THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
By Julian Barnes
Jonathan Cape. 160 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978 0 224 094 153
This book, whose opening sentence begins ‘I remember’, pulls the reader into a world of memory and history.
It causes the reader to question past experience and to evaluate the significance of words and gesture. If that seems too remote and other-worldly for you, then be assured, this is a very good read. Short and beautifully written, The Sense of an Ending deservedly won the Booker Prize last month.
From the lawyer
Tony Webster narrates the book. Retired after a moderately successful career, divorced, but on good terms with ex-wife and daughter, he says: ‘I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and succeeded — and how pitiful that was’. We learn of his sixth-form years and university days; what seems a simple and unambitious life is laid bare. But when he receives a packet from a lawyer which puts him back in touch with an old girlfriend he is forced to re-examine that past.
What emerges challenges Tony’s flattering version of history and makes him consider his responsibility for tragedies he had not understood at the time. There is an open-endedness about the book, which means that the story lingers in the mind. Who was to blame? Why did events take that turn? What does one do with remorse and regret?
Yearning for significance
Christians, read this book! It is full of yearning for significance and certainty; it depicts the real struggles that so many face. I hope you will enjoy it, but I hope more that it will help you to remember what it is like not to know the Creator God, the Beginning and the End. And, in remembering this desolation, may you care more and pray more for those without hope.
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