Author: Julian Barnes
Review: This is the story of Tony Webster. In the first part, we meet Tony and his high school friends then follow him through his years at university. We learn about his friendships and first love. In the second part, Tony is retired and living a comfortable life, until an unexpected legacy makes Tony re-evaluate his life and his past decisions.
Barnes has done something very interesting with this book. He succeeded in creating completely unlikable characters (I'm not joking, I really detested almost everyone in this book except for perhaps Tony's ex-wife) yet I still enjoyed the read. Why you ask? Because this book makes us reflect on our past memories and decisions. How do we remember things that happened years ago? Are our memories true or have they been reshaped as the years go by? It's really fascinating to think about college and talk about it with girlfriends and see that they remember certain scenarios totally differently than myself. It also makes you think about past actions and the impact they may have had on people. In terms of 'The Sense of an Ending' I will say the ending seemed to come out of left field. The final reveal was foreshadowed in maybe one sentence in the first section of the book.
This book is a very short, fast read. When I first read it, I thought I'd rate it a 2 or 3. But after thinking about the book for several weeks, I decided to rate it higher.
Grade: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment