back” Susan to her daughters when her alcoholism and dementia become unmanageable.
The novel contrasts this harsh reality with idealized romantic myths, such as Romeo and Juliet.
Significance:
This theme emphasizes the plight of the “walking wounded”, showing that the tragedy lies not in love itself but in failing to sustain responsibility. It frames love as an ethical challenge rather than a purely emotional experience.
Key Takeaway 3: Passion Is Inseparable from Suffering
Explanation:
The novel underscores the original meaning of “passion” (from Latin patior, “to suffer”), arguing that intense love inherently entails pain and disaster. Choosing to love fully is to embrace inevitable suffering.
Novel Examples:
The opening philosophical question—“Would you rather love the more and suffer the more?”—sets the tone for the narrative.
Paul’s recurring dream of Susan hanging from his wrists symbolizes how her emotional weight ultimately drags him down.
The man at the bar metaphor, where birds resting on shoulders eventually “shit” on their hosts, illustrates the harm Paul brings into Susan’s life.
Significance:
This theme captures the novel’s philosophical core: human relationships are often catastrophic, and deep passion necessarily exposes individuals to emotional disaster.
Character Analysis : two characters from the novel
1. Paul Roberts
Role in the Narrative:
Paul functions as the historian of his own memory, a 70-year-old man reconstructing the defining decade of his life, which began when, at 19, he fell in love with a 48-year-old woman. He positions himself as a highly invested narrator, presenting what he calls his “only story”—the single narrative he believes gives meaning and coherence to a person’s existence.
Key Traits and Motivations:
Paul is defined by unreliability, fundamental cowardice, and self-delusion. In his youth, he is motivated by a desire to be “radical” and “carefree,” interpreting the affair as a triumph over middle-class mediocrity and proof of “youthful fearlessness.” In old age, his stated aim is to uncover the “truth” of his past; however, his narration frequently serves to defend himself and mitigate guilt through self-serving reorderings of history.
How Narrative Perspective Shapes Understanding:
The reader’s understanding of Paul is shaped by his “drifting narration,” which shifts from an intimate first-person (“I”) perspective in Part One to a detached third-person (“He”) perspective in Part Three. This shift mirrors his emotional dissociation: as the “damage” caused by the relationship becomes increasingly visible, Paul creates distance to avoid confronting his remorse and guilt. His unreliability is further exposed through contradictions, such as initially claiming he never kept a diary, only to later reveal a notebook filled with decades of revised entries.
Contribution to Themes:
Paul embodies the “Question of Responsibility” and the “Theory of Damage.” He demonstrates how memory “prioritizes” information that allows the bearer to continue functioning, even as the “ugly residues” of past cowardice—such as running away when Susan’s husband punches him—eventually surface.
2. Susan Macleod
Role in the Narrative:
Susan Macleod is the primary love object and the tragic center of the novel. A 48-year-old, mother of two, she finds in Paul a temporary escape from her violent, alcoholic husband, Gordon, and from a childhood scarred by abuse at the hands of Uncle Humphrey.
Key Traits and Motivations:
Susan is initially presented as enigmatic, life-learned, and animated by a “laughing essence.” Her motivation is to fill the Lacanian “gap”—the profound void created by years of domestic and childhood trauma. However, she suffers from “obstinate denial,” and her life collapses into severe alcoholism and dementia, ending in a “zombified” existence within a mental asylum.
How Narrative Perspective Shapes Understanding:
Because the entire story is filtered through the “protective lens” of Paul’s memory, Susan’s own voice is never directly heard. She is frequently reduced to a material object, described as a “parcel” to be “handed back” to her daughters once she becomes unmanageable. This one-sided perspective leaves her as a deeply tragic figure, whose internal suffering remains largely confined to the “marginalia of history.”
Contribution to Themes:
Susan is the novel’s primary embodiment of “Passion as Suffering.” Her decline—from a vibrant tennis partner to an alcoholic who “shits on the shoulders” of those who attempt to help her—supports the argument that love becomes a “real disaster” when one surrenders to it entirely. She also anchors the novel’s critique of marriage, representing how “middle-class complacency” forces women to suffer silently behind a veneer of respectability.
Narrative Techniques in The Only Story
Julian Barnes employs a complex fusion of classical and postmodern narrative techniques in The Only Story to explore the instability of memory, the destructiveness of love, and the workings of self-delusion. The novel is structured in three distinct parts, which initially resemble a conventional love story but gradually undermine it through narrative fragmentation, psychological distancing, and an increasingly unreliable narrator.
