Abstrakt
David Park's novel The Truth Commissioner portrays several interconnected stories of characters in contemporary Northern Ireland, all of which become associated with a fictional Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which although discussed (and proposed as recently as 2023), has not been established in the province as yet. In Park's book, the narrative follows both the officers and politicians involved in the commission's organisation as well as several private individuals who become unwillingly swept by its proceedings and portrays some pressing outcomes that influence both public and private lives outside the local communities. Through these characters, Park displays the continuing influence of the Troubles on both private and public consciousness in Northern Ireland.
The paper proposes to look at the intersection between the private and public memory narratives in the span of the novel and at how the community and public demand influence private reflection and memory evaluation. It will discuss the narrative through the lens of memory studies, utilizing primarily Bernecker's terminology of truth and authenticity to discuss how an individual can recount their memory in a public setting (such as a truth commission), where their perception of past may become questioned. The paper will look at how these two concepts interact in regard to the particular characters and their self-representation and what influence a larger, public narrative has on them. By consulting Bernecker's terms, it will discuss the issue of a correspondence between a past event and a character's experience and memory (authenticity) as opposed to an objective reality (truth).