Julian Barnes "The Noise of Time"
“What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves – the music of our being – which is transformed by some real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and pure enough to drown out the noise of time,is transformed into the whisper of history”(125) Julian Barnes The Noise of Time captures the war time Soviet Union during the period of political turmoil and its repercussions in the freedom of artistic creation recorded beautifully through the life of the music composer Shostakovich. It is a multi-layered narrative of small incidents and events I the life of the main protagonist. Much of these incidents is indebted to Elizabeth Wilson’s exemplary multifaceted “Shostakovich:A life remembered (1994) and “ Testimony:The Memoirs of Shostakovich”. The title intrigues as well as attracts – the suffocation of music in the cacophony of political and social turmoil corresponded by the soft melody of music across time to immortality. It is