A sense of the ending

The Book Club met on a cool drizzly winter evening in the exquisite antiques meet modern interior of the home of Salene. Comfort was the order of the evening, from the fire burning in the sitting room wood stove to the delicious Cottage Pie served by the hostess and delectable leek and fennel gratin from Isobel and remarkable and beautifully presented mixed tuna salad from Margaret, as well as other delightful entrees.

The book under discussion was ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes.  The response was insightful, thoughtful, and overwhelmingly positive, save one. 

The story begins with a list. A list of things the principle character remembers about his school years and a group of very close friends and one woman. He is reflecting on a series of events and their repercussions throughout his life and the lives of the other friends involved.

Tony was part of a clique of 4 boys when the real story begins. They are close and  insidiously competitive. One of the boys is clearly more intelligent, but almost autistic in his interaction with the others and they all measure themselves against him. A tragedy occurs at school which is much later repeated by one of the members of the group, later in life and forms the central trauma of the story. 

Led by Margaret, who always reads and reviews with deep understanding of the material and writing, the group found much to praise and discuss in this book about the imperfection of memory, or how selective our memories are. The question was raised as to whether we could trust Tony’s recollections. The themes that were carried throughout were repression, psychic and emotional damage, instability, incest, pretentiousness, rage.  Obviously all the characters were filtered through Tony’s self serving, self indulgent, and self aggrandizing memories of them and skewed and reflected in his eyes, but manipulated in his avoidance of reality.

Most felt the characters were well drawn, and well represented in their complexity and complex relationships.

The ultimate sense of the ending was the unreliability of memory.

Everyone contributed remarkably astute insights that lent the book substance and gravitas.

We look forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday, 20th February  at Isobel's - to discuss  Why Be Happy When You Could Be No Normal by Jeanette Winterson, and then
Wednesday, 20th. March at Helen's     -    My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
Wednesday, 17th. April  at Krysia's      -   Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H.Lawrence.

Thank you all,

Kerry