The historical component in A. Thorpe’s novel “The Rules of Perspective”

Abstract

The article examines A. Thorpe’s novel “The Rules of Perspective” (2005), its action takes place in Germany in 1945. Dedicated to the theme of War World War II, this novel is one of many, which appeared in Great Britain at the turn of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Our aim is to provide, based on this novel, one of the possible answers to the question of this theme’s popularity at that time. In the novel, the war becomes an accurately depicted historical background, allowing one to examine significant social, national and psychological problems. Thorpe expands the historical “field” of the novel by introducing a retrospective, which allows him to focus on the exhibition of the “degenerate” art in Germany in 1937. The problem of the relationship between free art and totalitarianism becomes one of the most important in the novel. The author uses a lot of historical facts, refers to the work of a number of German expressionist artists, as well as those artists who worked for the regime, the fact that did not interfere with their further careers in the post-war period. The article comes to the conclusion about the complex function of the historical narrative in the novel.