'Could a nation lose its capacity for scepticism for useful doubt? What if the muscle of contradiction simply atrophied from lack of exercise?'This is a very short novel, it took me about two hours or so pootling along the Shropshire Union Canal during the break between lifting bridges and one or two locks on holiday last month. In fact, it was quite surreal. Reading a novel about the trial of an imaginary Party leader of a former Soviet satellite country, a country riven with hatred, mistrust and rampant economic implosion...........oh actually quite topical when I put it like that !!Anyway, Julian Barnes wrote this in 1992 when the domino effect across the appallingly repressive and moribund Eastern European states was still fresh in the minds of most of the world and it was before the monstrous viciousness of the rise of Serbia and all that was to bring about had really begun. As a result there is an almost lightheartedness about the book it seemed to me. I do not mean by that, that Barnes underestimates or belittles the reality of the suffering and horror of repression and violent rule but in the novel he appears to offer four thoughts, 'take them or leave them' he says and does so tongue in cheek. (This may be a total misunderstanding on my part but this is how it appeared to me).Barnes appears to be intimating thata) One man's vicious repression is another's secure rule.....which I suppose is obvious when we hear different sides in any civil war.b) The human race can sometimes appear to seek out certainty and then after a while often find it unsatisfactory and unfruitful and has a tendency to cast that certainty over so as to seek out the next.......... if not done with certainty exactly, much of society does appear to embrace fads as if they are the Holy Grail and totally necessary for life until the next one appears.c)There is a circle, vicious or otherwise, to the movement of society and the show trials of one repressive government can easily morph into self-righteous action on the part of the ousting power where 'truth and reconciliation' can appear to be the scheme but the truth is of a very specific kind and the reconciliation is a chimera. South Africa would appear to be an exception to prove the rule here but other states not so where the government is replaced not with a total new vision but the same men but with different glasses, medals or badgesd) Where there is blind faith or belief of any kind, whether theistic, political or moral....arguments have no effect and with certain types of people it only serves to entrench and reinforce. Debate works only where there is real freedom and Barnes appears to be saying that the democratic credentials of a society are nothing unless incorporated into the individual hearts of the ones who make up that society..........A no brainer reallyThe whole book is geared around a trial and the insane progression of the defence begins to infect more and more the integrity, the honest pronouncements of the prosecution. At the end, the question is not so much who was telling the truth, I do not think at any time that is much at issue, but you are left with the question or the uncomfortable feeling that guilt has been pronounced and perhaps rightly so but that manipulation and obfuscation have become the watchwords of the new state just as much as of the old.There is then a sheen of greyness at the end which has changed from the dank, dire, depressing grey of soviet repression and has become more lifeless or at least not life enhancing. So maybe not so much grey as beige.
The Porcupine is a novel by Englishman Julian Barnes that was originally published in Bulgarian [ Бодливо свинче]. This should give us a very strong clue as to the identity of which post-communist country the story takes place.The novel concerns the trial of the former communist leader of Bulgaria, and its effects on both the central protagonists of that trial, as well as the broader community. The real strength of the book is the complexity of its characters. There is no clear ‘black and white’ here and the tones in which the former dictator and the new democratic government’s representatives are painted are very much grey. Barnes has done an excellent job of overcoming the certainties of Cold War triumphalism and creating human characters (especially given that the book was released in 1992, with events still very fresh in the mind).The point of the book seems to be more than exploring complexities of a particular political moment (although it does do this incredibly well). It surveys the ambiguities of our own motives and self-interests; the ways in which ‘justice’ can and can’t be had; and ultimately the net effect of forty years of totalitarian rule on a people who just want to get on with their lives.As ever, Barnes writes very well. He has an acute sense of history and the central premise of the prosecution of the former dictator as, in effect; another ‘show trial’ is one with amply demonstrated. That is, the trial represents an edifying exercise in ‘democratic accountability’ just as stage-managed and self-serving as any of the show trials conducted under the Communists.I think that this book is a great success, and should be of interest to both fans of history and good literature. Highly recommended.
Het Stekelvarken" - Julian Barnes. Vertaling van het Engelse boek :"The Porcupine"Geen gemakkelijk verhaal. Twee hoofdpersonen komen tegenover elkaar te staan. Stojo Petkanov, leider van voormalig Sovjetstaat, tegenover Procureur Generaal , nl Peter Solinski, vroeger partijlid. De oude leider houdt halsstarrig vast aan zijn politieke overtuiging.Twee karakters komen tegenover elkaar te staan.Het volk mort,werkloosheid en inflatie worden gebruikt als politiek wapen. Standbeelden,van het oude regime vallen van hun sokkel. Verandering is het nieuwe motto,geen revolutie,maar schijnbaar wordt er nog uit zelfde vaatjes getapt.Wie verordeelt eigenlijk wie.....Kafkaans. Verwarring......Geen afternoon lectuur.
—Mariejeanne Van steen
I chose to read The Porcupine by Julian Barnes with some trepidation. Usually, we have a certain imagery of the way a book written by a Man-Booker prize winner (won for The Sense of an Ending) would be – it would be thick, it would be laced with gazillion of words that are difficult to enunciate and of course understand, it would be slow in its narrative, it may not even reach any sort of conclusion. I was pleasantly surprised when I got hold of The Porcupine. To begin with, it is a short novel, around 150 pages. Once I started reading it, there was no stopping me. It became a page turner, an absolute joy to read. The Porcupine is a narrative from a fictitious country, referenced to be a Communist nation with strong ties with Russia, which has seen a revolution of sorts that has brought in Capitalism in the country. The leader of the Communist regime is behind bars, awaiting a trial on his misdeeds when he was in power. The public prosecutor is a former Communist supporter who had grown sick of its ideologies. And this is how The Porcupine begins. In the backdrop of the court case, Julian Barnes brings us arguments from both sets of thinkers – the former Leader who still believes in the glory of Communism, and the rest of the nation which is willing to embrace Capitalism. While the latter may seem to be favoured by the author as it has the bulk of an entire nation rallying for it, it is in fact the former which is covered in more detail by Barnes, though from the hardened and probably corrupted mind of a politician. Nonetheless, the book will make you debate as well, from some very basic point of views, and that makes it an enriching journey as a reader. In its limited pages, The Porcupine also shows a failing marriage, which makes one of its key characters more human; it highlights the enthusiasm of the youth to witness the coming changes and be opinionated about them; and it also throws in humour at surprising moments which adds to the joy of reading this book. Pick this novel without any of my trepidations, and you will not regret it!
—Abhishek
Having loved A History Of The World In 10 1 2 Chapters and Arthur And George, I'd been a little disappointed with the last couple of Julian Barnes books that I'd read. Staring At The Sun started well, but went very strange for no apparent reason towards the end. Before She Met Me on the other hand, was rather dull and strange, but had a rather striking ending.The Porcupine, however, is a novella that stands very firmly amongst Barnes' best work. Tightly, but simply plotted, and full of outstanding and subtle characterisation, it tells the story of the dictator of an unnamed Eastern Bloc state and the opposition he faces at his trial. Barnes, as ever, will not let you be complacent. This is not a world of good people and bad people. It's a world of ego, full of flawed people with flawed ideas trying to make their way through as they see fit.This is an outstanding novella, that as with all of Barnes' best work, I think is extremely likely to react well to a second reading. Something I'm already looking forward to.
—thom
