I have read other writings of Julian Barnes; therefore, the power and magnitude of this novel didn’t surprise me.

In the story, Tony Webster, the main character, starts his young adult life in a boy’s school during the sixties like a fish out of water and feels just as stunned, fixated, and inept a teenager the rest of his life, all the way up to the time when he is sixty-plus. Tony’s main problem, in the beginning, the way I saw it, was getting impressed by people who threw their superiorities around even if they didn’t actually brag. This perception made him feel lesser than his three close friends and admire Adrian who later came into their group. When Tony’s conceited girlfriend, Veronica, leaves Tony for Adrian, Tony’s thoughts about the two become an obsession, even though he manages to lead a fairly normal life with a family of his own. Talking more about the plot would be giving it away; still the twist at the end is like a joke that life played on Tony.

Tony’s character is one a reader can sympathize or even empathize with very easily. For one thing, he undervalues himself. Then, he lives practically inside his mind almost always. He recalls and rethinks everything, every memory, over and over, again. Then, when he is fixated on something, he doesn’t let it rest. He gets at it and at people who are involved, even annoyingly, most of the time deciding on intricate results, then giving them up and inventing new suppositions. Because he sees himself as dull and ordinary, he is blind to the complex shortcomings of others. This view makes him misjudge people and himself even though he is a deep thinker. When all is said and done, and as much as his repeated e-mailing Veronica exasperated me, I was awed and amazed at his opinions on the workings of aged brains, which I could easily identify with.

Tony’s character alone is the one that provides all the turns in the telling of the story, rather than the action in it, even though there is also some action and the plot carries a central secret throughout.

The story is told from the first-person point of view in Tony’s voice, which made me suspect that he may be an unreliable narrator while I read the story, but he isn’t that. Tony’s voice, I figured out, is distinctively subjective as he is precise in telling and retelling the actual events, but his opinions of them keep reversing themselves as he grapples with doubts about everyone and everything including his own memory at the end.

The storytelling is exquisite as is the use of language and the construction of the plot. I am so glad I read this book.

the literary quality of a story and the complex and complicated character of the protagonist.

is Julian Barnes, an English writer, lexicographer, and journalist. He has won four Man Booker Awards.

I loved it, but it is not for people who love fast continuous action and out-of-this-world plots. Those who like what's literary may enjoy it more.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Sense of an Ending (Borzoi Books)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Feb 22, 2018 at 3:50pm • Submit your own review...