The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes has been on my ‘to
read’ list ever since I saw that Barnes had at last won the Man Booker prize in
2011 after many years of being nominated and shortlisted. I already had on my bookshelf his ‘Arthur and
George’ which I had started reading although the bookmark one fifth of the way
in tells me that this one lost out to other books in the competition to sustain
my interest. No such problem with The
Sense .... with its mere 150 pages reminiscent of the Great Gatsby. Some books just do not need to be longer and
The Sense .... is definitely one of those.
The story is well paced and I read it in two sittings. The
plot evolves through the nostalgic meanderings of one Tony Webster as he
recalls his schooldays with three friends, only one of which will be referred
to later in the story. ‘This is not part
of this story’ is a phrase used often to indicate that some recalled event,
feeling or conversation has no later relevance in the story that is unfolding
before our eyes. As the book is about
memory and seen only from one perspective, we would be foolish to think we can
believe everything we read and in this respect Tony Webster is an unreliable
narrator.
In the first part of the book he makes brief reference to
writing a letter to his friend – a brilliant academic with a promising start at
Cambridge university. The letter is
prompted following the discovery that Adrian and Tony’s ex-girlfriend are now
reported to be ‘an item’. His recap of
the letter is short with some detrimental reference to Veronica. In part two he is presented with the actual
letter which we now see is a lengthy piece of vitriolic sentiment written from
the heart – a broken and revengeful heart.
He sees it for what it is - a rant written in the heat of the moment and
he is suitably humbled and eventually remorseful of his descent into the
invective with such a diatribe. But the
discovery of the letter and his increasing curiosity about his ex-girlfriend
lead him down some unexpected paths and no-one is more surprised than Tony to
discover on the last two pages what the letter may have triggered all those
years ago. No-one, that is ... than the
reader.
Such is the puzzling ending of this book – and note the
title involves both the word ‘sense’ and ‘ending’ that great debates now rage
on various literary blogs as to what might have really happened earlier in the
narrator’s life and how the story takes the final twist. Some reviewers suggest a better ending than
the one we have just read. One suggests
the title should be No sense in the Ending and with that I do concur as we are
never privy to the full truth of what happened on a crucial weekend many years
past.
It is impossible here to give away the story, the plotline
and the eventual outcome for the characters as there are so many questions
unanswered and the book has left me wondering whether that was the author’s aim
ie to stimulate the readers’ and leave them with an unsatisfactory ending upon
which they can lay their own ideas.
The Sense of an Ending is beautifully written and deserves
all the accolades it has received and I wouldn’t have missed reading it.
I suggest that you read the book yourself and then, and only
then, consult the debate on
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