The Sense of an Ending
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present.
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.
Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.
Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
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Community Reviews
I had previously ready "Flaubert 's Parrot" by Barnes and forgot how witty, brilliant and captivating it was (he really is a most excellent writer!). This book brought me back to that enjoyable reading experience - this story is clever, thought-provoking - with beautifully spun prose...a great start to my 2025 reading list!
A short book and a quick read that stayed with me for a while after I put it down. It's about the past and our memories of that past and how different the two can be. Definitely worth a read.
I'm truly going to try and keep up with the local book club this year. This is our first book and I really struggled reading it. The prose felt strangled and I kept getting dropped out of the actual story by the language. I read quite a bit and have a pretty good vocabulary but I had to keep asking me Kindle to define words because there was little to no context. Boom...dropped again.
I found that I didn't really want to finish this book but now I have an accountability partner for book club so I picked it up again and got myself through Part One.
Tony Webster and his friends bring new kid Adrian into their clique. The kids all sounded pretentious enough that I wanted to slap them but we sort through them "dealing" with a fellow students suicide. Dealing as in, it really doesn't seem like they cared. They move on through college with Tony getting a girlfriend, Veronica. There's nothing about her that seems remotely redeemable and, by the end of the novel, I really think she's only in this book to drop clues. Eventually, Tony and Veronica break up and Veronica and Adrian get together.
Then Adrian commits suicide.
Part Two actually got me more interested. Tony marries, has a kid, divorces. He moves through his mundane and adequate life. A perfectly acceptable, simple life. When he gets a letter from a lawyer letting him know that he came into money and documents from Veronica's mother when she passed. Oh, intrigue! Tony goes on a retiree's quest to get the documents from Veronica, which turn out to be Adrian's diary. Here is where Veronica is particularly 2D and useless. I will admit that the story picked up a bit, once you ignore the writing, and led to an interesting twist. A twist that I was completely unsure of when I got to it and had to go and re-read several sections and then check the interwebz to see if I was right. I was and that was weird.
So, Amanda, you say....was there anything you liked?
Yes, thanks for asking! The gist of this book is about memory. How what you think you remember isn't really the reality you should remember. Tony reframed his memories to feel better about himself so when he sees his letter to Adrian and Veronica, he got a rude awakening of how horrible he actually was. We all do this, don't we? We smooth away the rough edges of memories so we can live with them and go on with our mundane lives.
I wrote down a section because it did hit home. My mundane life was stifling me so last year I made an effort to get out of my comfort zone and travel. This year, I have no desire to see another airport again for a long time, but I'm very happy I finally did the "immature" thing and packed my bags and winged around the country.
We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe.
We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly.
What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.
I've always prided myself on being a mature, responsible realist.....maybe not anymore.
I found that I didn't really want to finish this book but now I have an accountability partner for book club so I picked it up again and got myself through Part One.
Tony Webster and his friends bring new kid Adrian into their clique. The kids all sounded pretentious enough that I wanted to slap them but we sort through them "dealing" with a fellow students suicide. Dealing as in, it really doesn't seem like they cared. They move on through college with Tony getting a girlfriend, Veronica. There's nothing about her that seems remotely redeemable and, by the end of the novel, I really think she's only in this book to drop clues. Eventually, Tony and Veronica break up and Veronica and Adrian get together.
Then Adrian commits suicide.
Part Two actually got me more interested. Tony marries, has a kid, divorces. He moves through his mundane and adequate life. A perfectly acceptable, simple life. When he gets a letter from a lawyer letting him know that he came into money and documents from Veronica's mother when she passed. Oh, intrigue! Tony goes on a retiree's quest to get the documents from Veronica, which turn out to be Adrian's diary. Here is where Veronica is particularly 2D and useless. I will admit that the story picked up a bit, once you ignore the writing, and led to an interesting twist. A twist that I was completely unsure of when I got to it and had to go and re-read several sections and then check the interwebz to see if I was right. I was and that was weird.
So, Amanda, you say....was there anything you liked?
Yes, thanks for asking! The gist of this book is about memory. How what you think you remember isn't really the reality you should remember. Tony reframed his memories to feel better about himself so when he sees his letter to Adrian and Veronica, he got a rude awakening of how horrible he actually was. We all do this, don't we? We smooth away the rough edges of memories so we can live with them and go on with our mundane lives.
I wrote down a section because it did hit home. My mundane life was stifling me so last year I made an effort to get out of my comfort zone and travel. This year, I have no desire to see another airport again for a long time, but I'm very happy I finally did the "immature" thing and packed my bags and winged around the country.
We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe.
We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly.
What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.
I've always prided myself on being a mature, responsible realist.....maybe not anymore.
A good book that would have been better without the tricky ending. The ending cheapened the entire book quite a bit and lessened the main character's responsibility. I would recommend all but the last few pages of the book. (3 stars)
Update from 3/2018 reread: Besides being captivated all over again by the author's amazing writing and his unreliable narrator, it seems clear to me that the entire point of the story is that there are a chain of people at fault, and the fault of the others does not negate the narrator's responsibility at all. In fact, his particular character flaws left unexamined all these years have gone on to affect the rest of his life as well. (4 or 5 stars)
Update from 3/2018 reread: Besides being captivated all over again by the author's amazing writing and his unreliable narrator, it seems clear to me that the entire point of the story is that there are a chain of people at fault, and the fault of the others does not negate the narrator's responsibility at all. In fact, his particular character flaws left unexamined all these years have gone on to affect the rest of his life as well. (4 or 5 stars)
Oct 2012 - Powered through this book in an afternoon! What started as a nice philosophical recount of Tony's life turns into a surprising and complicated examination of the part that he implicitly played in the lives of others. I'm not entirely convinced of his responsibility but perhaps we shouldn't be convinced on the whole story seeing as the book does warn about the malleability of history. Great story, really well written and some beautiful ideas about our lives, the path we are on and the impact we have on others.
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