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Loading... The Sense of an Ending (2011)| 7,449 | 505 | 961 | 
(3.8) | 1 / 730 | Follows a middle-aged man as he reflects on a past he thought was behind him, until he is presented with a legacy that forces him to reconsider different decisions, and to revise his place in the world. |
▾LibraryThing Recommendations  113 On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Cariola, BookshelfMonstrosity)Cariola: Another brief but powerful novel that explores how our perceptions vary and memories change over time, as well as regrets over lost oppotunities. McEwan is, like Barnes, a master of words and character development. On Chesil Beach made the Booker short list in 2007--and should have won!… (more) BookshelfMonstrosity: These brief, intricately plotted novels are reflective, character-driven stories that examine a pivotal event from different perspectives. In a complex narrative that shifts between past and present, individuals who grew up in 1960s England discover that memory can be unreliable.… (more) 124 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Laura400)71 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (Queenofcups)Queenofcups: I found myself thinking of Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea as I read this book. There is some affinity in theme and story. Murdoch is expansive, where Barnes is elegant and economical. It won the Booker in 1978, and it's well worth another look. 42 The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (AlexBr)AlexBr: If you like unreliable narrators. 20 Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (unlucky)21 The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe (freddlerabbit)00 Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata (sweetiegherkin)sweetiegherkin: Two short and seemingly simple, quiet novels that both have a lot to unpack & would be good for book club to discuss the deeper meanings. 11 A Partisan's Daughter by Louis De Bernières (jayne_charles)jayne_charles: Intelligently written account of an old guy reminiscing, with the added bonus in this case of an education in Balkan history along the way 01 The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (yokai)24 The Sea by John Banville (bookmomo)bookmomo: Men looking back on their youth, similar issues with memories. Both beautiful reads. 13 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (kara.shamy)
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for Pat  | |
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I remember, in no particular order:
-a shiny inner wrist;
-steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
-gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house;
-a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
-another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
-bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door. | |
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"We could start perhaps with the seemingly simple question. What is History? Any thoughts, Webster?
'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied a little too quickly.'
Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated...' (p. 25, large print ed.) We muddle along, we let life happen to us, we gradually build up a store of memories. There is the question of accumulation, but not in the sense that Adrian meant, just the simple adding up and adding on of life. And as the poet pointed out, there is a difference between addition and increase. Indeed, isn’t the whole business of ascribing responsibility a kind of cop-out? We want to blame an individual so that everyone else is exculpated. Or we blame a historical process as a way of exonerating individuals. Or it’s all anarchic chaos, with the same consequence. It seems to be me that there is--was--a chain of individual responsibilities, all of which were necessary, but not so long a chain that everybody can simply blame everyone else. But of course, my desire to ascribe responsibility might be more a reflection of my own cast of mind than a fair analysis of what happened. That’s one of the central problems of history, isn’t it sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us. That last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed. And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing--until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return. I’m not very interested in my schooldays, and don’t feel any nostalgia for them. But school is where is all began, so I need to return briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories which time has deformed into certainty. If I can’t be sure of the actual events any more, I can at least be true to the impressions those facts left. That's the best I can manage. Though why should we expect age to mellow us? If it isn’t life’s business to reward merit, why should it be life’s business to give us warm, comfortable feelings toward its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve? How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but--mainly--to ourselves. Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does; otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that’s something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we’re just stuck with what we’ve got. We’re on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn’t it? And also-- if this isn’t too grand a word--our tragedy. I was saying, confidently, how the chief characteristic of remorse is that nothing can be done about it: that the time has passed for apology or amends. But what if I’m wrong? What if by some means remorse can be made to flow backwards, can be transmuted into simple guilt, then apologised for, and then forgiven? History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation" p17 | |
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Information from the German Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English (2)
▾Book descriptions Follows a middle-aged man as he reflects on a past he thought was behind him, until he is presented with a legacy that forces him to reconsider different decisions, and to revise his place in the world. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
| Book description |
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse.
This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes’s oeuvre. | |
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| Haiku summary |
Middle-age memories
of times past, both good and bad.
What is the meaning?
(sushitori) Reflections on how
a life can be changed by a
careless turn of phrase.
(passion4reading) Memory can be
tricky, showing not what was,
but how one perceives.
(passion4reading) | |
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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
1
Written in the first person by a middle aged Tony Webster who we find out is a rather unreliable narrator. The first part of the book is about his friendship in senior-school with the much more intelligent Adrian, and Tony's relationship with Veronika who ultimately dumps him and hitches up with Adrian. A few years later, with Tony estranged from both Adrian and Veronika and Tony hears that Adrian has committed suicide.
Cut through to middle age, and Tony has married (and divorced) and is on reasonable terms with both his daughter and ex-wife. The other friends from school are not heard of again. A solicitor gets in contact to advise that Tony has been bequeathed £500 and Adrian's diary by Veronika's mother - a women he only met once on a rather disastrous weekend.
This brings Tony back in contact with Veronika who has Adrian's diary - apparently. A series of all the more irritating encounters with Veronika in an attempt to get the diary (which she admits to having burnt part way through the narrative) leaves Tony - and the reader - wondering what's going on. Finally a number of events, and Tony's hanging round certain shops, pubs and people (despite his assertion that he's "not wasting my time") allows him to make a conclusion which Veronika yet again has to point out "you just dont get it".
The narrator reminded me much of Matthew Parris from Radio 4, and was a soothing voice to listen to, even when swear words were required. I listened to this over several weeks and suspect that I may have to listen to again based on the ending I heard the first time round.