First-Person Narration and Its Limitations
In the opening section, Barnes uses first-person narration (“I”), allowing Paul Roberts to recount his experiences with an air of intimacy and immediacy. This voice draws the reader into the emotional intensity of Paul’s nineteen-year-old self and the apparent sincerity of first love. However, this closeness is deeply problematic.
Paul does not offer objective truth, but a highly subjective account, shaped by emotional investment and self-preservation. He openly admits that memory “sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer,” exposing recollection as selective and self-serving. Furthermore, Paul insists that he never kept a diary and that many figures from the past are now dead or dispersed, rendering his narrative unverifiable. His account operates through what he himself describes as a “protective lens,” which prioritises survivable memories while concealing guilt, cowardice, and moral failure.
Shifting Perspectives and the Unreliable Narrator
One of the novel’s most striking techniques is its drifting narration, which shifts from first person in Part One, to second person (“you”) in Part Two, and finally to third person (“he”) in Part Three. This grammatical progression mirrors Paul’s growing emotional dissociation from Susan and from his former self as the relationship deteriorates.
By the final section, the move to the third person reflects Paul’s attempt to distance himself from responsibility. While he labels himself a “coward” and a “failure,” this self-judgement paradoxically allows him to avoid fully inhabiting his guilt. His unreliability is further exposed through contradictions: he claims to have “only one story to tell,” yet immediately refers to “countless stories,” and he denies keeping a diary before later admitting to maintaining a notebook filled with revisions and crossings-out, symbolising his continual rewriting of memory.
Non-Linear Timeline and Use of Flashbacks
The novel is framed retrospectively from the perspective of a seventy-year-old Paul, reconstructing events that span several decades. Barnes employs a non-linear timeline, moving fluidly between Paul’s youth, middle age, and old age through flashbacks and reflective interruptions.
This fragmented structure mirrors the disordered nature of memory itself. Rather than offering clarity or wisdom, hindsight only intensifies Paul’s confusion, remorse, and guilt. Barnes rejects the traditional assumption that time brings understanding, instead presenting memory as unstable and morally compromised.
Impact on the Reader’s Experience
These narrative techniques force the reader to adopt a critical and sceptical stance. Paul explicitly warns the reader that the “truth” emerges from the imperfections of memory meeting the inadequacies of documentation, undermining any expectation of narrative certainty.
Unlike classical novels—such as those by Thomas Hardy, where philosophical reflection lightly seasons a strong plot—Barnes reverses this hierarchy. In The Only Story, the love story becomes the “pinch of salt”, while extended philosophical meditation dominates. As a result, the reader experiences the novel less as a romance and more as a philosophical inquiry into love, responsibility, and damage.
How This Narrative Differs from Other Novels
The Only Story differs significantly from novels such as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Whereas Rushdie’s work is public, expansive, and historical, Barnes’s novel is private, controlled, and psychological. In Midnight’s Children, unreliable memory connects the narrator’s life to national history through magical realism and exaggeration. In contrast, Barnes confines unreliability to a single love affair, using it to expose guilt, self-delusion, and emotional harm.
While Rushdie uses storytelling to construct identity and history, Barnes uses it to question memory itself and to dismantle romantic meta-narratives perpetuated by literature and film. Love is not redemptive but a “real disaster” when surrendered without restraint.
Thematic Connections
Memory and Unreliability
The novel defines history as collective memory and memory as personal history, yet presents both as inherently unstable and precarious. Paul Roberts, as the narrator, is a “highly invested teller” who openly concedes that “memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer.” Memory is therefore not a neutral archive but an active, self-serving process.
The Subjectivity of Truth:
Truth in the novel is portrayed not as an objective reality but as a manufactured product, emerging where the “imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” Barnes suggests that all personal histories are provisional and morally compromised.
Narrative Deception:
Paul’s unreliability is repeatedly exposed through contradictions. He initially claims he never kept a diary, only to later reveal a notebook filled with decades of revisions and crossings-out. His narration functions through a “protective lens”, bringing survivable memories to the surface while suppressing the “ugly residues” of cowardice, guilt, and moral failure until later life, when they can no longer be ignored.
Love, Passion, and Suffering
The novel restores the original etymological meaning of “passion” from the Latin patior—“to suffer.” Love is presented not as fulfilment but as an experience inseparable from pain, framed by Paul’s opening philosophical question: “Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less?”
Lacanian Desire:
Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Barnes presents human beings as “subjects of desire”, formed by a fundamental “gap” created by the limitations of language and self-knowledge.The “Real Disaster”:
Humans seek “love objects” to fill this void, yet other people are inherently flawed substitutes, burdened with their own desires and absences. This leads to the novel’s bleak central assertion: “Every love… is a real disaster once you give yourself over to it entirely.” Love promises completion but instead magnifies damage.Responsibility and Cowardice
Paul repeatedly avoids moral accountability through “drifting narration,” shifting from the first person (“I”) to the third person (“He”) as the emotional cost of his actions becomes unavoidable. This grammatical distancing allows him to observe his failures without fully inhabiting them.
Avoidance Tactics:
Paul initially attributes the collapse of the relationship to Gordon’s domestic violence, framing it as a “crime of absolute liability” in order to minimise his own responsibility.Acts of Cowardice:
The narrative exposes a lifelong pattern of flight rather than confrontation: Paul runs away when his friend Eric is being kicked at a fair, and later flees after Gordon punches him. These moments establish cowardice as a defining moral flaw rather than an isolated weakness.The Consequence:
Paul’s ultimate act of evasion is “handing back” a broken, alcoholic Susan to her daughters like a “parcel” or a “refund.” This abandonment condemns him to a lifetime of remorse, leaving a psychological “wound” that remains open until death.Critique of Marriage
Marriage is presented as a social institution that frequently marks the end of love rather than its fulfilment. Barnes dismantles it through a series of corrosive metaphors:
A “dog kennel”, symbolising stagnant complacency.
A “jewellery box” that performs “reverse alchemy,” turning diamonds back into base metal.
A “disused boathouse” containing a leaky, two-person canoe no longer capable of escape.
The novel particularly critiques English middle-class complacency, where couples prefer to “suffer silently” rather than confront domestic violence or emotional collapse, preserving respectability at the cost of truth.
Two Ways of Looking at Life
Barnes presents human existence along a continuum between two opposing philosophies:
Life as Choice (The Captain):
The individual is the captain of a paddle steamer, making decisive choices that “obliterate” all alternative futures, producing anxiety over the “roads not taken.”Life as Inevitability (The Bump on a Log):
The individual is merely a “bump on a log,” carried by the “currents and eddies” of biology, history, and circumstance beyond personal control.
Their love was real, yet both forgot that true commitment demands accountability: protecting each other from harm, building safeguards amid the chaos, and prioritizing long-term well-being over raw intensity. Paul's lifelong regret and Susan's devastation show this shared failure turned passion into poison, wounding them both irreparably.
The novel teaches me that love without responsibility isn't freedom—it's folly. It must include moral courage, empathy, and active support to endure. My takeaway: even profound bonds demand vigilant care from both sides to avoid becoming tragedies.
Barad, Dilip. “The Only Story - Julian Barnes.” Dilip Barad | Teacher Blog, https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2022/02/the-only-story.html. Accessed 8 February 2025.
Barnes, Julian. The Only Story. Jonathan Cape, 2018.
Barad, Dilip. (2020). EXPLORING NARRATIVE PATTERNS IN JULIAN BARNES' "THE ONLY STORY". 6. 179-188. 10.13140/RG.2.2.16090.93125. Accessed 9 February 2025. Accessed 9 February 2025.
Barad, Dilip. (2021). SYMBOLISM OF CROSSWORD PUZZLES: ORDER, INTELLECT, AND EXISTENTIAL RESPITE IN JULIAN BARNES'S 'THE ONLY STORY. 10.13140/RG.2.2.36223.59042. Accessed 9 February 2025.
Introduction | Character | Plot Summary | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 31 Jan 2022, https://youtu.be/46Lxx-C5Tg0?si=PTkqNdhioisd9Tdv
"Joan | Character Study | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/st-w_099Yr0?si=OCoRA4CEEaHpXWq8
"Memory Novel | Memory and History | Memory and Morality | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 2 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/H4yoNBCzrUs?si=Vxc5GQPJqnbOxsYE
"Narrative Pattern | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 1 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/395rhgkig1w?si=mqvmqwWBRqOxByZ_
"Theme of Love | Passion and Suffering | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 2 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/7f7hCKtGkGI?si=gCVaaKw0ksJAn4OY
"Theme of Marriage | Critique of Marriage Institution | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/SCrSyV2jXzI?si=iLvkpeE_LlO67jpC
"Question of Responsibility | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/uBj-ju4RuTo?si=LW1K02vT0oNaw2Fx
"Two Ways to Look at Life | The Only Story | Julian Barnes." DoE-MKBU, YouTube, 3 Feb 2022, https://youtu.be/s7Wom7RAqI4?si=HIzHz0luge6GKnv8
Thank You...
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment