REVIEW; The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes http://www guardian !

o u"/boo"s/#$%%/&ul/#'/sense(ending(&ulian(barnes(re)iew% In Nothing to Be Frightened Of, his family memoir cum meditation on mortality, Julian Barnes admits that he and his brother disagree about many details of their childhood. His brother, a philosopher, maintains that memories are so often false that they cannot be trusted without independent verification. I am more trusting, or self!deluding, writes Barnes, so shall continue as if all my memories are true.

"he narrator of his Boo#er longlisted new novella has always made that same reasonable assumption, but the act of revisiting his past in later life challenges his core beliefs about causation, responsibility and the very chain of events that ma#e up his sense of self. "his concise yet open!ended boo# accepts the novelistic challenge of an aside in Nothing to Be Frightened Of$ %e tal# about our memories, but should perhaps tal# more about our forgettings, even if that is a more difficult & or logically impossible & feat.

'i#e so many of Barnes(s narrators, "ony %ebster is resigned to his ordinariness) even satisfied with it, in a bloody!minded way. In one light, his life has been a success$ a career followed by comfortable retirement, an amiable marriage followed by amicable divorce, a child seen safely into her own domestic security. On harsher inspection, I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and succeeded & and how pitiful that was. Barnes is brutally incisive on the diminishments of age$ now that the sense of his own ending is coming into focus, "ony apprehends that the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss , that he has already e*perienced the first death$ that of the possibility of change.

But li#e all of us, he has carried his youth inside him into adulthood, fi*ed in vivid memory. 'ooming largest in his personal mythology is his brilliant, tragic, +amus!reading schoolfriend ,drian -another echo of Nothing to Be Frightened Of here$ in that boo# Barnes remembers a similar friend by the fitting but unli#ely name of ,le* Brilliant.. It is a solicitor(s letter informing him that, /0 years on, he has been left ,drian(s diary in a will, that sets "ony to e*amining what he thin#s his life has been.

"he novella divides into two parts, the first being "ony(s memoir of boo#!hungry, se*! hungry si*th form days, and the painful failure of his first relationship at university, with the spi#y, enigmatic 1eronica. It(s a lightly s#etched portrait of aw#wardness and repression at a time when yes, it was the 20s, but only for some people, only in certain

parts of the country . In one of the boo#(s many slow!rumbling ironies, the second section undermines the veracity of these e*pertly drawn memories, as "ony reopens his relationship with 1eronica, a woman he had previously edited out of his life story.

It was a slightly odd thing , he cautiously admits, to pretend to his e*!wife when they first met that 1eronica had never e*isted -and then later give such a one!sided account of her that she(s #nown within their marriage as "he Fruitca#e .. Barnes builds a powerful atmosphere of shame and silence around the past as "ony tries to trac# down the elusive diary, which promises, as missing diaries tend to do, some revelation or closure. In a boo# obsessed with evidence and documentation & verification for unreliable, sub3ective memory & the most powerful depth charge turns out to be something forgotten yet irrefutable that "ony has #ept from himself for /0 years. %ith it Barnes puts the rest of the narrative, and his unreliable yet sincere narrator, tantalisingly into doubt.

"here(s the atmosphere of a 4oald 5ahl short story to "ony(s 6uest) the sense that, with enigmatic emails and mysterious meetings in the O*ford 7treet John 'ewis brasserie, he is somehow being played or manipulated by others. 8ou don(t get it. 8ou never did, 1eronica tells him repeatedly. , secret permeates the te*t, heavily withheld. But this schematic element pales beside the emotional force of "ony(s re!evaluation of the past, his rush of new memories in response to fresh perspectives, and the unsettling sense of the limits of self!#nowledge. ,s ever, Barnes e*cels at colouring everyday reality with his narrator(s uni6ue sub3ectivity, without sacrificing any of its vivid precision$ only he could invest a discussion about hand!cut chips in a gastropub with so much wry poignancy.

