Impact Factor: ISRA (India) = 6.317 ISI (Dubai, UAE) = 1.582 GIF (Australia) = 0.564 JIF = 1.500 SIS (USA) = 0.912 РИНЦ (Russia) = 3.939 ESJI (KZ) = 8.771 SJIF (Morocco) = 7.184 ICV (Poland) = 6.630 PIF (India) = 1.940 IBI (India) = 4.260 OAJI (USA) = 0.350 Philadelphia, USA 1108 Issue Article SOI: 1.1/TAS DOI: 10.15863/TAS International Scientific Journal Theoretical & Applied Science p-ISSN: 2308-4944 (print) e-ISSN: 2409-0085 (online) Year: 2022 Issue: 12 Volume: 116 Published: 30.12.2022 http://T-Science.org Nino Dzamukashvili Iakob Gogebashvili Telavi State University Assistant Professor, nino.dzamukashvili@tesau.edu.ge THE TRUTH OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE POLYPHONIC NOVEL BY JULIAN BARNES Abstract: The aim of the article is to show the “multiple” truth that readers are exposed to in a polythonic novel according to Julian Barnes' famous novel Talking It Over (1991). As expected for a polyphonic novel, the main protagonists, Gillian, Stuart and Oliver are completely different characters. "Pluralism" of the novel of this genre, or "Democracy" if you will, allows the autonomous narratives of three narrators: there are as many people, as many points of view, as many truths. Rare is the case when the main characters see eye to eye when accounting for one and the same cruical events in their lives. The article shows how the diverse personalities being juxtaposed with one another are bound to deliver their truth, self-justifying in most cases, to their listeners, that is to us, the readers. Key words: Barnes, polythonic novel, truth, plurality of voices, diversity. Language: English Citation: Dzamukashvili, N. (2022). The Truth of the Characters of the Polyphonic Novel by Julian Barnes. ISJ Theoretical & Applied Science, 12 (116), 1108-1111. Soi: http://s-o-i.org/1.1/TAS-12-116-94 Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.15863/TAS.2022.12.116.94 Scopus ASCC: 1200. Introduction Julian Barnes (b.1947) is one of the major British contemporary novelists. When Talking It Over was published in 1991, Barnes had already earned a remarkable reputation through his previous 5 novels, with one of them Flaubert’s Parrot (1984) having been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The author’s scope of interests is quite large and he has touched many existential issues in his works. Eventually, he was awarded the Man Booker prize for The Sense of an Ending (2011). Review of the Literature Author Michael David Lucas writes about the polyphonic novel: "Just as polyphonic music combines melodies to create texture and tension, the polyphonic novel collects a multiplicity of distinct, often conflicting voices around a single place, family, object, or idea. Polyphony widens the novel’s geographic, psychological, chronological, and stylistic range, while simultaneously focusing its gaze. Drawing inspiration from classics like The Brothers Karamazov, The Sound and the Fury, Mrs. Dalloway, and John Dos Passos’s USA Trilogy, contemporary polyphonic novels make music from the messy cacophony that is life in the 21st century. Bypassing traditional notions of character and plot, polyphonic novels create meaning at the intersection of seemingly random plot lines. Harmonies are found in the artful assemblage of disparate voices. As the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin described the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky: “A plurality of consciousnesses, with equal rights and each with its own world, combine but are not merged in the unity of the event.” Eschewing objectivity and uniformity, polyphonic novels rely instead on simultaneity, contradiction, and the empty space between voices“(https://themillions.com/2013/02/a- multiplicity-of-voices-on-the-polyphonic- novel.html). In the novel in question, there are three main and several episodic characters exposed with their own versions of the story to the reader. The versions differ and who is a reader to trust? “Postmodern writing triumphantly affirms its own capacity to escape the limiting oppositions which once promiced to deliver the truth. Indeed, the nature of truth itself becomes the stake pillar in the textual games that characterise novels invoking history,