Whenever you see someone finish The Sense Of An Ending, the first thing they’ll do is go back and re-read large chunks of what has gone before.
That’s because it’s not until the final pages that you can make sense of what’s gone before – or at least the twist at the end causes you to reassess everything you’ve read up to that point.
It is a fitting end to a book that is to a great extent about the unreliability of memory and how events are moulded by our individual interpretation.
In this instance, we read the story through the narrative of Tony Webster, now retired with a successful career and failed marriage behind him.
The first part looks back to the 1960s when he and a group of similarly precocious schoolboys met and befriended Adrian Finn. Finn later commits suicide, seemingly after a dispute over a girl called Veronica, who had previously gone out with our narrator.
The second half of the book begins with the arrival of a lawyer’s letter informing Webster that Veronica’s mother has left him a small bequest in her will, as well as two documents – news that causes him to re-establish contact with the erstwhile girlfriend and re-examine his role in his friend’s suicide.
The book is definitely a slow burner, but an interesting one that demands reading to the end, if only to make sense of what you have just read…
Dear Mandy
We had The Sense of an Ending as one of our book group choices and it met with a mixed response. I think it does need a second reading to pay more attention to the earlier information in the light of the ending. I decided to try some other Julian Barnes titles and am reading Arthur and George which is much more gripping. You may like to give it a try.
Eileen
Oh no. I know others will disagree but I found this a weird little book and not a patch on other things you’ve suggested ! Or indeed on other things Julian Barnes has written. I’d call it interesting but not enjoyable, too much self-aware character development but it never really goes anywhere. But, apparently you need to read it twice. Perhaps that’s my problem.