%ith its patterns and repetitions, scrutinising its own wor#ings from every possible angle, the novella becomes a highly wrought meditation on ageing, memory and regret. But it gives as much resonance to what is un#nown and unspo#en & lost to memory & as it does to the engine of its own plot. Fiction, Barnes writes in Nothing to Be Frightened Of, wants to tell all stories, in all their contrariness, contradiction and irresolvability . "he 7ense of an 9nding honours that impossible desire in a way that is novel, fertile and memorable. ........... Boo" Re)iew: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes http$::www.huffingtonpost.com:peter!clothier:boo#!review!the!sense!of!;b;<0=>/<>.html I read the last pages of "he 7ense of an 9nding by Julian Barnes before turning out the light last night. I wanted to li#e it more than I actually did. I wanted to li#e the narrator

more than I did. 'oo#ing bac# on events from the perspective of approaching age, he(s too often self!pitying and obtuse. I was wearied by his obsessive self!analysis!!and his faulty analysis of others. I was turned off by his se*ual passivity, and his passive aggressive relationship with the former girlfriend, 1eronica, which forms the core narrative of the boo#. ,nd even though I myself recall such a relationship as a schoolboy!!or perhaps because?!!I found his hero!worship of the rather nerdy, snobbish and generally unattractive ,drian to be unwarranted by the character of his would!be but never!6uite friend, whose intellectual superiority he, the narrator, seemed to ta#e for granted.

7o I wanted "ony to be more of a mensch. I wanted him to ta#e some responsibility for his early, failed marriage to @argaret, the non!mysterious woman in his life, and their daughter, 7usie. I wanted him to stand up to the mysterious one, 1eronica, whom he petulantly wounds, instead, with a spiteful letter that she returns to him, spitefully, when he tries to reconnect with her in later years. 7he wants to throw his inade6uacies, as a man, as a lover, bac# in his face

I will say, though, that I was intrigued by the twist at the end, which e*plained the mystery he was trying to unravel!!in order to ma#e some sense of a life in which he remains perpetually adrift. ,s 1eronica tells him constantly -and a bit irritatingly, to this reader as well as to "ony himself. he 3ust doesn(t get it. %hen he does, finally, get it, it(s fran#ly a complete surprise, but one that does create the sense of an ending.

,nd finally, I was not much engaged, as others apparently were -the boo# was a N8" best seller. by the philosophical ramblings about time and the fragmentary nature of memory. I found little that was actually new and original in the treatment of a theme that has been with us, in modern literature, at least since @arcel Aroust(s great masterpiece. I(m perhaps a little simple!minded about this, but it seemed to me that the boo# was rather more heavy on the telling of the theme than on its showing. ,nd the mournful tone of the narrator(s reflections on it left me, yes, wanting more strength of character from him, in the face of his evident suffering. I wanted him to be, well, a bit more Buddhist in the way he loo#s bac# on his life. .......... Julian Barnes and the E*otions of English*en By 'I97' 7+HI''INB94 Aublished$ November =0, C0==

http$::www.nytimes.com:C0==:==:=<:boo#s:review:the!sense!of!an!ending!by!3ulian! barnes!boo#!review.html?pagewantedDallE;rD0FhGH @any literary careers have been made, and doubtless more will be, by conveying the inwardness, aw#wardness and social an*iety that constrict British mores li#e a very tightly wrapped cummerbund. "his suffocating self!consciousness lies at the heart of British humor, whether in the farcical scramble of trying to #eep up appearances or the risible but sincere terror of being moc#ed I which sniping 9nglish schoolboys still fear, even when theyJre grown up, bald and >0. It ta#es a brave author to mine this dynamic for pathos instead of sniggers. 9velyn %augh did it in KBrideshead 4evisited,L as did Ahilip 'ar#in in KJill.L -"hin# of the scholarship boy John Memp, who Ktingled and shudderedL with embarrassment when his posh O*ford roommateJs friend caught him loo#ing at her with desire.. ,nd MaNuo Ishiguro did it in K"he 4emains of the 5ay,L which won the @an Boo#er AriNe in =OPO. Now, with his powerfully compact new novel, K"he 7ense of an 9ndingL I which has 3ust won the C0== Boo#er AriNe I Julian Barnes ta#es his place among the subtly assertive practitioners of this 6uiet art.

Barnes, it goes without saying, is a much!decorated veteran of 9nglish literatureJs emotional battlefields, one who has covered this terrain many times before. But in K"he 7ense of an 9ndingL I his =/th wor# of fiction I he engages with the untidy collisions of the human struggle more directly than ever, even as he remains characteristically light on his feet. In many of his earlier novels, Barnes tac#led se*ual 3ealousy, insecurity and competition in an almost 3aunty manner. %hen a husband in KBefore 7he @et @eL guNNles wine and weeps, tormented by thoughts of his wifeJs past lovers, a friend dryly remar#s, K5oesnJt sound much fun.L In K"al#ing It OverL and K'ove, 9tc.,L in which two men ta#e turns marrying the same woman, all three members of the mQnage are too sophisticated to show much pi6ue. ,nd in more elaborately scaffolded novels li#e KFlaubertJs AarrotL and K,rthur and Beorge,L Barnes encases any sharp!edged 6uestions of love in the sheathing of plots about historical figures. But in K"he 7ense of an 9nding,L he has dispensed with detachment and shed his armor plating.

