The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

I borrowed this earlier in the year, and never got around to listening to it. So, I went back and borrowed it again, and this time made sure I brought it with me on my commute. 

 This short novel is a fascinating look at the unreliability of memory, and the way we create our self-conception. One might say that it is navel-gazing, but in a good way. It is thoughtful and full of great lines, and the way that the rather self-aware yet totally unreliable narrator wrestles with his own unreliability in the stories he tells to himself is brilliantly done. 

 

There are a number of twists in the plot, which I will try not to spoil more than I have to. Tony is a recently retired Englishman, who starts the book with memories of his high school days, when he was part of a group of four friends that centered around the brilliant yet vaguely troubled Adrian. The boys discuss philosophy with their history teacher, and it is clear that Adrian is far ahead of everyone else. But Adrian never really talks about his family - we know that his mom walked out on him when he was very little, and that he lives with his dad, but Adrian chooses not to go beyond that. 

 

During this time, a classmate commits suicide, apparently because he got a girl pregnant. (This would have been in the 1960s, when, as Tony notes, most people were still living in what was for all practical purposes, the 50s.) Adrian quotes Camus: “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.” This turns out, in retrospect, to be an ominous foreshadowing.

 

The clique breaks up soon after the boys go their own ways for college, although they still see each other occasionally. Tony takes up with a girl named Veronica, who will turn out to be the focus of all that happens afterward. Veronica is, to put it mildly, a deeply unpleasant young woman. She comes from a “posher” family than Tony, and is snobby in a way that I found really off-putting. (Case in point, she pointedly disses Tony’s love for Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, because they are not “serious” composers. That’s unforgivable to me, and I would have dumped her ass forthwith.) Tony, being young and green, is smitten by her at first. He spends a night at her home, where he finds her brother condescending, her father a bit weird, and her mother….well, he doesn’t realize what was going on until literally a lifetime later. 

 

Veronica is also a cock-tease, although that was well in line with the times. What is more bizarre is that after she and Tony break up, then she has sex with him. And then, Tony realizes that he really needs to break up with her for good. The breakup is not, by any standard, a friendly one. 

 

Not too long afterward, Veronica pairs up with Adrian. Tony, rather than act graciously, sends a nasty letter to Adrian wishing him every unhappiness with Veronica. Just how nasty that letter was we do not find out until much later in the book - Veronica kept it, and gives a photocopy to Tony when they (sort of) reconnect as old people. It’s just plain horrible, beyond my own ability to write, honestly. By that time, of course, Tony has regret, and apologizes. 

 

But that is getting ahead of things. 

 

After these blowups, Tony takes a trip to backpack across the US, hooks up with a girl who is clear it is temporary, and comes home to find out that Adrian has committed suicide. 

 

Yeah, that is pretty dramatic, and Adrian’s suicide note gives a lot of philosophy, but no indication whatsoever as to what triggered it. 

 

At that point, the book quickly describes the next 40 years. Tony gets a boring job (which is what he wanted), marries a low-drama woman, Margaret, who ends up leaving him for a less boring man. He has a daughter, and a pair of grandkids. Margaret and Tony remain friends, meeting occasionally for tea, and Tony has, in his own view, an unexceptional life - which is what he wanted. As Tony puts it, he “had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded.” That’s his personality. 

 

So far, this is only the first third of the book. The events that rock Tony’s world start with something out of the blue. Veronica’s mother has died, and left him a peculiar bequest: 500 pounds, and Adrian’s diary. Except that Tony never actually receives the diary, because Veronica has taken it, and refuses to turn it over. So, Tony goes in search of Veronica, and as much of the truth as he can find. 

 

The revelations that follow are slowly unfolded throughout the rest of the book, and even then, we never learn everything. Tony has to piece things together from small scraps and hints, and in the end, learns more about himself than anything. 

 

Veronica hasn’t changed much in 40 years, of course. She finally tells Tony, “You just don’t get it. You never have, and you never will.” Which is grossly unfair, considering that she refuses to offer information, and somehow expects Tony to have grasped everything based on their short relationship, and his one visit to her home. 

 

Because I listened while driving, I didn’t write down all the great quotes, so I am stuck with those I could find to confirm. One of those is Tony’s musing that at some point in our lives - maybe in our 20s? - our characters become set. 

 

“And after that, we’re just stuck with what we’ve got. We’re on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn’t it? And also — if this isn’t too grand a word — our tragedy.”

 

He also has ceased to be entirely satisfied with his own character, and the way it has determined his life. He uses the “we” here, perhaps to include Margaret, but really, he means himself.

 

“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 also liked the discussion with the history teacher, and the way that Tony never truly stops thinking about it. Adrian defines history as “that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." But Tony later wonders whether history consists of the lies of the victors, the self-delusions of the defeated, (as the teacher notes) or, as he comes to believe, "the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated." That’s pretty dang good, and it really stuck with me. The unreliable memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated. That’s also a good way to describe the book itself.

 

Although the description might make it sound so, this is not a bleak book - it’s achingly sad in some ways, but in the ways that life itself is achingly sad. It is very British in the way that it feels emotionally self-contained, and all the more penetrating because of that. 

 

The Sense of an Ending is probably not for everyone, but I liked it. It is a bit different from the other modern books I have read lately, and so made a nice contrast. Barnes’ writing is delicious and unhurried, yet the book feels just the right length. 

 

The audiobook was narrated by Richard Morant, who did a fine job. It made for a very enjoyable experience. 

 

***

 

This book should not be mistaken for The Sense of an Ending by Frank Kermode. That book is non-fiction, and addresses the way apocalyptic thinking works. I highly recommend reading that one. Apparently, Barnes was asked if he named the book after the Kermode book. Barnes said that he had never heard of the other book, and I have no doubt he is telling the truth. I mean, I don’t think I know anyone who has read Kermode’s book, which is a shame. I wouldn’t say that the books are connected, exactly, but there are definitely some interesting ideas that cross over between them, particularly the way that we make sense of endings (to one the one meaning), and how we sense endings - or think we do.