The title of this blog is borrowed from the latest Julian Barnes book, a historically-informed fiction about the composer Shostakovich during the Stalin and Khrushchev regimes, written as a stream of consciousness. I loved this book. Anyone interested in Shostakovich in particular, or in artists struggling to express themselves under the scrutiny of tyrants, would also enjoy it.

For years reviled as a sellout, Shostakovich has in this century been revived and celebrated as a survivor. Barnes vividly imagines how personal and wearing that struggle may have been. In the book, Shostakovich considers his options: defying authority (and likely getting shot); complying, by writing forgettable, state-sanctioned music; going into exile, abandoning his friends and family to their fates; or committing suicide, the only true escape. These considerations aren’t organized, or rational, or systematic; they whirl through his brain, surfacing and subsuming, surprising him at ordinary times, mixing in with daily life. There is no moment of decision. Ultimately he simply lives, writing the music he can in an age of irony, yet never succumbing to cynicism. Deciding to live feels like an act of cowardice, or rather a series of acts of cowardice, and it takes a surprising amount to courage to be this sort of a coward. By living, Shostakovich was able to shape his own legacy through his music.

This book reminded me of Oriana Fallaci’s novelized biography of Alexandros Panagoulis, A Man. Panagoulis was overtly, overflowingly, outrageously courageous in his fight against tyranny in Greece, defying authority at every turn, even in prison and under torture. He refused to accept any reality controlled by his oppressors by insisting on his ability to act freely, including writing poetry on the walls of his cell in blood and refusing multiple amnesty offers. Killed at age 36 by a car accident that conveniently ended an extensive corruption investigation just before presentation of key evidence which was then lost, his legacy has been shaped by writers, Fallaci most prominently.

Also related is the graphic novel and later movie, V for Vendetta. Set in a near-future UK led by an increasingly Fascist government, this work features a protagonist who defies authority overtly, but in disguise. He stages public events ranging from co-opting a national news program to assassinations and bombings, each carried out with artistic panache. Although depicted as a victim seeking revenge not only for himself but for all the regime’s victims, the result of his mayhem is to embolden others to defy the government. This often ends tragically for individuals, but the People ultimately prevail. Our protagonist does not survive, but his legacy is triumphant and ubiquitous.

Paraphrasing Julian Barnes, I wish for us all to prevail in whatever way we can, with courage or cowardice, in the light or the shadows, during the noise of our time, until again we can hear the whisper of history.