5 Oct 2011

The Sense of an Ending - by Julian Barnes

I am not sure about this book. It is basically the [fictional] life story of a guy. It is told in two [long] chapters. The first covers his school days into early adulthood; the second is set in his old age and is all about him figuring out what really happened in earlier years and understanding why various people behaved like they did. There is an interesting twist at the end, which makes some sense of it all and provides a real ending [closure] to the story.

I essentially enjoyed reading the book, but felt vaguely unsatisfied when I had finished.

I will now wait, with interest for the Booker Prize announcement ...

2 comments:

Kirsty said...

I read this a couple of weeks ago, as well. I liked how the story unfolded, but what niggled me was how unfair the characters and Tony himself were about his understanding of events. He was lambasted for not realising that Adrian had a son with the mother, when nothing really pointed to that until it was revealed. Tony was quite naive, of course, but he took a lot more blame than could be reasonably apportioned, I thought. Other than that - beautifully written.

Colin said...

Good points. Also I failed to comment on the excellent quality of the writing.