The secret to reading a book a week is, at least partially, to occasionally pick books as good and as short as The Sense of an Ending.
At 163 small pages, this moving novel is kind of like the equivalent of the 90 minute play on Broadway with no intermission. I was frankly surprised at how much I liked this. It has won the Booker Prize;and everything, but then again, so has The English Patient.*
The Sense of an Ending is a novel by Julian Barnes, a British Author whose other work I had not read previously. It's a book about a man named Tony, who in late middle age is beginning to look back on his life, and particularly on one incident, that centered around his friend Adrian and an ex-girlfriend, Veronica. In the first part of the book, he is mainly telling the story of his past. In the second, the way that past comes back into his life when he is suddenly and unexpectedly bequeathed something related to both of them. The story is good, interesting even, but what really makes this book stand out is the writing. Barnes writes beautifully, in this case mostly about aging, remembering, and story telling. How we are always creating and re-creating our own histories. I found myself underlining on every page things that I wanted to remember.
Do pick this one up!
AZ
*Like Elaine from Seinfeld, I was a hater.
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