The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
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Description
This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about until his oldest friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all of 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 various things, and show more to revise his estimation of his own nature and his place in the world. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
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!
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.
113
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.
71
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
11
bookmomo Men looking back on their youth, similar issues with memories. Both beautiful reads.
24
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.
Member Reviews
"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.”
Though I am only 21, still an undergraduate, and have a great deal of life ahead of me to live, this quote, and this book resonated with me. I often look at so many of the events of my past few years through a skewed lens, with myself sitting in the focal point. It is quite natural to do so, and quite difficult to remember that everyone around you has an interiority as complex and detailed as your own. It is quite easy to make show more broad assumptions about others, with only the smallest amount of information to go off of.
Barnes' story is a often times painful reminder of this...so much so I had to put the book down and stop reading at a few points.
"But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but we were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical."
A powerful read, though I finished it over a year ago, it continues to stick with me to this day. show less
Though I am only 21, still an undergraduate, and have a great deal of life ahead of me to live, this quote, and this book resonated with me. I often look at so many of the events of my past few years through a skewed lens, with myself sitting in the focal point. It is quite natural to do so, and quite difficult to remember that everyone around you has an interiority as complex and detailed as your own. It is quite easy to make show more broad assumptions about others, with only the smallest amount of information to go off of.
Barnes' story is a often times painful reminder of this...so much so I had to put the book down and stop reading at a few points.
"But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but we were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical."
A powerful read, though I finished it over a year ago, it continues to stick with me to this day. show less
# The Sense of an Ending ~ Julian Barnes
This is a wistful book about the fallibility and mutability of memory. The very first words in the novel are "I remember", and throughout the book we are brought to consider the untrustworthiness of our recollections. "What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed," says the narrator.
Later, he says:
>We live with such easy assumptions, don’t we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it’s all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we’d forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn’t act as a fixative, rather as a solvent.
Tony Webster is in his mid-60s when he receives an unexpected bequest which show more causes him to think back on the events of his youth, from his senior years at high school through university and a few years afterwards.
At high school, his group friends is joined by Adrian, a new arrival at the school. While he fits in well with the group, he is somewhat their intellectual and cultural superior. Adrian has a series of intense classroom debates with their history teacher about whether we can ever make a really objective assessment of historical events, even quite recent ones. But, in a wryly ironic note, the narrator comments that his own recollection of these debates is almost certainly flawed.
Tony tells of his early clumsy encounters with young women, and his constant sexual frustrations at the time. "You may say, But wasn't this the Sixties? Yes, but only for some people, only in certain parts of the country."
Eventually, during his university years, he meets Veronica: "About five foot two with rounded, muscular calves, mid-brown hair to her shoulders, blue-grey eyes behind blue-framed spectacles, and a quick yet withholding smile." It's this relationship which is at the core of the novel, because he has a bitter break-up with her after a year of going out together. Veronica then takes up with Adrian, Tony's intellectual school friend. And some time later, unexpectedly, Adrian takes his own life for reasons which are not clear.
All this is many decades in the past as Tony now recounts those events, but they are brought back into his life when he is advised of a bequest from Veronica's mother Sarah, who he had met only once when visiting her parents. The bequest is a modest sum of money and, astonishingly, Adrian's diary. Except that Veronica is in current possession of the diary and refuses to supply it to Tony.
Tony's attempts to get hold of the diary and his renewal of contacts with Veronica play out in the rest of the novel. He finds himself confronted with past events and actions of his own which he had forgotten, or badly mis-remembered. It takes him a long time to discover and understand the conseqences resulting from his youthful behaviour.
This is a beautifully-written novel which really makes you think about life, and how our memories can betray us; about how we can fail to grasp what has been going on, even at critical moments of our lives; and how we can deeply misunderstand other human beings.
*A Sense of an Ending* won the Man Booker Prize in 2011, and deservedly so, I think. show less
This is a wistful book about the fallibility and mutability of memory. The very first words in the novel are "I remember", and throughout the book we are brought to consider the untrustworthiness of our recollections. "What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed," says the narrator.
Later, he says:
>We live with such easy assumptions, don’t we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it’s all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we’d forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn’t act as a fixative, rather as a solvent.
Tony Webster is in his mid-60s when he receives an unexpected bequest which show more causes him to think back on the events of his youth, from his senior years at high school through university and a few years afterwards.
At high school, his group friends is joined by Adrian, a new arrival at the school. While he fits in well with the group, he is somewhat their intellectual and cultural superior. Adrian has a series of intense classroom debates with their history teacher about whether we can ever make a really objective assessment of historical events, even quite recent ones. But, in a wryly ironic note, the narrator comments that his own recollection of these debates is almost certainly flawed.
Tony tells of his early clumsy encounters with young women, and his constant sexual frustrations at the time. "You may say, But wasn't this the Sixties? Yes, but only for some people, only in certain parts of the country."
