ulasan buku; the sense of ending by julian barnes

8/12/2019 Ulasan Buku; The Sense of Ending by Julian Barnes

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REVIEW; The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

http://wwwguardian!ou"/boo"s/#$%%/&ul/#'/sense(ending(&ulian(barnes(re)iew%

In Nothing to Be Frightened Of, his family memoir cum meditation on mortality, Julian

Barnes admits that he and his brother disagree about many details of their childhood.

His brother, a philosopher, maintains that memories are so often false that they cannot

be trusted without independent verification. I am more trusting, or self!deluding, writes

Barnes, so shall continue as if all my memories are true.

"he narrator of his Boo#er longlisted new novella has always made that same

reasonable assumption, but the act of revisiting his past in later life challenges his core

beliefs about causation, responsibility and the very chain of events that ma#e up his

sense of self. "his concise yet open!ended boo# accepts the novelistic challenge of an

aside in Nothing to Be Frightened Of$ %e tal# about our memories, but should perhaps

tal# more about our forgettings, even if that is a more difficult & or logically impossible &feat.

'i#e so many of Barnes(s narrators, "ony %ebster is resigned to his ordinariness) even

satisfied with it, in a bloody!minded way. In one light, his life has been a success$ a

career followed by comfortable retirement, an amiable marriage followed by amicable

divorce, a child seen safely into her own domestic security. On harsher inspection, I had

wanted life not to bother me too much, and succeeded & and how pitiful that was.

Barnes is brutally incisive on the diminishments of age$ now that the sense of his own

ending is coming into focus, "ony apprehends that the purpose of life is to reconcile usto its eventual loss, that he has already e*perienced the first death$ that of the

possibility of change.

But li#e all of us, he has carried his youth inside him into adulthood, fi*ed in vivid

memory. 'ooming largest in his personal mythology is his brilliant, tragic, +amus!reading

schoolfriend drian -another echo of Nothing to Be Frightened Of here$ in that boo#

Barnes remembers a similar friend by the fitting but unli#ely name of le* Brilliant. It is a

solicitor(s letter informing him that, /0 years on, he has been left drian(s diary in a will,

that sets "ony to e*amining what he thin#s his life has been.

"he novella divides into two parts, the first being "ony(s memoir of boo#!hungry, se*!

hungry si*th form days, and the painful failure of his first relationship at university, with

the spi#y, enigmatic 1eronica. It(s a lightly s#etched portrait of aw#wardness and

repression at a time when yes, it was the 20s, but only for some people, only in certain
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parts of the country. In one of the boo#(s many slow!rumbling ironies, the second

section undermines the veracity of these e*pertly drawn memories, as "ony reopens his

relationship with 1eronica, a woman he had previously edited out of his life story.

It was a slightly odd thing, he cautiously admits, to pretend to his e*!wife when they

first met that 1eronica had never e*isted -and then later give such a one!sided account

of her that she(s #nown within their marriage as "he Fruitca#e. Barnes builds a

powerful atmosphere of shame and silence around the past as "ony tries to trac# down

the elusive diary, which promises, as missing diaries tend to do, some revelation or

closure. In a boo# obsessed with evidence and documentation & verification for

unreliable, sub3ective memory & the most powerful depth charge turns out to be

something forgotten yet irrefutable that "ony has #ept from himself for /0 years. %ith it

Barnes puts the rest of the narrative, and his unreliable yet sincere narrator, tantalisingly

into doubt.

"here(s the atmosphere of a 4oald 5ahl short story to "ony(s 6uest) the sense that, with

enigmatic emails and mysterious meetings in the O*ford 7treet John 'ewis brasserie, he

is somehow being played or manipulated by others. 8ou don(t get it. 8ou never did,

1eronica tells him repeatedly. secret permeates the te*t, heavily withheld. But this

schematic element pales beside the emotional force of "ony(s re!evaluation of the past,

his rush of new memories in response to fresh perspectives, and the unsettling sense of

the limits of self!#nowledge. s ever, Barnes e*cels at colouring everyday reality with his

narrator(s uni6ue sub3ectivity, without sacrificing any of its vivid precision$ only he could

invest a discussion about hand!cut chips in a gastropub with so much wry poignancy.

%ith its patterns and repetitions, scrutinising its own wor#ings from every possible angle,

the novella becomes a highly wrought meditation on ageing, memory and regret. But it

gives as much resonance to what is un#nown and unspo#en & lost to memory & as it

does to the engine of its own plot. Fiction, Barnes writes in Nothing to Be Frightened Of,

wants to tell all stories, in all their contrariness, contradiction and irresolvability. "he

7ense of an 9nding honours that impossible desire in a way that is novel, fertile and

memorable.

...........

