I recently finished reading ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes. It was the 2011 winner of the Man Booker Prize (now The Booker Prize) the most coveted literary award in the English speaking world. I enjoyed it; Barnes is a gifted writer who has written, I believe, some 18 novels, many of which have won awards. It’s a short and engrossing book, is one of those novels that takes a somewhat close look at the inner life of a man. It reminds me a bit of ‘The Remains of the Day’.
Tony Webster is a cautious man in his sixties who has tried to more or less slide through life without making any waves or drawing too much attention. He receives one day an unexpected bequest – a middling sum from the mother of his university girlfriend, Veronica.
The bequest upsets Tony and he wonders what’s behind it. He reaches out to Veronica – with whom he had broken up badly to try and understand it. Through a series of emails, he tries to answer a number of questions. Had he loved Veronica? At the time he lacked the courage to say one way or the other. What had happened to the young man he had been, so anxious to be released into an adult life where he would make his mark?
Gradually, Tony assembles his memories – some accurate, some not and we begin to understand Tony, a man so afraid of loss that he avoids connections rather than embracing them. He didn’t consummate his relationship with Veronica because he wanted to avoid the questions that might follow. he eventually married a non-complicated woman and sought a mature, quiet life. Decades later he sees, or thinks he sees, his mistake. ‘We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe.’
Tony had thought Veronica was unable to understand anyone else’s emotional life, but it was really him who could look outside his own thoughts. The unreliability of his narration actually makes the book as we decipher more about him and his relationship to others as we go on. “I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation,” he reflects. “Perhaps this is what Veronica called cowardice and I called being peaceable.” Each time he thinks he understand, Veronica points out that he seems to understand nothing.
It’s a short book and an easy read. I understand that they have made a movie based on it, but I can’t imagine how. Give it a read to see a master novelist at the height of his power.
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