'The sense of an Ending' by Julian Barnes

I have started to avoid my favourite bookshop, as it happens too often that I buy more books than intended. ‘The sense of an ending’ by Julian Barnes is one of the books that just ended up coming home with me – I had read its back page, its first page 

‘I remember, in no particular order:

-       a shiny inner wrist;

-       steam rising from a wet sink as a hot fying pan is laughingly tossed into it;

-       …

-       bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.

-        

This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.

We live in time – it holds us and moulds us – but I’ve never felt I understood it very well.  …  No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock.  … ‘

These few lines were enough to entice me to buy the book; I wanted to read it in its entirety. Which I did, in only a few days.

This novel – which won the Booker prize in 2011 - reads like a memoir. It’s in two parts; in the first part Tony, retired, divorced, recounts his relationship with his close friends at the all boys school, and how the dynamic changes when Adrian becomes part of the tight circle of friends. He writes about his relationship with Veronica while at college. He remembers the intensity of ethical and other discussions with his friends, with this enigmatic girl he does not really get – he wants a peaceable life. He’s not distraught when the relationship with Verincia ends, surprised and not when his intellectual friend Adrian writes that he is now in a relationship with Veronica.

Tony marries, divorces but is on friendly terms with his wife. ‘Do you leave me because of me?’ he asks. ‘No, I left you because of us.’

It’s a book about memory. The stories we tell ourselves, and how our mind re-constructs events to avoid emotions – shame, embarassment, grief, loss – the events described provide cause for all, yet the author recounts life seemingly unaffected, from a distance.

The second part begins when Tony receives a letter – Veronica’s mother has left him some money and Adrian’s diary. Adrian, who committed suicide decades earlier. Veronica withholds the diary, and Tony pesters her, aiming to wear her down, once again fascinated and puzzled by this woman. ‘You just don’t get it’ Veronica tells him, repeatedly. She does not send him the diary, but a letter he wrote decades earlier – a letter that shatters his version of his younger self. She also sends a copy of one page of the diary, its final sentence ‘Tony is…’ leaving much room for interpretation.

As reader I don’t get it either. Tony’s fascination with Veronica, and the decisions he makes. What IS the story? I’m determined to find out – who is this disabled man called Adrian? What’s the story? Who’s his father? When I finish the book I’m still puzzled, and, like Tony, I don’t get it.

I searched Goodreads, and followed the discussion, potential explanations – is this true? Or not? In a way it’s unsatisfactory – I want to close the book with a sense of an ending, a sense of explanation, a sense of mysteries explained, resolved, sorted. Not in this book. This book is about memory, and the stories we tell ourselves; it portrays the thought patterns of a man determined not to feel, not to get involved, not to suffer – he wants a peaceable life. It’s a book about memory and remembering, and, despite its odd way of ending, I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend it.