Boo" Re)iew: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

http$::www.huffingtonpost.com:peter!clothier:boo#!review!the!sense!of!;b;/.html

I read the last pages of "he 7ense of an 9nding by Julian Barnes before turning out the

light last night. I wanted to li#e it more than I actually did. I wanted to li#e the narrator
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more than I did. 'oo#ing bac# on events from the perspective of approaching age, he(s

too often self!pitying and obtuse. I was wearied by his obsessive self!analysis!!and his

faulty analysis of others. I was turned off by his se*ual passivity, and his passive

aggressive relationship with the former girlfriend, 1eronica, which forms the core

narrative of the boo#. nd even though I myself recall such a relationship as a

schoolboy!!or perhaps because?!!I found his hero!worship of the rather nerdy, snobbishand generally unattractive drian to be unwarranted by the character of his would!be but

never!6uite friend, whose intellectual superiority he, the narrator, seemed to ta#e for

granted.

7o I wanted "ony to be more of a mensch. I wanted him to ta#e some responsibility for

his early, failed marriage to @argaret, the non!mysterious woman in his life, and their

daughter, 7usie. I wanted him to stand up to the mysterious one, 1eronica, whom he

petulantly wounds, instead, with a spiteful letter that she returns to him, spitefully, when

he tries to reconnect with her in later years. 7he wants to throw his inade6uacies, as aman, as a lover, bac# in his face

I will say, though, that I was intrigued by the twist at the end, which e*plained the

mystery he was trying to unravel!!in order to ma#e some sense of a life in which he

remains perpetually adrift. s 1eronica tells him constantly -and a bit irritatingly, to this

reader as well as to "ony himself he 3ust doesn(t get it. %hen he does, finally, get it,

it(s fran#ly a complete surprise, but one that does create the sense of an ending.

nd finally, I was not much engaged, as others apparently were -the boo# was a N8"

best seller by the philosophical ramblings about time and the fragmentary nature of

memory. I found little that was actually new and original in the treatment of a theme that

has been with us, in modern literature, at least since @arcel Aroust(s great masterpiece.

I(m perhaps a little simple!minded about this, but it seemed to me that the boo# was

rather more heavy on the telling of the theme than on its showing. nd the mournful

tone of the narrator(s reflections on it left me, yes, wanting more strength of character

from him, in the face of his evident suffering. I wanted him to be, well, a bit more

Buddhist in the way he loo#s bac# on his life.

..........

Julian Barnes and the E*otions of English*en

By 'I97' 7+HI''IN94

Aublished$ November =0, C0==


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http$::www.nytimes.com:C0==:==:=


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up to. %hat had happened to the energetic boy he used to be, Kboo#!hungry, se*!

hungry, meritocratic, anarchistic,L who thought of himself as Kbeing #ept in some #ind of

holding pen, waiting to be releasedL into an engaged adult life of Kpassion and danger,

ecstasy and despairL? nd what ever became of the friend he and 1eronica both #new

bac# then, a brainy, idealistic boy named drian Finn? radually, "ony assembles his

willfully forgotten past impressions and actions, 3oining together the lin#s that connecthim to these people, as if trying to form a Kchain of individual responsibilitiesL that might

e*plain how it happened that his lifes modest wages had resulted in Kthe accumulation,

the multiplication, of loss.L

drian had impressed "ony when he announced his e*asperation with their countrys

national pose of perpetual insouciance. KI hate the way the 9nglish have of not being

serious about being serious, I really hate it,L drian declared. Hearing this, "ony had felt

a Kthrob of vindication.L But his vindication was unfounded) it belied his own

noncommittal nature.

drians indifference to playing it cool somehow made him the leader of the boys cli6ue

when they were teenagers) he became the one they loo#ed up to. 8et "ony never

emulated drian, and was guilty of the pose drian deplored$ pretending not to care. He

pays for this failure again and again, from his C0s to his 20s. K5oes character develop

over time?L "ony as#s himself, wondering at the Klarger holding penL that has come to

contain his adult life. @aybe character freees sometime between the ages of C0 and


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mind losing terribly much. In @argaret, he sought a mature, KpeaceableL life. 5ecades

later, he sees the fraudulence in that discretion. K%e thought we were being mature

when we were only being safe. %e imagined we were being responsible but were only

being cowardly. %hat we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather

than facing them.L

But who does "ony enfold into his KweL? His agonied analysis is entirely self!referential,

as solitary and armored as the man himself. 5ecades earlier, "ony had accused

1eronica of an Kinability to imagine anyone elses feelings or emotional life,L but it was

he, not she, who was incapable of loo#ing outside his own head. Barness unreliable

narrator is a mystery to himself, which ma#es the novel one unbro#en, siling,

satisfying fuse. Its pule of past causes is decoded by a man who is himself a pule.

"ony resembles the people he fears, Kwhose main concern is to avoid further damage to

themselves, at whatever cost,L and who wound others with a hypersensitivity that is

insensitive to anything but their own needs. KI have an instinct for survival, for self!!preservation,L he reflects. KAerhaps this is what 1eronica called cowardice and I called

being peaceable.L

K"he 7ense of an 9ndingL is a short boo#, but not a slight one. In it Julian Barnes reveals

crystalline truths that have ta#en a lifetime to harden. He has honed their edges, and

polished them to a high gleam.

