Witnesses
are never reliable and the biggest question perhaps is if you yourself are not
the most unreliable witness. People do not only look to history from their own
point of view, events also get distorted in our memories. The sharp edges of
our bad behavior are softened, the order of events gets changed and the focus
shifts, so some details disappear and other are highlighted out of context.
Toby
Webster is a divorced pensioner and he looks back on his schoolyears and when
he was a student. At school he and his friends met Adrian and the four boys
become a group who read philosophical books and talk about the meaning of life.
A particular interesting topic for them is a schoolmate who hanged himself.
When they
all go off to university, they grow apart and when Tony comes back from a trip
to America, he gets the message that Adrian also killed himself.
Now, so
many years later, Toby receives an unexpected letter that brings back all the
memories of the event and what lead up to it. The question of course is if his
memories can be trusted at all.
The sense
of an ending was the winner of the Booker
prize in 2011. I must admit I never read anything by Julian Barnes before,
but somebody mentioned this book and I am very glad I read it, because it is
such a beautiful book. It has only 150 pages, but each of these 150 pages is
perfect. Perfect in building the story and perfect in building sentences.
I loved the
precise wordings and the dialogue. Only at the end it becomes clear what
happened, and then you realize how well this story is built. Each scene has its
place, each remark and each observation serves a purpose.
The only
thing I found less believable was Veronica and the way she behaved after all
those years, but that is the only minor thingy I have against this book,
because The sense of an ending is a
beautiful book that I enjoyed immensely.
Published in 2011
Pages 150
This is one of those books that when I finished reading it I wanted to read it again...knowing the truth of what really happened. I liked the idea that everyone has their own version of history...which makes you wonder which version is the truth. Barnes' writing is amazing. This is the only book by him that I've ever read, but I really liked it. Great post!
ReplyDeleteIt is also the first book by Barnes I ever read, but now I have three other books by him waiting on my shelves, this is not the last book by this writer I read!
DeleteKind regards,
I can't wait to hear what you think about his other books! Which one are you going to read first?
DeleteI think I will start with Arthur and George, although Flaubert's parrot also sounds very good. One of these two!
DeleteKind regards,