Unlike scenes in a cinema, life that fades away into the past is not available for playback. Recollections are a collage of overlapping images, colours fading into sepia, hues draining into grey, realities crisscrossing and blurring with wistful fiction. Like vignettes snatched from visions in a hypnagogic dream, memories ebb and surge, glisten and wane, change shape and colour, lending stranger meanings to the past. More than retrieval, memory may be a process of ongoing authorship, forever rearranging the fragments of experience into new versions of the past. Julian Barnes’ short novel The Sense of an Ending meditates on the malleability of memory in a slow-rising cadence that gathers into a crescendo chilling in retrospect.
The book suggests that memory can be bitingly alien to the plain truths of the past: “what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.” We begin with Tony Webster reminiscing about his life and his childhood friend Adrian, returning to the school where they met. Tony, Alex and Colin are close friends at a ‘girl-less’ school. They are cynical and irreverent and wear their watches on the inside of their wrists, a shared gesture intended to mark themselves out as different from others. When Adrian joins the school and draws the attention of the class with his unusually philosophical remarks, he is inducted into the clique of friends. Adrian, however, refuses to imbibe the mocking attitude of the other three. His seriousness is particularly evident in the history classroom, where questions of evidence, interpretation and the knowability of the past are still intellectual exercises; years later, Tony will find himself living inside them. Indeed, Adrian carries the attitude right into his youth: “I hate the way English have of not being serious about being serious. I really hate it.”
Released from the school into the larger pen of life, the friends go their different ways, promising to remain lifelong friends and writing to each other. Adrian goes to Cambridge on a scholarship and Tony takes up history at Bristol, where he meets Veronica, an upper-class girl whom he finds prudish and enigmatic. Somehow the Sixties refuse to make things easier for Tony: despite the freedoms of the decade, Veronica keeps physical intimacy firmly within limits. Eventually, she invites Tony to spend a weekend with her posh family. Tony finds her father and brother condescending and, worse, feels that Veronica is more on their side than his. He feels almost humiliated and is hugely relieved when he returns after the weekend. “I remember that I had a bloody good long shit.” Tony relates these discomforts with such disarming candour that, for now, we have little reason to distinguish what he remembers from what he merely concluded.
Soon after, Veronica is introduced to Adrian. Tony later receives a letter from Adrian asking his permission to go out with her. Tony doesn’t take it kindly and remembers writing to them in bitterness, hoping that time will take its revenge on both. Tony leaves for a leisurely tour of the States and only on his return learns that time had indeed taken its revenge: Adrian had committed suicide. But that is not all, it seems.
Many years later, well into his retirement, Tony learns that Veronica’s mother has left him £500—‘blood money’, as he comes to regard it—and the diary of his long-dead friend Adrian. For Tony, who has always considered himself a staid, peaceable being, ignoring “those lulling and undermining what-ifs”, life takes unsettling and murky turns as his own curse returns to haunt him. What begins to unravel is not merely his recollection of the past, but the comfortable idea he has formed of himself. The bitterness that produced Tony’s letter has faded from his memory; the letter itself has not. He takes frantic plunges into the tunnels of the past in search of meanings, only to discover how elusive history could be. “We live with such easy assumptions, don’t we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it’s all much odder than this. Who was it that said memory is what we thought we’d forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn’t act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it’s not convenient—it’s not useful—to believe this; it doesn’t help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.”
Barnes opens the book with a succession of apparently disconnected images: “I remember, in no particular order….” However, the reader is lulled into complacency by the charming account of childhood followed by the oafish naïveté of youth that fills the first part of the story. Tony’s very candour encourages us to mistake an apparently honest narrator for a reliable one. The malleability of memory, the skulduggery of the mind, doesn’t start haunting us till we begin the next half, when Tony starts meandering in time, questioning the incidents, intentions and emotions of his quasi-forgotten past. His intimate tone is almost conspiratorial as he philosophises and re-examines the past, sowing seeds of suspicion in the reader’s mind as well as his own. Barnes does not merely make Tony an unreliable narrator; he makes the reader an unreliable judge. “When we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”
At the heart of this treatise on the elasticity of memory lies a wickedly insistent theme of betrayal, gathering force towards a startling climax. There are many betrayals in the story, some clear and some inferred, and by the time the last words are read no one is sure who has been most betrayed, amid the perennial pounding on the ramparts of memory.
The slenderness of The Sense of an Ending is deceptive. Barnes compresses questions of memory, history, responsibility and self-deception into a novel that scarcely seems to bear their weight. His wry, lucid prose keeps these questions from becoming ponderous; they emerge instead from the incidents, embarrassments and evasions of an ordinary life. Through the candy floss of memory, Barnes deals in ‘damage’, death and betrayal almost in an undertone. The novel is fully worth the prize it almost didn’t receive.
The Sense of an Ending
Author: Julian Barnes
One Grain Amongst the Storm 
High time nostalgia were put to some seriously critical analysis! I am provoked by the immensely interesting argument that the book tries to make. Personally have always been in two minds regarding the authenticity of the past that we so often quote and rely on for justifying or ridiculing the state of affairs in the present. Thanks for this review. Hope to read it sometime. Sounds like a fresh take on the way we have come to think of ourselves as a people!
Amit, it is a compelling book that has made many read it twice over. I have myself pondered at the malleability of memory and discovered I am no more too sure of many memories from my past now!
As usual, a lyrical review that teases the reader into going out for the book at once 🙂
Thank you, Suresh, for your belief in me.
Interesting…would love to grab this book at the earliest…I love books which have a psychological undercurrents running through them 😉
Once you grab the book, the book is going to grab you!
