The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes.
I just finished this book last night. It’s short, only 163 pages long. It’s elegant and beautifully written. The first sensation I had when starting the book was a sensation of falling. Falling into the strong and delicate and capable hands of a master, a writer at the peak of his powers. Just that alone is such an enjoyable feeling, like watching a movie by, say… Roman Polanski. I had this same feeling when watching The Ghost Writer.
Barnes reminds me of my favorite British writers, like Kingley Amis. There’s even a character - a school teacher named Dixon, which I think is an homage to the main character in Lucky Jim. Barnes also reminds me of the British P. G. Wodehouse, somehow mixed with the Japanese writer, Kenzaburo Oe.
The book is written in the first person, from the view of a middle-aged man (maybe elderly is more accurate.) His name is Tony Webster. An unexpected inheritance forces him to look back on his life. The themes of memory and contemporary corroboration, and how we reconstruct our pasts which may or may not be accurate, are among my favorites. This book is just what I’m always thinking about, especially after writing a book about my own past experiences as a mother! I often wondered, after some story of mine had become solidified into a “story” …if it was even true! Had I made it up? The story had moved from the recall part of my brain to the “tale” part. Or at least that’s how it feels. It’s disconnected with the visceral tentacles of experience.
The most spin-tingling moment in the book is when Tony gets a copy of a letter he wrote as a young man. This letter contradicts his own version of events. And yet, it’s undeniable. He wrote this letter. It shows him his true character as a young man and it’s not pretty. His own current version of himself is more honorable and ambiguous than what the facts show him. He’s done what we all do - subtly shift events and words into something that makes us sympathetic to ourselves.
My hair was literally standing on end - I could feel it separating from my scalp - when he reads his own words from so long ago. Then the book descends, slightly, into a sordid plot which for me was unnecessary. While the subsequent revelations did make the book more mysterious and shocking, the most interesting aspect of this book is it’s subject of memory and it’s weaknesses, and it’s agenda for self-flattery. The truth is, we are in a constant state of change. Each day we are no longer the person we were, and are not the person we will become, either. The concept of free will - an idea so close to the concept of self, is something I am always grappling with. This is a fictional story that dances around these ideas fluidly and compellingly.
I couldn’t recommend this book more.
April 27, 2013 at 4:21 pm, Mary said:
I read a Julian Barnes book several years ago and absolutely loved it. Now I can’t remember which one it was!! I meant to read all of his books but I was distracted by other authors. This post is a good reminder to read more Barnes.
May 06, 2013 at 11:52 am, Franco said:
I wanted to suggest Tell the Wolves I’m Home. It’s an amazing debut novel by Carol Rifka Brunt. If you haven’t read it, please do.
May 07, 2013 at 8:48 am, admin said:
I’ll put it in my queue. Thanks for the recommendation!
July 12, 2013 at 11:06 am, Herschel Norman said:
That’s an interesting tension, common to most of us and great fodder for fiction. But rather than explore it, Gatsby enacts it. As readers, we revel in the glamorous dissipation of the rich, and then we revel in the cheap satisfaction of seeing them fall. At no point are we made to feel uncomfortable about either pleasure, let alone their conjunction. At no point are we given cause, or room, to feel complicit. Our position throughout is that of an innocent bystander. That’s also Nick’s role, so the perspective of the book becomes one of passive observation. He watches across apartments as affairs take place, across parties as fights break out, across the road where the dead Myrtle’s left breast flaps leerishly loose. Yet he never admits to collusion with or seduction by all the fabulous depravity around him. After it’s all over, he retreats to the Midwest and, figuratively and literally, tells his story from the safe remove of America’s imaginary moral high ground.