This book recently won the Booker Prize for the best novel in English. Barnes has been up for this prize a couple of other times but never won, so it was most likely his turn. I was anxious to read it because I really like his work, especially a piece of non fiction called NOTHING TO FRIGHTENED OF, a long exegesis on death and various attitudes towards it, a moving and thoughtful look at something no one wants to consider or think about. As Pascal says: "There are two things man cannot look at for long: the sun and death."
A SENSE OF AN ENDING has some echoes of that book, as Tony, the protagonist, is in his late 60's, retired, divorced, facing the shortening of his time. He starts with his memories of his prep school days, the friendships he formed with three boys, especially Adrian, the star academic, intellectual and mature beyond his years, the favorite of the teachers. We learn of their interests, ineptitude with woman (which Barnes contrasts nicely with today's sexually precocious teens), where the thought of a kiss was enough to satisfy for the first few dates. The boys gradually drift apart when they enter college, Tony has a relationship with Veronica, his first girl friend, breaks up and later learns she takes up with Adrian, his friend from prep school. We learn about his later life with his wife, Margaret, how they lively happily together for a number of years till she had an affair, left the marriage, remarried and divorced yet they still remain friends, perhaps because of their daughter. The first section ends with the disturbing news of Adrian's suicide, while still in college, along with a note explaining, quite logically, why he took his life: "his reasoning: that life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the condition it comes with; and that if the person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is a moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision,( 52)." It reminds me of Camus's dictum: the only question we ought to ask is whether or not to commit suicide.
The second chapter takes us through the present, his life in retirement, his memories, or memories of his memories (" It strikes me this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others."), the tricks it plays on us, and his beginning sense that his life has been lived too plainly, 'peaceably', one in which he avoided unpleasantness and difficulty if possible. The spur for his thoughts is the discovery of a 500 pound bequest from the mother of his first girl friend, Veronica, in her will, a woman he met briefly one weekend. In it, she also asks that he be given a diary, Adrian's, which he discovers has been taken by her daughter, Veronica, against the mother's wishes. This starts a renewal of communication between Tony and Veronica, stiff and formal at first, but gradually, they become more comfortable and open with each other.
I have to admit the last third of the book was less interesting, as Tony pursues Veronica who appears uncommunicative, mysterious and finally almost disturbed, especially in the enigmatic ways she communicates(or refuses to communicate) with Tony, even when they meet. She upsets him were her mantra: 'You will never get it. You never did.' Well, that's the way I feel about the end of the book, which leaves many pages unturned and we are left to wonder what Tony does finally understand?
I loved the first third of the book, when Tony and his mates were young, finding their way. Less so the middle and towards the end, I was pissed at Tony, for slogging along, letting his life be controlled by Veronica, making up reasons to placate his quest. I obviously did not like the book as much as I had originally thought though it's well written and Barnes occasionally made me pull my pencil out and underline a passage.
Tony's your average guy ultimately, a J. Alfred Prufrock like character as he says: "What did I know of life. I who had lived so carefully. Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being realized? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for who ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self-rebukes never really inflicted pain(155)?"
He adds earlier: "Compared to him(Adrian), I had always been a muddler, unable to learn from the few lessons life provided me with. In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so on the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came(109."
And finally, "But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical(102)." Tony is ultimately the reliable unreliable narrator, an everyman so to speak. We see ourselves in him, our self delusions, our regret, our wish that we had lived differently, our attempts to tell ourselves stories we can live with. My favorite lines from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" remind me of Tony.
"
| I grow old … I grow old … | 120 |
| I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. | |
| Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? | |
| I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. | |
| I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. | |
| I do not think that they will sing to me. |
