#10 The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but — mainly — to ourselves.”
The Sense of an Ending runs on an extremely interesting premise, the fickle nature of memories. Throughout the book, our narrator keeps iterating that this version of the story is only as he remembers it. In doing so, he absolves himself of narrating accurate depictions of these events, blaming the mercurial nature of his memories for any transgressions. The events in his life, seem to be an inexplicable comedy of errors until you slowly start drawing connections, seeing through the narrator’s shallow words.
The Sense of an Ending is about Tony, an extraordinarily ordinary man. Average intelligence, average marriage, amicable divorce, settled-down daughter, Tony embodies the phrase ‘nothing special’. When he finds himself named in an unlikely will, he begins reminiscing an old flame and the whirlwind events that followed their separation, in search of clues. Which leaves us, the reader, in murky memories that get increasingly difficult to believe.
“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn’t turn out to be like Literature.”
Tony’s affair with Veronica, forms a large part of the narrative. His odd obsession/relationship with Adrian, his ‘best friend’ forms another. And they’re extremely curious relationships. Initially he is extremely nonchalant, denying they meant anything significant to him. He even neglected to tell his wife about Veronica initially. But through the deceit and forced mockery, moments of honesty emerge. The intense shame and regret Tony always came to associate with Veronica and Adrian shine through the contrived words of narrator, through all his denial.
“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”
My sister had read this book just before I did, and only when we compared notes did I realize the scores of unanswered questions the book left in it’s wake. Secret hand-waves, references to blood money and Tony’s refusal to call a spade, a spade, left me a little disoriented in the end. The internet wasn’t of much help either. There were so many interpretations into what the ending could possibly mean. The mystery of it all and the certainty that other than Barnes, no-one would ever really know what went down all those years ago, significantly added to the allure of the book. In fact, it left me with philosophical questions like does the truth of the events really matter, considering their lives where now reduced to faded trifling memories.
Running just about hundred and fifty pages long, this is the kind of book you can read in a single sitting. It’s a seemingly ordinary tale with fascinating overtones. I really liked the book, and find myself growing fonder of it every time I remember moments of it. Interestingly, Julian Barnes seems to have predicted the heart growing fonder/memories getting romanticized with this one.