You’re a prolific reader, it appears, Umshankar! I haven’t read Julian Barnes’ as yet. Your review seems to suggest that this is a book full of emotions and that’s the stuff I find compelling. I’m going to download soon and have a read.
Julian Barnes’ book is more of an analysis of the twilight between emotions and the truths. Thank you, Corrine. Yes, I read books a lot.
Intriguing. I am actually being introduced to many new authors by your blog and I am happy for that 🙂 btw, liked the new look of the blog.
Wow! I am glad you like the new colour scheme as well as the review. Julian Barnes will set you thinking.
Sounds good. I love the language you use in your reviews. Although I don’t really read many books on relationships and romance, this book sounds interesting with all the undercurrents in it. Might just pick it up!
It is not a romance book; far from it. It is more about perceptions and slipperiness of memories. Thank you, Richa.
“what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.” I would probably buy this book based on just this statement. 🙂 What a powerful statement.
Just the other day, my brothers and I were reminiscing about our Nanaji, who was something of an eccentric genius. We got talking about one particular incident and our memories of it were so different. I now think that we must have seen something totally different.
Once again a great review , Umashankar.
PS: May I borrow this book?
True, memories have a dreamlike quality. And I haven’t read a better book that has captured the essence.
Thank you, Sudhagee; I’ll take care of your postscript.
Surely, this review is going to entice many readers to grab the book at the earliest, Umashankar. I haven’t read this particular book, but have read ‘Porcupine’…though I’do not often read political novels, but I enjoyed reading this one. The engaging court scenes/ arguments were crisp, sharp, biting! My hub read it first and then almost forced me to start reading it…
Now, I’d like to read this novel. Thanks!!
If you’ve enjoyed Porcupine, you are going to love The Sense of an Ending. Thanks for the approval.
It sounds like a maze of memories and events and pretty compelling ones at that. We often only remember what we want to, what we like and what we think it should be, don’t we? Wonder when I will get down to reading the spate of books being reviewed here and by Sudha 😀
You have rephrased it perfectly, Zephyr. And you only need to start reading them!
Seems like a good book. And I like this new color on your blog :).
Well, it won the Man Booker Prize in 2011. Thanks for liking the new colours. I was a bit apprehensive though. 🙂
You are so good with your words, You made me want to grab this book 😀
Thank you, Ghazala. It’s the love of the book. Do grab it.
I’m about to get that book, and your review makes me want to go read it.
You may want to read it twice!
The play of words in anything you write is so beautiful. I just want to go over the same words again and again. It is like poetry. Love the new look of the blog.
And these are not yet ‘regular’ posts, so say the detractors! Thank you, for buttressing my confidence.
34 people are waiting for this book in our library. Have to try my luck on the 5th of OCT when this book might be seen on the Express checkout list. Am curious as to how you are picking these books? 🙂 Need I say, your review would want anyone to grab the book?
Go ahead, buy it Latha! This one is for keeps.
Another fascinating and highly review. You seem to be reading a lot these days. I can relate to the theme of the book a lot, I am sure you can guess why.
That’s right, TF. All of us can relate to this book in our own ways. One has only to look back.
Such fine writing! You give me complex
Thanks for the reviews. Looking forward to reading about more such books.
You are fine writer yourself, Giribala. Thank you for encouraging me to write more.
Dear Mr Uma shankar, You were missing from blogosphere for a while and I must tell you your presence was missed. I certainly missed your comments on my Blog. Anyway its great to read this review. This book has been lying temptingly on my neighbour’s table and she has been vouching for it. Now that you have recommended it I have to pick it up. Great review. And memories are really interesting . It is of course a boon that they transform themselves otherwise life would not be livable
Varsha, malleability of memory could be Nature’s tool to make life more palatable, as you say. Do read that book.
Sorry for being invisible although I’d like to believe I have been very much around! I do read your posts. 🙂
Man, you can write!
Loved the profusion of words that cascaded over me like a torrent. Enjoyed the rush of the current as your narration took me on an introspective journey – as I read my mind kept lapsing into thoughts about childhood, adulthood and the relationships that have been woven into what we call life.
My own thoughts about people and events tell me that the author is right saying what he has written.
I must read this book – you have made a compelling pitch.
Thank you for this wonderful review.
Jayadev, that is a huge reassurance! Many thanks to you. And I’ll keep bugging you till you have not read The Sense of an Ending.
I didn’t get your last sentence..! what did you mean by “it almost didn’t win”??
It nearly got excluded due to its short length.
Oh..!! Thats a new piece of info for me..!! Thanks..
You are a master story teller and an even better ( if that was possible) book analyst. The book, I guess makes one ponder a lot…..Such books remain with the reader long after the last page is turned.
What bombastic angrezi…..I am still reeling under the after effect.
Thank you for the bombastic comment.
Wow as usual fantastic writing USP bhai. Went through your review after a long time & you know the reason, am busy with my stuff :), fan of your skills and treasure of vocabulary. By the way, this combination of colour scheme is soothing your writing and seems very cool and attractive. Keep going…. All the best !!!
God bless your business, Samir! Hopefully, it will enrich many a bookshelf. I am glad you like the review as well as the new colour scheme.
Now this seems like one fantastic book I will certainly relish reading. I have a strong liking to intelligent and complex writing and books and this certainly appears damn good. And its greatness has been accentuated by your absolutely fantastic review. Your review is as cerebral as the book sounds to be. I am taken by the whole concept of this story and this is certainly going to go to the top of my “to read” list. Thanks for the wonderful recommendation and the extraordinary review (as always). 🙂
Your comments infuse a breath of life in my tender confidence. This one indeed is a fantastic gem; I am happy to have sparked your interest in it. A million thanks to you, Raju!
Ah, one of my all time favorites!
I can understand.