{"id":1878,"date":"2015-09-25T16:12:59","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T16:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/?p=1878"},"modified":"2015-09-25T16:12:59","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T16:12:59","slug":"fiction-review-the-sense-of-an-ending-by-julian-barnes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/2015\/09\/fiction-review-the-sense-of-an-ending-by-julian-barnes\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction Review: ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"My book group makes me nervous. Very often the choice of book is something I just can\u2019t get through, despite being well written (Wolf Hall), or it\u2019s something I would have enjoyed a few years ago but find boring now (The Mayor of Casterbridge), or I find it completely unbelievable (The Neon Rain), or I think it\u2019s pretentious nonsense (most of them). In return, I inflict dragons and gender-bending aliens on them, so I suppose it evens out in the end. But occasionally, it\u2019s an unreservedly enjoyable read, as here.<\/p>\n

This is probably not a book I would have picked up voluntarily (in my experience, anything within hailing distance of the Man Booker prizes is to be avoided at all costs), but I found it a pleasant, easy read. Tony is an elderly man looking back to his youth and certain events there, and he seems a nice enough, if ordinary, bloke. He hasn\u2019t done much with his life, but he\u2019s contented enough, gets on well with his ex-wife and his daughter, doesn\u2019t have too many regrets. And then, out of the blue, he\u2019s left some money and a letter in the will of someone he can\u2019t even remember. And this opens up a whole can of worms for him, relating to the girlfriend of his youth and a schoolfriend who killed himself.<\/p>\n

Since the book is written is the first person, there\u2019s the issue of Tony being an unreliable narrator, but even so, there are some events which he blithely sails past in his recital which any normal person would have remembered in a bit more detail than that. Could he seriously have forgotten what he said and did? Even though it was decades ago, and self-preservation blurs the edges considerably, it\u2019s hard to believe.<\/p>\n

The revelations at the end are not particularly original, or even interesting, and, to be honest, the author has to jump through hoops to keep some facts hidden until the very end, and this makes the characters behave in quite incredible ways. Veronica, for instance, the former girlfriend – why on earth would she not simply tell Tony what had happened, instead of expecting him to divine it, somehow? So the plot went off the rails at this point. Nevertheless, it was still an enjoyable read, and there\u2019s plenty of thought-provoking depth in there for those who like that sort of thing. Four stars.<\/p><\/div>\n

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My book group makes me nervous. Very often the choice of book is something I just can\u2019t get through, despite being well written (Wolf Hall), or it\u2019s something I would have enjoyed a few years ago but find boring now (The Mayor of Casterbridge), or I find it completely unbelievable (The Neon Rain), or I think it\u2019s pretentious nonsense (most of them). In return, I inflict dragons and gender-bending aliens on them, so I suppose it evens out in the end. But occasionally, it\u2019s an unreservedly enjoyable read, as here. This is probably not a book I would have picked up voluntarily (in my experience, anything within hailing distance of the Man Booker prizes is to be avoided at all costs), but I found it a pleasant, easy read. Tony is an elderly man looking back to his youth and certain events there, and he seems a nice enough, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63],"tags":[158],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1880,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions\/1880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulinemross.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}