"he new boo# is a mystery of memory and missed opportunity. "ony %ebster, a cautious, divorced man in his 20s who Khad wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded,L receives an une*pected be6uest from a woman heJd met only once, /0 years earlier. "he mother of his college girlfriend, 1eronica, has be6ueathed him RS00 I a legacy that unsettles "ony, pushing him to get in touch with 1eronica -their relationship had ended badly. and see# answers to certain unresolved 6uestions.

Had he loved 1eronica? -,t the time, it was an emotion he had lac#ed the spine to own

up to.. %hat had happened to the energetic boy he used to be, Kboo#!hungry, se*! hungry, meritocratic, anarchistic,L who thought of himself as Kbeing #ept in some #ind of holding pen, waiting to be releasedL into an engaged adult life of Kpassion and danger, ecstasy and despairL? ,nd what ever became of the friend he and 1eronica both #new bac# then, a brainy, idealistic boy named ,drian Finn? Bradually, "ony assembles his willfully forgotten past impressions and actions, 3oining together the lin#s that connect him to these people, as if trying to form a Kchain of individual responsibilitiesL that might e*plain how it happened that his lifeJs modest wages had resulted in Kthe accumulation, the multiplication, of loss.L

,drian had impressed "ony when he announced his e*asperation with their countryJs national pose of perpetual insouciance. KI hate the way the 9nglish have of not being serious about being serious, I really hate it,L ,drian declared. Hearing this, "ony had felt a Kthrob of vindication.L But his vindication was unfounded) it belied his own noncommittal nature.

,drianJs indifference to playing it cool somehow made him the leader of the boysJ cli6ue when they were teenagers) he became the one they loo#ed up to. 8et "ony never emulated ,drian, and was guilty of the pose ,drian deplored$ pretending not to care. He pays for this failure again and again, from his C0s to his 20s. K5oes character develop over time?L "ony as#s himself, wondering at the Klarger holding penL that has come to contain his adult life. @aybe character freeNes sometime between the ages of C0 and <0, he speculates. K,nd after that, weJre 3ust stuc# with what weJve got. %eJre on our own. If so, that would e*plain a lot of lives, wouldnJt it? ,nd also I if this isnJt too grand a word I our tragedy.L

"onyJs tragedy, Kif this isnJt too grand a word,L is that he avoids deep connection rather than embracing it, for fear of ris#ing its loss. In college he did not consummate his relationship with 1eronica, telling himself that abstinence spared him burdensome conversations about Kwhere the relationship was heading.L He pretends that this was his choice$ K7omething in me was attracted to women who said no.L But /0 years later, her motherJs gift reawa#ens "onyJs memories of steamy Kinfra!se*L with 1eronica I sensual fumblings that too# place while they were mostly clothed. KAart of me hadnJt minded not Tgoing the whole way,J L he decides. It had protected him from Kan overwhelming closeness I couldnJt handle.L

Not long after the brea#up with 1eronica, "ony had met, married and -eventually. been divorced from a nonenigmatic woman with Kclear edges,L someone he #new he wouldnJt

mind losing terribly much. In @argaret, he sought a mature, KpeaceableL life. 5ecades later, he sees the fraudulence in that discretion. K%e thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. %e imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. %hat we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.L

But who does "ony enfold into his KweL? His agoniNed analysis is entirely self!referential, as solitary and armored as the man himself. 5ecades earlier, "ony had accused 1eronica of an Kinability to imagine anyone elseJs feelings or emotional life,L but it was he, not she, who was incapable of loo#ing outside his own head. BarnesJs unreliable narrator is a mystery to himself, which ma#es the novel one unbro#en, siNNling, satisfying fuse. Its puNNle of past causes is decoded by a man who is himself a puNNle. "ony resembles the people he fears, Kwhose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost,L and who wound others with a hypersensitivity that is insensitive to anything but their own needs. KI have an instinct for survival, for self!! preservation,L he reflects. KAerhaps this is what 1eronica called cowardice and I called being peaceable.L

K"he 7ense of an 9ndingL is a short boo#, but not a slight one. In it Julian Barnes reveals crystalline truths that have ta#en a lifetime to harden. He has honed their edges, and polished them to a high gleam. ....

