'Solzhenitsyn's works, mostly The First Circle and, to a lesser degree, Cancer Ward and August 1914, as a testing ground for the
theory of a polyphonic novel propounded by the Soviet literary theoretician Mikhail
Bakhtin (1895-1975) some fifty years ago while writing about Dostoevsky. This theory states, to put it in a simplified form, that characters in a polyphonic novel are no longer manipulated by the author but rather lead their own lives and follow their own consciousnesses, moving in a world independent from that created by the author. Bakhtin found this notion best exemplified in the novels of Dostoevsky. Krasnov, in turn, found in Solzhenitsyn's novelistic technique great similarities with that of Dostoevsky and proceeded with the examination of the three novels of Solzhenitsyn from that point of view.'
Solzhenitsyn’s 'self-described “polyphonic” novel [The First Circle] is above all dialogical: As in a Platonic dialogue or a Dostoevskian novel, there is no absolutely controlling or simply authoritative authorial voice. It is characterized by a complex narrative structure that combines the third-person point of view with the subjectivity that belongs to a first-person narrative. Different characters take turns as the focus of a chapter or series of chapters in the book. Solzhenitsyn’s novelistic polyphony respects the variety of perspectives and voices while inviting readers to join in the search for truth.' (Daniel J. Mahoney)
Similarly, the biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann
suggests that the Bible has both “a central direction and a rich
diversity” which means “that not all parts will cohere or agree” although it has
a “central agenda.” The Bible is, therefore, structured like a
good conversation with a central thread but many topics and diversions. On this
basis, Brueggemann emphasises that “the Bible is not an “object” for us to study
but a partner with whom we may
dialogue.” In the image of God, he says, “we are meant for the kind of
dialogue in which we are each time nurtured and called into question by the
dialogue partner.” It is the task of Christian maturing, he argues, “to become
more fully dialogical, to be more fully available to and responsive to the
dialogue partner”:
“… the Bible is not a closed object but a dialogue
partner whom we must address but who also takes us seriously. We may analyze,
but we must also listen and expect to be addressed. We listen to have our
identity given to us, our present way called into question, and our future
promised to us.”
Recently, the Guardian's ShortCutsBlog has highlighted the polyphonic form of the Gospels as a reason why contemporary novelists retell the story of Jesus:
"Perhaps the story of Jesus's life bears novelistic reiteration partly because it has always been told by multiple voices – not only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but many more whose versions were not included in the Bible.
That duplication and overlapping of narratives must create holes and folds in which novelists can work, to narrativise the contradictions and build new worlds in the gaps."
Gabriel Josipovici has made a similar point. In The Book of God, quotes James Barr’s comment "about the Bible needing to be thought of not so much as a book but as a cave or cupboard in which a miscellany of scrolls has been crammed." He notes that "many modernist works might well be described as more like cupboards or caves crammed with scrolls than like carefully plotted nineteenth-century novels or even fairy stories and romances." As a result, a "generation which has experienced Ulysses and The Waste Land (to say nothing of Butor’s Mobile and Perec’s La vie mode d’emploi)" should be to view this image of the Bible positively more easily than would a generation "whose idea of a book and a unity was a novel by Balzac or George Eliot."
For more on this theme see Bahktin, the Bible and Dialogic Truth.
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