Eventually, during his university years, he meets Veronica: "About five foot two with rounded, muscular calves, mid-brown hair to her shoulders, blue-grey eyes behind blue-framed spectacles, and a quick yet withholding smile." It's this relationship which is at the core of the novel, because he has a bitter break-up with her after a year of going out together. Veronica then takes up with Adrian, Tony's intellectual school friend. And some time later, unexpectedly, Adrian takes his own life for reasons which are not clear.
All this is many decades in the past as Tony now recounts those events, but they are brought back into his life when he is advised of a bequest from Veronica's mother Sarah, who he had met only once when visiting her parents. The bequest is a modest sum of money and, astonishingly, Adrian's diary. Except that Veronica is in current possession of the diary and refuses to supply it to Tony.
Tony's attempts to get hold of the diary and his renewal of contacts with Veronica play out in the rest of the novel. He finds himself confronted with past events and actions of his own which he had forgotten, or badly mis-remembered. It takes him a long time to discover and understand the conseqences resulting from his youthful behaviour.
This is a beautifully-written novel which really makes you think about life, and how our memories can betray us; about how we can fail to grasp what has been going on, even at critical moments of our lives; and how we can deeply misunderstand other human beings.
*A Sense of an Ending* won the Man Booker Prize in 2011, and deservedly so, I think. show less
"History is the certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."
The Sense of an Ending is all about history; but this book focuses on our histories, that is, our personal histories, the way that we remember, the way those around us remember and where the truth lies.
The story is prosaic enough -- Barnes writes elegantly and sparsely about Tony Webster, a fairly ordinary man who has lived a fairly ordinary life. One day, he hears from a lawyer regarding a bequest to him from the newly deceased mother of Veronica, a former girlfriend from his student days. The bequest includes the diary of a dead mutual friend who also had been Veronica’s lover at one time. Veronica has show more possession of the diary and refuses to hand it over.
Tony’s relationship with Veronica had been fraught with tensions, misunderstandings and resentments and his pursuit of this diary and the former girlfriend’s intransigence allow the two to reconnect and reexamine the relationship they had, and reignites old resentments. Tony doesn’t just want the diary he's been bequeathed, but wants to know why Veronica’s mother had it at all and why Veronica refuses to let him have it.
The answers he ultimately discovers come at a price – the price of self-awareness, self-knowledge and a more truthful and difficult appraisal of who he really is.
The book is concisely written yet fully captures Tony’s mind-set, feelings and character. Though the message behind the story is serious, much of the book is presented in a light-hearted manner. We watch Tony’s evolution as he becomes aware that his life as he chose to recall it does not depict complete reality. The twists and turns that are revealed do not feel contrived. On the contrary, they pack a punch for the reader as much as for the main character. show less
The Sense of an Ending is all about history; but this book focuses on our histories, that is, our personal histories, the way that we remember, the way those around us remember and where the truth lies.
The story is prosaic enough -- Barnes writes elegantly and sparsely about Tony Webster, a fairly ordinary man who has lived a fairly ordinary life. One day, he hears from a lawyer regarding a bequest to him from the newly deceased mother of Veronica, a former girlfriend from his student days. The bequest includes the diary of a dead mutual friend who also had been Veronica’s lover at one time. Veronica has show more possession of the diary and refuses to hand it over.
Tony’s relationship with Veronica had been fraught with tensions, misunderstandings and resentments and his pursuit of this diary and the former girlfriend’s intransigence allow the two to reconnect and reexamine the relationship they had, and reignites old resentments. Tony doesn’t just want the diary he's been bequeathed, but wants to know why Veronica’s mother had it at all and why Veronica refuses to let him have it.
The answers he ultimately discovers come at a price – the price of self-awareness, self-knowledge and a more truthful and difficult appraisal of who he really is.
The book is concisely written yet fully captures Tony’s mind-set, feelings and character. Though the message behind the story is serious, much of the book is presented in a light-hearted manner. We watch Tony’s evolution as he becomes aware that his life as he chose to recall it does not depict complete reality. The twists and turns that are revealed do not feel contrived. On the contrary, they pack a punch for the reader as much as for the main character. show less
Much though I dislike fiction with ambiguous, unresolved endings, in this case the open-endedness serves a purpose, which is to illustrate the book's principal theme about the unreliability of memory and the uncertainty of history. I do like fiction that forces you to reexamine what's gone before, and this novel has that in spades. Maybe it's my age, however, but I thought the narrator's self-examination throughout the book, up until the ending, was far more satisfying than the ending. I suspect, however, that like Tony I still "just don't get it."
Sometimes, a novel doesn't have to be 400-plus pages to pack a punch. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes proves just that. It's a story about jealousy, guilt, memory, and blame. Said early in the novel, "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.” Indeed. So, was the central character, Tony, a very unreliable narrator, truly guileless, or were his memories clouded by envy and anger, and the need to protect his own virtue? You be the judge. The Sense of an Ending is a truly thought-provoking novel.
