Pete Weighs In On "The Sense of an Ending"

I guess curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to read the novel that beat out my beloved Sisters Brothers for the 2011 Man Booker prize, and am pleased to report that Julian Barnes is a well-deserving award winner. Congratulations!

The late scholar Joseph Campbell once said something to the effect of  "If you look back upon your life, you will see that it played out just as it should have."  However, I don't
recommend you bringing up this tidbit at cocktail parties, and if you do please blame Joseph Campbell and not me. The reason I write that is because I'm afraid you will
encounter much resistance, such as "I was certainly on the road to becoming a cowboy if not for being deathly afraid of horses."   Or, "I know I would have been a ballerina if not
for my two left feet."

The Sense of an Ending is not about what could have been or what might have been, it's about a man, Tony Weber, who thought he knew exactly who he was, but then is confronted with evidence of a nasty act in his past that makes him reconsider everything. What he did was laughably childish, and could have been easily forgiven if not for the prophetic and tragic consequences for those who stirred his brief and unexpected wrath. Tony's mystery plays out until the final pages and I believe you will savor every word of it. His nemesis, Veronica, constantly chides him with 'You don't get it and you never will.' Once Tony accepts that he's the real villain in this little mystery, he starts getting it real fast and so do you.

What a sensational novel, and small enough to fit into a Christmas stocking.

--Pete