Books490 entries
Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending
Released: 04/08/2011
Jonathan Cape
The celebrated author of Flaubert's Parrot turns his erudite writing skills to a portrait of memory and growing up. A middle-aged businessman is forced to re-examine his seemingly spotless adolescence at an all-boys sixth form when he receives a surprising letter from a lawyer
For more information visit: http://www.julianbarnes.com/bib/senseofanending.html Buy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0224094157/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cultur00-21…Page [1]
85%
The New York Times“More clever than emotionally satisfying...” Mr. Barnes underscores the ways people try to erase or edit their youthful follies and disappointments, converting actual events into anecdotes, and those anecdotes into a narrative...
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90%
Financial Times“Founded on precision as well as on the nuances of language…” Every word has its part to play; with great but invisible skill Barnes squeezes into it not just a sense of the infinite complexity of the human heart but the damage the wrong permutations can cause when combined…
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90%
The Independent“Adroit and unnerving...” His books are crisp, cool and provide a kick to the head, but they seldom, as is the case here, touch the heart. If that's the kind of tipple you enjoy, then The Sense of an Ending is a double on the rocks...
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90%
Guardian“Novel, fertile and memorable...” As ever, Barnes excels at colouring everyday reality with his narrator's unique subjectivity, 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...
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90%
this is london“A slyly subversive book...” Barnes's story is a meditation on the unreliability and falsity of memory; on not getting it the first time round - and possibly not even the second, either. Barnes's revelation is richly ambiguous...
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80 %
The Telegraph“Do not be misled by its brevity...” The explanation, when it comes, is unforeseen, almost accidental, and hedged about with a wealth of humdrum detail. Its effect is disturbing – all the more so for being written with Barnes’s habitual lucidity...
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100%
The Observer“Something of universal importance...” This is a very fine book, skilfully plotted, boldly conceived, full of bleak insight into the questions of ageing and memory, and producing a very real kick – or peripeteia – at its end...
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