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• I am a complete shocker and always judge a book by its cover. This book was kept aside for me as requested at our shiny new library (oh allright eight months old now but I still think of it as shiny). The book was shiny too. I like to think that I'm the first to read it. The plastic is all new and clean, the pages most delightful to turn - also clean and quite sophisticated I thought - edged in black - haven't seen that before - nice touch - elegant.At first I found it difficult to like the narrator who introduced us to himself and his "mates" as we would call them in Orstralia. The voice was, in a sense, self-deprecating, or at least acknowledging the awkwardness of adolescent youth - the need to belong and fit in, the desire to seem "cool", to be smart but not too smart, to be valued, to "score" - albeit in a 50s/60s awkward way with the threat of "pregnancy" ever-hovering. The book is divided into two parts and I got a bit of a shock when I came to Part Two. For a second I thought I had a book of short stories and that was it; I wasn't going to find out what happened. Aha ! I was hooked. Be careful of what you wish for. It's not a book of short stories...you do, in a sense, get to find out what happened. Or do you? This little tome is pregnant with possibilities.It's a bit difficult to say much more without giving away the plot but Barnes challenges us to examine our lives and our memory/opinions of ourselves and our conduct. I suspect this deceptively "small" tome is also a challenge to the British national character. And yes, I am talking about recent events though I'm not sure even Barnes could have envisaged or accounted for the latest batch of riots. But I reckon this book will go down a treat with bookclubs which need a good conversation starter. I found it particularly fascinating as I am studying Recordkeeping and am mulling over a quote from one of the characters quoting Patrick Lagrange "History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."Interestingly (and perhaps I am bone lazy when it comes to research - think Google) I cannot find a Patrick Lagrange...only a Joseph Louis Legrange who was a French mathematician (or was he really Italian?) At any rate...the plot just got thicker and I now ask myself...who is Patrick?

  5.00 out of 5

  alexdaw

• Really beautiful from beginning to end. And in this case, beginning is the narrator's memories of a himself as a somewhat pretentious British schoolboy ("we were book-hungry, sex-hungry, meritocratic, anarchistic") finishing what we would call high school and heading off to college. The period is the late nineteen-sixties, although the narrator reminds us that "most people didn't experience 'the sixties' until the seventies."And the end is the narrator in his sixties, divorced and feeling distant from his adult daughter who is now focused on her own children. An odd inheritance sets off the recollections of his late childhood that make up the first half of this slim novel, and propel the second half forward as he seeks to understand events from decades earlier.There isn't much middle -- and the book does not need it -- only these bookends of a life.I won't spoil the ending, except to say that a certain amount is revealed that in retrospect makes sense of everything else. In a way you are disappointed because, like life, you did not think it really needed to be wrapped up in a bow and all explained. And it was not necessary to keep one's interest in the book. But, you have to admit, it does make a certain amount of sense.

  5.00 out of 5

  jasonfurman

• There were five books I fancied reading off this year's Booker longlist - I read four before the shortlist came out and none of the four made the cut. This was the fifth. I'm pretty certain it is the favourite to win. (Yes, 6/4 at William Hill as I write this. But that's never much of a guide as the betting public (even on literary prizes) and literary judges are not made of the same stuff.) It's by far my favourite of the five. So on two counts I feel it's unlikely to win! This is a short book but it's not short on story, there's all kinds of layers of meaning and plot, and it's very elegantly written and makes a good read. There was one thing I thought was a bit ridiculous (without loading this writeup with spoilers: I really don't see how Tony was supposed to "get" the "it" in "you just don't get it, Tony"). And although that was integral to the story it didn't spoil the whole thing for me. Overall it was a really good book that I had no hesitation over giving five stars to.

  5.00 out of 5

  nocto

• Well, I didn’t get it eitherAt 176 pages, The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes Man Booker-nominated latest is barely even a novella. Yet, there’s something to be said for an author willing to tell a story in the time that is needed to tell it, and not feeling compelled to pad the narrative. Mr. Barnes has included exactly what’s needed within these pages and not a word more.His tale is told in two parts, by everyman narrator Tony Webster. The first part, comprising approximately a third of the book, reads like a coming-of-age story. It recounts the formative relationships of Tony’s early life, both male and female, from his school days through early adulthood. We meet his closest friends, witness his earliest romances, and experience his first losses. This first section was good, but not great on its own.The novella flowered in its second, longer part, set 40 years later. Now Tony is in his early 60’s, amicably divorced, and a generally content man. One day, he receives notification of an unexpected and frankly bewildering bequest—which is then even more bewilderingly withheld. These contemporary happenings open windows to events of the past and Mr. Barnes held me rapt with the tale.Despite the compelling plotline, go into this novella expecting it to be character-driven rather than plot-driven. In the end, the inheritance is a MacGuffin, and not really that important after all. It’s the relationships of the characters that really tell this tale, and they are beautifully rendered. Throughout the latter part of the story, Tony is told repeatedly (and without explanation, of course), “You just don’t understand!” Well, he thought he did, and I thought he did. But it isn’t until the very final lines of the novella that the full truth is made clear. The Sense of an Ending is brief, and it is masterful, and if it wins the Man Booker Prize in a few minutes, it will be entirely deserving.

  5.00 out of 5

  suetu

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