Genre: Literary Fiction
Page Count: 140
Just recently, my former world literature teacher, herself an MPhil student in English Literature, asked me if I had read ‘The sense of an Ending’ by Barnes. This book was assigned to them for their midterms, and she wanted to know what thoughts I had about it. But it hadn’t read it yet. However, since I’m always curious about what English literature students read, I now knew and started reading it immediately.
I hadn't heard of Barnes before, and checking him online I found that this is his most renowned novel. First of all, the title of the book appealed to me as it sounded poetic as well as philosophical. Further more, the novel was nominated for the Booker prize and was also adopted for a movie. All in all, my expectation for this book was high.
And I am not disappointed. As I write in the subtitle, this is a very seriously good book with a bleak tone to it since it talks about themes of suicide, regret, memory, and retrospection.
The story is narrated by Tony, aka Anthony Webster, as he recalls his earlier days of school with his friends in the first part, and in the second, we read about what happened to them after they got to college and, finally towards the end of the novel, we catch up the present-day Tony.
At school, Tony and his friends were a group of three when Adrian joined their school. A sophisticated, composed, and philosophically witty guy, Tony and friends like Adrian and offer him to join their group. They become good friends and talk on many things, where Adrian, being the philosopher, gives fresh and important perspectives, while other just remain cynical. Then, a boy named Robson commits suicide after he finds out that he got his girlfriend pregnant, and this is the first time they get to talk, seriously, about suicide.
In part two, all of them are off to different colleges, with Adrian going to Cambridge on scholarship. They do remain in touch, but all of them first writes to Adrian. Toby, meanwhile, still retelling his story, starts a relationship with Veronica. However, when things doesn’t work out, Veronica breaks with Tony and hits it off with Adrian. Adrian being nice, asks Tony if they can start a relationship of their own, which infuriates Tony, and he writes ‘the cruelest’ letter that I have ever read, and sends to them both.
Anyways, Tony marries Margaret and they have a daughter, Susie, but then he gets to find out that Adrian has committed suicide with a public note, saying that ‘this was philosophically his choice and he has consciously chosen death’. This leaves all of the friends thinking about what Adrian’s suicide meant and how noble, indeed, was his decision.
In the present day, when things regarding Adrian and Veronica, involving ‘blood money’ and Adrian’s diary, come to surface, things get complicated – and our Tony gets to know more about life and its responsibility and burden.
What I like most about this novel is that it’s almost totally told in reminiscence, where the narrator Tony is constantly trying to recall what has happened and how things have aged. This book is what writing aims to achieve - that is to save our fleeting lives on the pages and then reflect about them in retrospect, reliving it again.
While Tony isn’t a wise person, as Adrian was, he still has things to say that his life has taught him, things about young and old age, about memory and its defeating reliability, about remorse and learning to live with it.
Barnes
has successfully written a novel that is both beautiful and bleak, carrying a
handful of ideas that reflects on life and what it’s like to live through
different ages. A novel to read and ponder upon…
Ratings:
5/5 ***** December 31, 2020_