The Sense of An Ending – a TBTAM Book Review

The Sense of An Ending, Julian Barnes Man-Booker prize-winning novel, is one of the most beautifully written and engrossing books I’ve ever read. It is also one of the shortest – a mere 160 pages. As Barnes has said “It is a concise novel. I couldn’t make it any shorter, and I don’t think I could make it any longer.”

It is a story, really. A very specific story about a very specific time and place in the life of a man, Tony Webster. Webster’s memories of that time, however erroneous they may be, reverberate beneath his life thereafter, until the day when he learns that he has been bequeathed a diary, a bequest that ultimately will upend his memories and his well-worn sense of who he is and has been. The startling and unexpected truth of what actually happened is revealed in the books last pages. Yet even that truth, while final and irrevocable, is incomplete, as is our memory and our knowledge of those we think we know.

This is a book you can read in one very long sitting, as if Webster were spending a long afternoon and evening with you, telling you a story about a pivotal event in his life. You’ll stop for dinner perhaps, then take up on the porch afterwards and sit till the wee hours until a sense of an ending is achieved.

At some point, you will learn that he has had a wife and a daughter, and even give you glimpses into these relationships. But what he tells you about them will be limited to what you need to know for this story, or as Webster puts it “They are in this story, but this story is not about them”.

In truth, this is the way we tell one another stories, isn’t it? We may glide off track occasionally, or dip into detail when necessary, but our listeners will pull us back on track “What happened next?” or ” Get back to the story”.  Barnes anticipates his reader’s need to move the story forward, while leaving us craving just a bit more detail than he gives us. But we are moving on towards an ending, so onward we go.

It’s a wonderful construct for ADHD readers such as myself who tend to become sucked into a book for long periods of intense time, but then have trouble picking it up again later. The satisfaction of completing the book, without skimming, in just two sittings was for me, enormous.

This was my first introduction to Barnes, and I’m adding his books to my long list of must-reads. I may make Love,etc my next. At 240 pages, it’s a bit heftier, but still manageable for my attention span. Although I may have to start with A Pedant in the Kitchen – at 136 pages, this collection of essays on cooking seems just about right for my plate.
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This is an unsolicited review.