The Noise of Time
by Julian Barnes
Shostakovich waits by the elevator for the secret police.
you want to understand what it costs an artist to survive a totalitarian state with their soul intact
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Barnes imagines three moments in Shostakovich's life when Stalin's regime had him in its grip — standing by the elevator every night waiting to be arrested, meeting with Soviet cultural officials, touring America as a propaganda tool. The question the novel turns over is the one no outsider can answer: did he collaborate or survive? Did he resist in the only ways available or did he capitulate? The most precise visitor dispatch about the impossible choices artists face under totalitarianism.
WHERE THIS BOOK LIVES
- Setting
- Russia • Eastern Europe
- Voice
- An outside perspective on Russia
- Themes
- Witness
