My Thoughts On The Sense of An Ending by Barnes

Posted on July 1, 2012

When Tony is in school, he has two close friends. Their close friendship of three expands to four when an gifted boy, Adrian, begins to study at their school.

When Tony studies at the University, he meets Veronica. She’s mysterious and flirty and drives him crazy for about two years. Awhile after he meets her family and she meets his boyhood friends, they break up. Tony is later stunned to find out that Veronica and Adrian have started dating. Tony sends them a letter and only finds out three decades later the consequences of that letter on Adrian, on Veronica, on their family members.

The back cover had a review that stated this was the shortest and longest book she has ever read. I completely agree. This book is told entirely through Tony’s point of view, and he is an interesting intellectual. He thinks about things, rather deeply, and you want to stop and ponder every few paragraphs.

He thinks deeply, but not very clearly. Three decades later Veronica keeps telling him “You never got it and you never will”. I agreed with her. I SAW what was happening in the book, what was being laid out, and I was frustrated with Tony for not keeping up. “Come on, Tony!” I thought. “Think about it. Think about why the mother had the journal. Think, think, think.”

It was an interesting psychological journey, but I would never refer this book to a friend. It has some harsh language in it and was not very clean sexually. Even though the swearing is British, you still get the general idea, and it’s not good.