From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes

Start date: January 15, 2012

Finish date: February 1, 2012

Discussion: Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jul 26, 2011 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: booker-winners-and-listed, location-uk, read2011

The Sense of an Ending is incredibly short, 150 pages, divided into two sections. The first part tells the story of Tony in his late childhood and into early adulthood. He has a close group of three other friends, and the narrator (also Tony) is constantly reflecting on the nature of time, and on how relationships change. In my vague intentions, I am not being very useful in telling you what the book is about, but saying too much would give it away.

The second part is no longer looking back but T ...more

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Jan 07, 2012 David rated it it was ok

Shelves: hideously-vile-protagonists, mind-numbingly-boring, read-in-2011

Emotionally stunted males feature prominently in Julian Barnes's fiction. The narrator/protagonist in this story is such a passive creature that one is hard put to give a damn what happens to him. He barely seems to care; the author doesn't seem to either, so why should the reader? As one follows his ruminations on his emotionally bankrupt life, the obvious parallel is to "The Remains of the Day". Except that Ishiguro's story unfolds with grace and subtlety, and engages the reader's sympathy. So ...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Magdalena added it · review of another edition

Memory is inherently unreliable, constructed and encoded by perception and selection rather than by some objective recording process. So it is often the case that two people will remember a shared experience in completely different ways, changing their memories by collaboration and revision when they come together. The notion of the unreliability of memory is a key theme in Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, as well as the way in which we let our lives slip by us, burying hurt, pain and guilt into Memory is inherently unreliable, constructed and encoded by perception and selection rather than by some objective recording process. So it is often the case that two people will remember a shared experience in completely different ways, changing their memories by collaboration and revision when they come together. The notion of the unreliability of memory is a key theme in Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, as well as the way in which we let our lives slip by us, burying hurt, pain and guilt into a comfortable complacency. Barnes' protagonist, Tony Webster, opens the novel by saying that "what you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed." Though The Sense of an Ending is a complex book, it has a simple plot, with the complexity embedded in the unreliability of its first person narrator. Tony's self-delusion and discovery is as key to the unfolding as the plot which is revealed in simple recall.

Tony was part of a group of three pompously intellectual friends at secondary school, until a new boy, Adrian Finn, was brought into the group, making it four. It was immediately clear that Adrian was the smart one - clear thinking and serious. Together the boys ponder history, girls, and the limitations of their teachers, until one day a boy at school commits suicide. The boy, Robson, isn't one that was well known, or flashy, though his death makes an impression on the boys. They move on to University, staying vaguely in touch until Tony finds a girlfriend named Veronica. Veronica is sharp tongued and difficult, and ultimately leaves him for Adrian. Meanwhile Tony moves on, gets married and has a child, and then divorces, staying good friends with his ex-wife. End of story. It's a potted life, with not much to talk about - certainly not the subject for a novel. But there's always more. When Veronica's mother dies and leaves him a bequest and a diary, Tony suddenly needs to return to his youth to confront his self-perceptions and a growing unrest that his life might not have been as benign and peaceable as it appears.

Tony is an engaging enough narrator. His confessional candour puts the reader in the uncomfortable role of accomplice. Because his story is delivered openly, with enough detail to create an impression of veracity, we accept the truth in his narrative - he clearly believes himself. We go along with him as he takes us through the nostalgia of teen years, the tender pain of first love and first rejection, and loss. He comes across as victim and we buy it. So when Tony gets his "blood money" as Veronica calls it, and a diary that Veronica refuses to hand over, the revelations cause the reader cognitive dissonance that aligns with the fictional dissonance that Tony experiences. It's a kind of shock of recognition. This subtlety is handled extremely well by Barnes, leading us slowly from innocence to guilt. The writing remains taut and powered throughout, without a single unnecessary word or frill. However, there are quite moments of reflection and grace that are pure poetry, such as Tony's witnessing of the Severn Bore surge wave:

I don't think I can properly convey the effect that moment had on me. It wasn't like a tornado or an earthquake (not that I'd witnessed either) -- nature being violent and destructive, putting us in our place. It was more unsettling because it looked and felt quietly wrong, as if some small lever of the universe had been pressed, and here, just for these minutes, nature was reversed and time with it. And to see this phenomenon after dark made it the more mysterious, the more other-worldly. (36)

The Sense of an Ending is a beautifully crafted exploration of a character arc that happens too late to affect change. The motion from clever smugness to painful self-awareness is flawless. The absolute control of Barnes' prose coupled with the philosophical power of his meditations has resulted in a book that's as dense and powerful as it is readable.

Article first published as Book Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes on Blogcritics. ...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Loretta rated it liked it

Shelves: my-book-club-reads

I did not love this. It's the first Julian Barnes I've read, and I am certainly willing to try other books of his; but this was just kinda meh. And it mostly came down to not liking the narrator very much. I am capable of enjoying books with unpleasant/unreliable narrators - but this one just didn't grab me, because his view of the world was so narrow and blinkered I couldn't get enough of a true sense of the other characters - they were just ciphers to me (as they were to him).

I don't really g ...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Jennifer rated it liked it

I read this because it won the Man Booker prize this year and was reminded that I probably dislike 75% of the Booker prize winners I've read. I think the Booker prize committee searches for inscrutable books under the belief that that means they are smart books. The book is about memory and how it is deceiving and self-serving and shaped by events. I got that but it wasn't otherwise that interesting. I'm glad it was short. Maybe I should give this 2.5 stars. ...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Andi rated it really liked it

I really appreciated Barnes ability to write the interiority of his protagonist, a flawed but very normal man. I also enjoyed the plot, as subtle as it was, and the way it kept me intrigued without gimmicks or tricks. Great read.

2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 14, 2013 Linda rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, england

I wanted to like this so much more than I did. I really should stay away from anything that features English school boys.

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Oct 22, 2011 Kristin rated it liked it

This book was funny and really philosophical at points, but I can't get beyond the fact that it is so much like (in mood, in the characterization of the unreliable narrator, not in plot) The Good Soldier and Barnes admits its influence. So there's a much better novel out there written, say, 90 years before this. Why aren't you all reading that? I thought Flaubert's Parrot was really doing something different, but I can't say the same here. That's not to say it's not a compelling story, it's just ...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Yulia rated it it was ok

Shelves: i-thought-i-hated-you

For those who have finished this book (or get a thrill in spoilers to prove they're above plot), here's an interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/boo...

It articulates what I couldn't about the averageness of this book. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review