BOOM 491I9%$ T"he 7ense of an 9ndingJ By Julian Barnes ,lfred ,. Mnopf, UC<,OS, =>2 pages http$::www.washingtontimes.com:news:C0==:oct:CP:boo#!review!the!sense!of!an!ending: By +orinna 'othar ! 7pecial to "he %ashington "imes Friday, October CP, C0== 9arly in Julian BarnesT novel K"he 7ense of an 9nding,L a teacher as#s, K%hat is history?L 'ondon teenager "ony %ebster answers, KHistory is the lies of the victors.L "onyJs brilliant friend, ,drian Finn, Ka tall, shy boy,L answers the same 6uestion with KHistory is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inade6uacies of documentation.L ,drianJs answer is the leitmotif of this deliciously intriguing novel, as "ony, now a 20! year!old retiree, recalls the events of his life, only to discover that what he remembers

and what actually happened are not one and the same. "he students were Kboo#!hungry, se*!hungry, meritocratic, anarchisticL) they were Kpretentious ! what else is youth for?L ,fter graduation, they went their separate ways, but ,drian remained the philosophical touchstone for "ony. "ony fell in love with the elusive and enigmatic 1eronica Ford. He e*plains that Kthis is what used to happen$ you met a girl, you were attracted to her, you tried to ingratiate yourself, you would invite her to a couple of social events ! for instance, the pub ! then as# her out on her own, then again, and after a good!night #iss of variable heat, you were somehow officially Tgoing outJ with her. Only when you were semi!publicly committed did you discover what her se*ual policy might be. ,nd sometimes this meant her body would be as tightly guarded as a fisheries e*clusion None.L 1eronica and "ony brea# up, but Kthe first e*perience of love, even if it doesnJt wor# out ! perhaps especially when it doesnJt wor# out ! promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life.L ,fter the brea# with "ony, 1eronica and ,drian become a couple, while "ony goes to ,merica, where he Kwaited on tables, painted fences, did gardening and delivered cars across several states. In those years before mobile phones, email and 7#ype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system #nown as the postcard. Other methods ! the long!distance phone call, the telegram ! were mar#ed TFor 9mergency Vse Only.J K "he emergency that recalled him to 9ngland was ,drianJs suicide, which "ony and his friends viewed as a deliberate philosophical act, as ,drian believed that Klife is a gift bestowed without anyone as#ing for itL and if a person decides to renounce this gift, Kit is a moral and human duty to act on the conse6uences of that decision.L "ony chose to forgo the dreams and aspirations of his youth$ He married but later divorced amicably and remained good friends with his e*!wife, @argaret. K'ife went by,L and he came to understand that history is Kmore the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.L KOr perhaps itJs the same parado* again$ the history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet itJs the most deli6uescent. %e live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isnJt it? But if we canJt understand time, canJt grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history ! even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?L %hen "ony une*pectedly receives a be6uest of S00 pounds, a letter and a diary from 1eronicaJs mother, a woman he remembered from a single meeting one rather miserable wee#end when 1eronica too# him home to meet her family, as Ka carefree, rather dashing woman who bro#e an egg, coo#ed me another, and told me not to ta#e any GguffH from her daughter,L he is nonplussed.

"ony delves into half!forgotten memories of his relationships with 1eronica and ,drian as he tries to solve the mystery behind the be6uest. KIt stri#es 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.L 1eronica re!enters his life. 7he meets with "ony but refuses to give him the diary. %hat he discovers indirectly through her and the letter shatters the calm of his life and the substance of his memories. "he unraveling of the mystery of @rs. FordJs be6uest is suspenseful, but suspense is touched with whimsy, humorous asides and understanding. In the end, "ony concludes, KGHHistory isnJt the lies of the victors W ItJs more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.L K"he 7ense of an 9nding,L recent winner of the C0== @an Boo#er AriNe, is a novel for grown!ups. On the surface, itJs a simple story, but one with comple* and subtle undertones. 'aced with @r. BarnesJ trademar# wit and graceful writing, "onyJs recollections bring to mind issues of memory and aging as well as the humor in situations that the young consider of passionate importance. KG%Hhat you end up remembering isnJt always the same as what you have witnessed.L How true. X +orinna 'othar is a writer and critic in %ashington.

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