Published: 01/03/2012
One of our finest contemporary novelists delivers an accomplished novella about the subjectivity of memory and the psychological barriers that we put up against the truth. Written in crisp, elegant prose and boasting multi-layered characterisation, The Sense of an Ending shimmers with insight and wisdom.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit.
Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.
Now Tony is retired. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody.
Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove.
It’s an unusual author who can claim to have written a highly praised novel of literary merit partly narrated by a woodworm but Julian Barnes’s diverse output is anything but conventional.
His novels range from his debut, the linear coming-of-age story Metroland, to more experimental novels including his breakthrough success Flaubert’s Parrot, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, the three-person love triangle explored in Talking it Over and Love Etc. and more recent meditations on temporality: The Sense of an Ending (for which he won the 2011 Booker Prize) and The Noise of Time.
His fabulous new novel, The Only Story, is out now.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099564973
Number of pages: 160
Weight: 145 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 12 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
"A masterpiece... I would urge you to read - and re-read - The Sense of an Ending." - Daily Telegraph
"Mesmerising... the concluding scenes grip like a thriller - a whodunit of memory and morality." - Independent
"A very fine book, skilfully plotted, boldly conceived... Barnes has achieved...something of universal importance." - Justin Cartwright, Observer
"A precise, poignant portrait of the costs and benefits of time passing, of friendship, of love. A small masterpiece." - Erica Wagner, The Times
"A wonderful story that is all too human and all so real" - Irish Times
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I enjoyed this book. It's shorter than I expected, easily readable in a few days. It really makes you consider how in time, memories fade and become how you want them to be to make them more palatable, we can all... More
“Memory reality and mortality”
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