This book is a scream. A hilarious take on people making assumptions that sound logical but are based on nothing substantial at all. Kind of a Holden Caulfield who ages and learns nothing except that he is still emotionally stunted. A homage to the French penchant for discussing self-deception but then being nonchalant about the answer (Descartes' deus deceptor) and Montaigne's fruitless search for moral universals but felt the search still noble.
Barnes' flirtation with French folly or illusion was what kept me going till the end. Finished this, in two days. Great read based on Adrian's earnest proclamation: "Adrian paused. He took a sip of beer, and then said with sudden vehemence, "I hate the way the English have of not being serious show more about being serious. I really hate it."
Not for young adults. This is the third book by Barnes I've read. All excellent: England, England and A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. show less
Barnes' flirtation with French folly or illusion was what kept me going till the end. Finished this, in two days. Great read based on Adrian's earnest proclamation: "Adrian paused. He took a sip of beer, and then said with sudden vehemence, "I hate the way the English have of not being serious show more about being serious. I really hate it."
Not for young adults. This is the third book by Barnes I've read. All excellent: England, England and A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. show less
CW: Suicide
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ThingScore 100
By now, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes has gained itself a reputation for being the novel you must read twice.....
Nearly every paragraph in this book has multiple interpretations. Once all the questions are answered, the reader is left in the same state that Tony is in the book’s final pages—floored at life’s essential mysteries, and frustrated that they cannot be relived. show more Fortunately for us, we can just read the book again. show less
Nearly every paragraph in this book has multiple interpretations. Once all the questions are answered, the reader is left in the same state that Tony is in the book’s final pages—floored at life’s essential mysteries, and frustrated that they cannot be relived. show more Fortunately for us, we can just read the book again. show less
added by Nickelini
Barnes' work is one in which, event-wise, not a whole lot happens. Unless we’re talking about the events of the brain and the tricks of time and memory. If that's the case, then Barnes has impressively condensed an undertaking of biblical proportions into a mere 163 pages.
added by WeeklyAlibi
A man's closest-held beliefs about a friend, former lover and himself are undone in a subtly devastating novella from Barnes. It's an intense exploration of how we write our own histories and how our actions in moments of anger can have consequences that stretch across decades. The novel's narrator, Anthony, is in late middle age, and recalling friendships from adolescence and early adulthood. show more What at first seems like a polite meditation on childhood and memory leaves the reader asking difficult questions about how often we strive to paint ourselves in the best possible light. show less
added by kthomp25
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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes in Booker Prize (August 2011)
Author Information
89+ Works 43,064 Members
Julian Barnes was born in Leicester, England, on January 19, 1946. He received a degree in modern languages from Magdalen College, Oxford University in 1968. He has held jobs as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary, a reviewer and literary editor for the New Statesmen and the New Review, and a television critic. He has written show more numerous works of fiction including Arthur and George, Pulse: Stories, The Noise of Time, and England, England. He received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1980 for Metroland, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1985 and a Prix Medicis in 1986 for Flaubert's Parrot, and the Man Booker Prize in 2011 for The Sense of an Ending. He also writes non-fiction works including Letters from London, The Pedant in the Kitchen, and Nothing to Be Frightened Of. He received the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation in 1993, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2004, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011. He writes detective novels under the pseudonym Dan Kavanaugh. His works under this name include Duffy, Fiddle City, Putting the Boot In, and Going to the Dogs. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Sense of an Ending
- Original title
- The Sense of an Ending
- Original publication date
- 2011
- People/Characters
- Veronica Ford; Adrian Finn; Anthony Webster; Sarah Ford; Margaret Webster; Jack Ford (show all 20); Mr. Webster; Mrs. Webster; Mr. Ford; Adrian Finn, Jr; Old Joe Hunt; Alex; Colin Simpson; Marshall; Phil Dixon; Annie; Susie Webster; Mr. Gunnell; Mrs. Marriott; Terry
- Important places
- Bristol, England, UK; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK; London, England, UK; Kent, England, UK
- Related movies
- The Sense of an Ending (2017 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- for Pat
- First words
- 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, be... (show all)fore 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. - Quotations
- "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... (show all) 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 ... (show all)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... (show all) 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 missin... (show all)g, never to return.
I'm not very interested in my schooldays, and don't feel any nostalgia for them. But school is where it all began, so I need to return briefly to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some approximate memories wh... (show all)ich 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 nostal... (show all)gia 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 t... (show all)he 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 th... (show all)at'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... (show all) 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 - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this, there is unrest. There is great unrest.
- Blurbers*
- Cartwright, Justin; Wagner, Erica
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- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 823.914
- Canonical LCC
- PR6052.A6657
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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