Sense of an Ending
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. “Every sentence builds the story…The book becomes a mystery although for the first half it feels like a very straightforward narrative of Tony Weber remembering his school days, his boyhood friend, his first lover and then his marriage and fatherhood. There is much here about memory and the way we create and shape our own life story into something we can live with ourselves and present to others. In the second half of the book we are shown another side to this narrative and Tony and the reader has to reconsider what we thought of his version of the past. I would recommend reading this book without knowing a lot about the plot so that you can try to piece the story together along with Tony (which is why I'm writing very little about the plot here). There is a lot to think about with this book and I'm still lingering on the after effects.” And: “You will read this short compelling book twice in order to make ‘sense’ of it. A middle aged man looks back on what he thinks are his memories of a college romance, and sees things completely differently the second time around. Short, sweet, and thoughtful.” And: “an interesting reflection on the character's life and some mistakes he made along the way.”