....

BOOM 491I9%$ T"he 7ense of an 9nding By Julian Barnes

lfred . Mnopf, UC2 pages

http$::www.washingtontimes.com:news:C0==:oct:CP:boo#!review!the!sense!of!an!ending:

By +orinna 'othar ! 7pecial to "he %ashington "imes Friday, October CP, C0==

9arly in Julian BarnesT novel K"he 7ense of an 9nding,L a teacher as#s, K%hat ishistory?L 'ondon teenager "ony %ebster answers, KHistory is the lies of the victors.L

"onys brilliant friend, drian Finn, Ka tall, shy boy,L answers the same 6uestion with

KHistory is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet

the inade6uacies of documentation.L

drians answer is the leitmotif of this deliciously intriguing novel, as "ony, now a 20!

year!old retiree, recalls the events of his life, only to discover that what he remembers
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and what actually happened are not one and the same.

"he students were Kboo#!hungry, se*!hungry, meritocratic, anarchisticL) they were

Kpretentious ! what else is youth for?L fter graduation, they went their separate ways,

but drian remained the philosophical touchstone for "ony.

"ony fell in love with the elusive and enigmatic 1eronica Ford. He e*plains that Kthis is

what used to happen$ you met a girl, you were attracted to her, you tried to ingratiate

yourself, you would invite her to a couple of social events ! for instance, the pub ! then

as# her out on her own, then again, and after a good!night #iss of variable heat, you

were somehow officially Tgoing out with her. Only when you were semi!publicly

committed did you discover what her se*ual policy might be. nd sometimes this meant

her body would be as tightly guarded as a fisheries e*clusion one.L

1eronica and "ony brea# up, but Kthe first e*perience of love, even if it doesnt wor# out !

perhaps especially when it doesnt wor# out ! promises that here is the thing that

validates, that vindicates life.L

fter the brea# with "ony, 1eronica and drian become a couple, while "ony goes to

merica, where he Kwaited on tables, painted fences, did gardening and delivered cars

across several states. In those years before mobile phones, email and 7#ype, travelers

depended on the rudimentary communications system #nown as the postcard. Other

methods ! the long!distance phone call, the telegram ! were mar#ed TFor 9mergency

Vse Only. K

"he emergency that recalled him to 9ngland was drians suicide, which "ony and his

friends viewed as a deliberate philosophical act, as drian believed that Klife is a gift

bestowed without anyone as#ing for itL and if a person decides to renounce this gift, Kit is

a moral and human duty to act on the conse6uences of that decision.L

"ony chose to forgo the dreams and aspirations of his youth$ He married but later

divorced amicably and remained good friends with his e*!wife, @argaret. K'ife went by,L

and he came to understand that history is Kmore the memories of the survivors, most of

whom are neither victorious nor defeated.L

KOr perhaps its the same parado* again$ the history that happens underneath our noses

ought to be the clearest, and yet its the most deli6uescent. %e live in time, it bounds us

and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isnt it? But if we cant

understand time, cant grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we

have with history ! even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?L

%hen "ony une*pectedly receives a be6uest of S00 pounds, a letter and a diary from

1eronicas mother, a woman he remembered from a single meeting one rather miserable

wee#end when 1eronica too# him home to meet her family, as Ka carefree, rather

dashing woman who bro#e an egg, coo#ed me another, and told me not to ta#e any

Gguff from her daughter,L he is nonplussed.


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"ony delves into half!forgotten memories of his relationships with 1eronica and drian as

he tries to solve the mystery behind the be6uest. KIt stri#es me that this may be one of

the differences between youth and age$ when we are young, we invent different futures

for ourselves) when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.L

1eronica re!enters his life. 7he meets with "ony but refuses to give him the diary. %hat

he discovers indirectly through her and the letter shatters the calm of his life and the

substance of his memories. "he unraveling of the mystery of @rs. Fords be6uest is

suspenseful, but suspense is touched with whimsy, humorous asides and

understanding. In the end, "ony concludes, KGHistory isnt the lies of the victors W Its

more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.L

K"he 7ense of an 9nding,L recent winner of the C0== @an Boo#er Arie, is a novel for

grown!ups. On the surface, its a simple story, but one with comple* and subtle

undertones. 'aced with @r. Barnes trademar# wit and graceful writing, "onys

recollections bring to mind issues of memory and aging as well as the humor in

situations that the young consider of passionate importance. KG%hat you end upremembering isnt always the same as what you have witnessed.L How true.

X +orinna 'othar is a writer and critic in %ashington.

4ead more$http$::www.washingtontimes.com:news:C0==:oct:CP:boo#!review!the!sense!

of!an!ending:i*C8*1CaC7

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ulasan buku; the sense of ending by julian barnes

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