Epistemological crisis in Graham Swift's novels Waterland and Last Orders

The article focuses on exploring forms of representation of distrust in history and disbelief in learning the past in Graham Swift's novels. Philosophical and historical concepts are central to both books, both examine the ways of getting knowledge but are very different in scale. English literature of the end of the 20th century represents rationality crisis caused by social cataclysms, wars and destruction of the 20th century. Chaos and unstable reality, unapprehensiveness of the world, narratives about this world's history are topics typical of Graham Swift's writing. Shift of ideological paradigms caused by changes in social systems and destruction of explanatory schemes brought discredit to historical narratives of the end of the millenium. Literature of the end of the 20th century in general pays special attention to these topics, but for Graham Swift's writing they are most significant. Epistemological crisis of contemporary history resulted in distrust in traditional historiography and traditional historical sources; it gave rise to a very special type of literary writing, represented by novels of A. Carter, J. Barnes, P. Ackroyd, A. Byatt, etc. They wrote about living in crisis, history, both public and private, and explored existential questions in their novels. Personal history was my-thologized in the 20th century; private history is at the forefront of writers' interest: they shifted from epic social pictures to the existential framework of living. Graham Swift is known to be obsessive about exploring history and ways people get knowledge. Historical process in Graham Swift's novels is always nonlinear; it is not determined by direct cause-effect relation. History in his writing is not characterized by a gradual advance; progress as a form of social development is typically negated. "Knowing" as a problem of learning the past on both philosophical and common sense levels is central to all Swift's novels but is of particular interest in Waterland and Last Orders. It is the way Swift interprets learning the past that distinguishes Water-land and Last Orders. Waterland represents a metaphysical picture of the world history, regional and natural history and family life of several generations, while the space of Last Orders is narrowed to a funeral day of one of the characters giving a fine example of "everyday life" philosophy. It is supposed that Graham Swift's novels epitomize a postmodern view on the historical process: he is critical to the very idea of having reliable knowledge about the past; he rethinks the idea that history might "be learnt" at all, his characters distrust the knowledge they get.

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