Khalili |1
Response Paper to Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending”
Tony Webster, our narrator, in this two-part short novel, starts from giving an account of his youth and
his four friends, especially Adrian, and how his girlfriend Veronica went on to become Adrian’s, to the part
where Adrian commits suicide. In the second part of the story we are brought to the present time, in
which Tony is left with Adrian’s diary and he recalls how he warned him about his relationship with
Veronica. This narrator is the kind that cannot be trusted on the account of his telling the story, which he
himself observes and excuses to be the fault of his memories. For example, his recollection of his letter to
Adrian is that he only warned him that Veronica must have suffered from an earlier “damage”, but later
on when we read his actual letter, we find out how malicious it was. Tony even curses them to suffer from
their offspring. One thing that especially caught my eye was how honestly Barnes, through Tony Webster
is able to describe the state of mind of a young boy. For example, the fact that all of them in a period of
their lives have the illusion of being so different from other people, unique in other words, and to be
anarchists. We can also see how every young boy wants to get out of the supervision and control of their
families, when he recollects the memory of going to America and how the fact that there were no
cellphones available in that time, made him feel more free and away from the conditions under his
parent’s roof.
In my opinion the description of sexual relationship between Tony and Veronica played a very great part
in order to develop Veronica’s personality. Throughout the novel, we are not directly introduced to
Veronica and how she thinks or feels, and this was especially painful for me when she acted so senseless
and insulting towards Tony when they meet in the second part of the story. And in response to that, Tony
is passive and maybe afraid of getting close to anyone, Margaret, his ex-wife, or Veronica with all the
secrets that she must have.
The playfulness of the tone of the writer, or better to say our narrator, Tony, was interesting for me,
maybe as a sign of postmodernist writing. The way Tony defamiliarizes the concept of death, is banal and
boring. He is indifferent towards much of what happens around him or to him. I, as a reader, expected
him to be more active towards the happenings around him, at least to be concerned about the picture of
himself in Veronica’s eyes. After all, for me the letter that he wrote to Adrian was extreme, but logical.
The writer also is aware of the fact that he is writing a novel and time to time, talks to the reader and even
admits some problems or insufficiencies on his behalf which in my opinion could be argued that approves
the constructedness of this novel as many postmodernist writers work so hard in order to illustrate it. But
from another perspective, the narratology of the story is so plausible and honest, that when I was reading
the novel, I was very much saddened by the news of Adrian’s suicide. To take the idea of banality from
McHale’s “Postmodernist Fiction”, I can strongly say that the way Tony treats this news and how
disinterested he shows himself to be, makes the effect even more on the readers, although the
disinterestedness can be justified through the jealousy that Tony felt towards Adrian all his life, and even
more, the moment that he read the letter that Adrian asked for his permission to go out with Veronica.
Nearing the end of the book, after the second part, the thing that really bothered me and I can go on to
say bored me through the novel was how we, as readers, are stuck in Tony’s mind that just does not
anything, and only thinks. This passiveness that is so overwhelming in the time that action is needed,
actually made me angry with Tony, and enabled me to sympathize more with Veronica through the end
of the novel.
Khalili |2
If I want to be honest, I shall say that I am not very much happy with the ending of the novel. In my opinion,
the revelations are not plausible and justified, and they feel like that the writer just put them there, in
order to make up an interesting ending; after all the novel is all about “The Sense of an Ending”. Maybe
the fact that Adrian had an affair with Veronica’s mother give spice things up a little, but in the end, it just
disgusted me. And don’t get me wrong, I am not that type of reader that seeks closure in the endings or
needs to be completely satisfied with everything. That’s the problem with this novel: it does not leave it
open, with something to think about for the reader, nor does it give enough, if not full, closure to the
incidents and revelations. After all the only redemption for the ending of this novel in my opinion is the
fact that Tony himself states: “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 relised? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival?” The ending treats the
reader the same, somewhere inbetween.