The Sense of an Ending
By: Julian Barnes

The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes’s new novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world’s most distinguished writers.

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?

This book had been on my radar since it won the Man Booker Prize for 2011. I’m slowly making my way with reading the winners and those short-listed (emphasis on slowly) but the premise of this novel caught my attention. I’m glad I finally got around to reading it. I want to lay out my thoughts about this novel so this entry is more a commentary than a review; as such, major spoilers if you haven’t read the book at all. I will do my best to avoid mentioning in detail the major plot points but I am discussing the themes so feel free to skip to the end of the entry to know my overall recommendation for it ^_~

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