On the Shelf: The Sense of an Ending

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING | JULIAN BARNES | RANDOM HOUSE | 2011

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian''s life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget.

Now Tony is in middle age. He's had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer''s letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?

I wrote briefly about this book during The Book Chat a couple weeks ago. It came along at the perfect time in my life and, while I had been wanting to read it for awhile, I'm glad that I put it off for so long. I have been thinking a lot about time - what do with it, how to make sure I'm living meaningfully, etc. - so this book was very appreciated.

It's a very quick read and one that I highly recommend. It's interesting to find out how our memories change certain events. The book is a great example of an unreliable narrator. You really can't trust what is being told because the characters can't remember the specifics. Stories get twisted and turned around until what is remembered and what actually happened are two different things.

The Sense of An Ending also explores how the decisions we make now can have a tremendous impact on our future. It's a little scary to think about, but everything really does have consequences, often too extreme to foresee.

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"But I've been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don't get soggy at the memory of some childhood knick-knack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn't even true at the time - love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions - and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives - then I plead guilty... And if we're talking about strong feelings that will never come again, I suppose it's possible to be nostalgic about remembered pain as well as remembered pleasure. And that opens up the field, doesn't it?"