Barry Lyndon - Source Novel

Source Novel

Stanley Kubrick based his original screenplay on William Makepeace Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon (republished as the novel Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.), a picaresque tale written and published in serial form in 1844. The serial, which is told in the first person and "edited" by the fictional George Savage FitzBoodle, concerns a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy.

The source novel is written by Lyndon while imprisoned looking back on his life. Lyndon is a notable example of the literary device of the unreliable narrator – throughout the novel the reader is constantly asked to question the veracity of the events described by him. Although later editions dropped the frame device of FitzBoodle's (Thackeray's pseudonym) editions, it is crucial in unmasking Lyndon's narcissism through occasional notes inserted at the bottom of the page noting information that is contradictory or inconsistent in relation to what Lyndon writes elsewhere. As Andrew Sanders argues in his introduction for the Oxford Classics edition, these annotations were relevant to the novel as an ingenious narrative device as Thackeray constantly invites the reader to question Lyndon's version of the events.

Kubrick however felt that using a first-person narrative would not be useful in a film adaptation:

"I believe Thackeray used Redmond Barry to tell his own story in a deliberately distorted way because it made it more interesting. Instead of the omniscient author, Thackeray used the imperfect observer, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the dishonest observer, thus allowing the reader to judge for himself, with little difficulty, the probable truth in Redmond Barry's view of his life. This technique worked extremely well in the novel but, of course, in a film you have objective reality in front of you all of the time, so the effect of Thackeray's first-person story-teller could not be repeated on the screen. It might have worked as comedy by the juxtaposition of Barry's version of the truth with the reality on the screen, but I don't think that Barry Lyndon should have been done as a comedy."

As in the case of most literary adaptations, Kubrick shortens or in some cases omits characters who were significant in the novel. The time period constituting his escape from the Prussian army to his marriage is given greater detail in the novel than the film.

It is also interesting to note that the film ends much before the novel's ending. At the end of the film, Barry Lyndon survives with an amputated leg from a duel (an incident absent in the novel) and returns to his gambling lifestyle with lesser success while Lady Lyndon pays the debts accumulated during her marriage to Barry, including the sum promised to Redmond in return for leaving the country. Though these events occur in the novel as well, Thackeray also writes that upon Lady Lyndon's death, the sum promised to Barry is cancelled and he becomes destitute eventually winding up in prison for his confidence schemes. It is at this place where Barry writes his memoirs, which end noting that he has to 'eke out a miserable existence, quite unworthy of the famous and fashionable Barry Lyndon'.

At this point Fitz-Boodle writes an epilogue of sorts about Barry's final days, where his only visitor is his mother. He dies after spending 19 years in prison.

Thackeray based the novel on the life and exploits of the Irish rakehell and fortunehunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, who married (and subsequently was divorced by) Mary Eleanor Bowes, the Countess of Strathmore, who became known as "The Unhappy Countess" due to the tempestuous liaison.

The revised version, which is the novel that the world generally knows as Barry Lyndon, was shorter and tighter than the original serialization, and dropped the FitzBoodle, Ed. device. It generally is considered the first "novel without a hero" or novel with an antihero in the English language. Upon its publication in 1856, it was entitled by Thackeray's publisher The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. Of The Kingdom Of Ireland Containing An Account of His Extraordinary Adventures; Misfortunes; His Sufferings In The Service Of His Late Prussian Majesty; His Visits To Many Courts of Europe; His Marriage and Splendid Establishments in England And Ireland; And The Many Cruel Persecutions, Conspiracies And Slanders Of Which He Has Been A Victim.

Barry Lyndon departs from its source novel in several ways. In Thackeray's writings, events are related in the first person by Barry himself. A comic tone pervades the work, as Barry proves both a raconteur and an unreliable narrator. Kubrick's film, by contrast, presents the story objectively. Though the film contains voice-over (by actor Michael Hordern), the comments expressed are not Barry's, but those of an omniscient, although not entirely impartial, narrator. This change in perspective alters the tone of the story; Thackeray tells a jaunty, humorous tale, but Kubrick's telling is essentially tragic, albeit with a satirical tone.

Kubrick also changed the plot. The novel does not include a final duel. By adding this episode, Kubrick establishes dueling as the film's central motif: the film begins with a duel where Barry's father is shot dead, and duels recur throughout the film. Also, in Thackeray's novel, the Chevalier de Balibari (played by Patrick Magee in the film) is Barry's long-lost uncle ("Balibari" being a gentrified version of "Bally Barry," the family's home), and by marrying into the Lyndons, Barry intends to regain his family fortune (his ancestors were dispossessed by the Lyndons). In the film, Kubrick eliminated these familial connections from the story.