The Sense of an Ending in Around the World

Aug 01, 2012 Julia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british

Puzzling.......I've read this thin book in just one long session because it was rather unputdownable, well-written, intelligent, philosophical, surprising. Definitely a good book with some great twists and some very original thoughts. I can't put my finger on what exactly I missed - warmth, maybe? The read felt a little bit like a cool shower, analytical and brilliant, but the kind of brilliant which hurts the eyes. ...more

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Jul 03, 2012 mussolet rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-notmine-c

I wonder why the Independent felt the need to describe this book as "mesmerising".
"To mesmerize" means "to spellbind, to enthrall" or "to hypnotize". As far as I can tell, the only hypnotizing thing for me was the ease with which the characters thought unnecessary thoughts. Some of them even acted on those thoughts, which doesn't lead to enthralling results.
What I can say is that I have thought about this book - and in proportion to the relatively small size, I've probably thought about this boo I wonder why the Independent felt the need to describe this book as "mesmerising".
"To mesmerize" means "to spellbind, to enthrall" or "to hypnotize". As far as I can tell, the only hypnotizing thing for me was the ease with which the characters thought unnecessary thoughts. Some of them even acted on those thoughts, which doesn't lead to enthralling results.
What I can say is that I have thought about this book - and in proportion to the relatively small size, I've probably thought about this book a lot more than about any of the others I've recently read. Whether that alone is enough to make it a good book, I'm not sure.

The first half of this novel describes Tony's life until he receives the letter mentioned in the synopsis. Unfortunately this meant that, to me, the first part was monumentally boring. I didn't like Tony all that much - he's egoistical, he's remarkably self-conscious for being so, and he's lifeless. Whatever he did, whenever he did it, he describes it with just about enough distance that I stopped caring about my own life for a moment or two.
He expects life to happen as it does in novels - the love, the excitement, the suffering. When he starts to complain about his ordinariness, and jumps about 40 years ahead in time within the space of a few pages, I got seriously annoyed. There has to be more to a man than "got a job, married, had a daughter, divorced, retired", even if the reader is only supposed to look at two times in his life.

Tony is easily influenced, and there is not a single person in the whole book that doesn't see that and tries to uses it to their advantage. He forms opinions about people, and builds entire histories for them. If his opinion changes, he rebuilds the history. For someone who manages to ignore everything about another person - dating someone for a year, meeting the brother and not knowing what the brother studies, or being best friends with someone for years without knowing what their parents do - he sure does a lot of inventing things he doesn't understand.

His main "opponents" are no better than he is. Old flame Veronica is short-tempered, and angry enough not to hide any of it behind false politeness. Serious Adrian is a philosopher who loves to talk without mentioning the important things. Tony copies him later in life, but he doesn't not say the important things, he just throws out a lot of bland phrases.

"There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. Great unrest."

I have to say that I thought the "gripping" plot was not as gripping as expected. I originally read this book because I wanted to know what the letter from the past might mean for Tony. I kept reading because the book is short enough to justify not giving up before the end. Something happened, everyone found someone to blame, Tony invented a dozen different scenarios, and there is still no real meaning behind all of it. Maybe the plot turns didn't impact me as much because I kept filling in the gaps with wrong conclusions. (Or maybe the wrong conclusions were planned, in which case the reveals of the right conclusions were incredibly underwhelming.) But I kept hoping for a serious point, and despite Tony constantly blaming himself and insisting that he had learned something right now, that didn't happen for me.

If Tony's life in between those two important moments didn't resemble the books he's read, then I wonder whether the books are to blame for that. I've read a lot of books with miserable characters in the last time, and a few of them even won prizes. I don't mind tragic stories or depressed characters. But I mind not having a single aspirational personality, and I mind not leaving the reader with a bit of hope. No wonder people end up expecting great suffering.

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Review crossposted to 238 books in 238 days. ...more

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