The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes

Rating: 4 out of 5

ISBN (edition I've read): 9780224094153

Read between: 16-01-2013 to 19-01-2013

Review:
Winner of Man Booker Prize 2011. What more reason is needed to read it?

Plot (from the back of the book):

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 in middle age. 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.

My take on the book:
Perhaps, one of those rare books that I like, in spite of being poetic. In fact, its poeticism is one reason I loved this book.

Aspiring to be a writer, myself, the books of this kind make me think twice before I attempt to write something. I could never be anywhere close to authors like Julian Barnes. It is that kind of authors that make writing a hard row to hoe.

The book is opaque with deja vu feeling everywhere. This is what I would love to call a 'cut the crap' book. There is no filament in the book that felt out of place. The author took special interest in not prolonging the story. In fact, forty years of the protagonist's life pass in a paragraph or two. The book holds more importance to emotions than story.

The most striking feature of the book, according to me, is its size. With 150 pages and lot of white space in the pages, the read was easy-going.

Refreshing read. The kind of a read which you want to read in that special place and not anywhere else. Needs a lot of attention and if you didn't provide that, you will lose track of the story.

Recommendations:
Though the review claims high of the book, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone out there. It is more poetic and emotional. There are lot of feelings into the book than story, which, in turn, bores many readers. Once, I was one of them. Even now, many poetic-styled books bore me, but this one was worth spending extra time understanding the complicated language. Ultimately, I would recommend it to people who are patient to take in and understand poetical stuff.