The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes. Random House, 150pp.

Even if I hadn't enjoyed this book as much as I did, I still would have been thrilled that Julian Barnes had claimed the 2011 Man Booker Prize. An author with an eclectic body of work, I view the success more as a nod towards his career then any singular work. This isn't to say The Sense of An Ending isn't a good read, merely that Mr. Barnes' ouevre has been so impressive that it's pretty scandalous he hasn't won already. Here, he gives us a  book so subtle that it doesn't immediately scream "award". It's not a sprawling fictional biography of Thomas More (see Wolf Hall) or as structurally ambitious as, say, The Blind Assassin (which won in 2000). Don't come to this book looking for smoke and mirrors. There are few obvious tricks to dazzle you; it is, to quote one reviewer, "a work of art, in a minor key".



The novel's ambitions lie in its themes, not in its style or plot. A subtle, affecting exploration of memory and history, it's a good example of why no one's first hand account of a situation can ever be trusted.
It's narrator, Tony Webster, is reflecting on his life, particularly on his spot in a love triangle with his ex-girlfriend Veronica and his school chum Adrian Finn. To say more would only ruin the suspense but suffice it to say, perspective is everything and few of us who are afforded a bird's eye view of our own lives. Tony Webster admits early on his memory is unreliable, a fact underscored by his (too) persistent fears about Alzheimers. He barely trusts anything he knows. For him - for all of us - the past remains too far removed, existing merely at the intersection between "the imperfections of memory and the inadequacies of documentation."

As a lover of sparse writing - the "less is more" dictum - I found The Sense of an Ending is beautifully concise. Perhaps this is also an example of a good marriage between content and form: Tony Webster is not the most introspective of chaps, or at least he's introspective about the wrong things. He has his obsessions - time, memory, Veronica, Adrian - and he lacks the willpower to vary from them. Numerous times he remarks that he will not discuss the lives or fates of other characters because they aren't part of "this story". It's equally likely that Tony doesn't know their fates himself. His school friends disappear from the book and his daughter never quite manages to make an arrival (although, as Tony insists on reminding us, the two of them "get on well").

The novel(la)'s short length lends itself well for repeated readings, which is almost a must. I'll confess I had to read the last five pages a few times before I understood the full implications of the final turn of the screw. Twist endings can be dangerous in that they become all people remember (ala The Sixth Sense) but this particular twist ending has the unsettling aura of the far-too-casual revelation. Tony doesn't spend a lot of time on it: he devotes only nineteen lines of prose to his reaction, cutting his account short as if he can't bare to discuss the implications of his new-found wisdom. Wisely, neither Mr. Barnes or Tony Webster tell us how to feel about what he have learned, leaving each of us to determine the impact for ourselves.