“THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT… BEYOND WHATSURVIVED IN MEMORY… THE TRUTH HAD BECOMEAS GHOSTLY AS INVENTION”:MEMORY AND TRUTH IN IAN McEWAN’S ATONEMENT

Анотація

The essay examines the complex relations between memory and truth in Ian McEwan’s novel, Atonement
(2001). Appropriating a cluster of literary methods as well as applicable knowledge from other disciplines
(philosophy and psychology fi rst and foremost), it explicates a variety of manifestations of memory in the
novel, including historical, cultural, collective and personal, literary memory of both the author and the
reader. Furthermore, it claims different mechanisms of memorizing as regard to the fi ctional heroes – Briony
Tallis and Robbie Turner – which correspond to Aristotelian typology of those who “have a good memory”
and those “who are better at recollecting” as theorized in his treatise, On Memory and Reminiscence. Also,
memory is rendered as a narrative tool and means of characterization. The essay tries to explore the complexities
of imagination, associated with the central character (also narrator), as an aesthetic category and
psychological phenomenon. This part of the analysis picks up James Phelan’s argument on the interrelations
of interpretive, ethical, and aesthetic judgments and their effects on the novel (Delayed Disclosure and the
Problem of Other Minds: Ian McEwan’s Atonement, 2007). The recent researches on autobiographical false
memories (Giuliana Mazzoni), “imagination infl ation” (M. Garry and others) and “verbal overshadowing”
(Joseph M. Melcher, Jonathan W. Schooler) prove highly applicable as well for the reason that they better
nuance the intricate nature of relations between imagination, truth and narration in the fi ctionalized story
written by two authors – the protagonist, Briony Tallis, and Ian McEwan who are both aware of the power of
fi ction and their limits as novelists. In sum, the analysis contributes to a more sophisticated conceptualization
of the epistemology of crime and atonement in the writer’s “fi nest and most complex novel” (James Wood).
The trajectory of further research is being outlined.
Keywords: McEwan, memory, remembering, imagination, Aristotle, factual and fi ctional.