final post

                This book for the most part was enjoyable.  The character’s life story that although wasn’t extraordinary, I felt intrigued to learn more about his story the further I read into the book.   The ending was definitely my least favorite part.  The title sums it up very well; the author leaves you during one of the most exciting parts of the story with absolutely no sense of a good ending.  While I don’t need a perfect happy ending to the novels I read, I hate abrupt endings.  They make me feel as if the author just stopped caring about his work, and finished early and then gets praise for writing a creative ending.  It isn’t fun to read an entire story about a character, and then come to the conclusion that a letter he wrote when he was 20 ended up causing his best friends suicide, and it took the main character 40+ years to figure it out.  It really upset me that I wasted a lot of time reading about a sad old dude who ends up sadder than when he started.  I had really been rooting for the main character to come up big in the second half of the main story, but he fell amazingly short.  Anthony’s life seemed so polarized that I feel he maybe was bi-polar.  He kept telling himself that he was just an average dude, and he convinced himself that he was a bad guy who had failed at a lot of things in his life.  If you live life constantly comparing yourself to others, you will be miserable.  I felt that he needed to go to church and learn something positive for a few days.  If you don’t believe in yourself, or love yourself, you can’t believe and love others as well.  He hyper focused on his wrongdoings, and I felt that this made the story all the worse.  I felt he was just going on and on about his past, with very little regard for a positive future.  Maybe the British are into books about sad, lonely, old dudes, but not me.  Hopefully this guy gets a grip and stops judging himself. 

The Sense of an Ending Final Post

            Although it was mentioned that the Sense of an Ending was an easy read, I did not expect the meaning of the book to be so philosophical. What I got from the book is that its meaning mostly concerns time and our perception of it. The stages of our lives also plays a big role in the book as the narrator often differentiates his overall attitude in youth , with life and all its possibilities ahead of him , and the cold, submissive attitude of adulthood. Some of the ideas the Barnes mentions actually unsettled me such as when he describes the way he lives his life as an adult. He mentions that you can lie to yourself and say that you are making mature decisions yet you are probably only making those choices because you’re a coward afraid of the consequences. Even this way of life is not without its pain as Tony ends up bitterly recalling a plethora of “what-ifs” from his youth and young manhood.

            The book also prompted me to think about things I never would have thought of such as the history of my own life. Right now I am young yet the more the years accumulate the more unclear my own past will be. I may perceive my own life in a way that completely ignores what actually happened. I may essentially lie to myself all the way to the grave and then what does it even matter? I fear that Tony Webster was right and life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The worst part of it all is that I could relate so clearly to Webster’s feelings of youth, as if life was certainly about to happen and I’ll go on to live fuller lives then my parents yet it is clear that Webster felt this way and in adulthood was left with Remorse and the bitterness of settling for what won’t hurt you. So in the end this book deals with our “own personal, largely undocumented” piece of history and how we alter and perceive it. I liked the way the author went about discussing this interesting topic and I found the overall plot of the book entertaining.

Kaylee Final Post

            Now since I have finished reading The Sense of an Ending, I have so say I’m pretty indifferent to my feelings about the book. I’m not in love with the book, but I don’t dislike it. I think that the story as a whole had a consistent flow of ideas on how life plays out and how we change as individuals as it progresses. Part One served as a good background to the story and was possibly my more favored part of the novel. (This may just be because I wasn’t as rushed reading it)

            I thought Tony Webster was an interesting protagonist and narrator. I liked how he was straightforward about his opinions and desires. I enjoyed getting into his thoughts and the arguments he held within. I believe that everyone can relate to Tony in the sense that he lives a seemingly average life, floating along society. He is constantly comparing himself to others, esp. Adrian, which we find ourselves doing everyday. He also struggles with the memories of his past and continuously asking himself, “what if?”. The concept of memory is touched upon numerous times in the novel. Or rather time as a whole. “Time tells all” he repeats in the story. I find this statement going both directions, in regards to times ability to wear a person down or times ability to feed the individual more knowledge and experience. Throughout the novel Tony is trying to uncover some of his fondest memories from his past, at some times he is successful and others he is not. Barnes also discusses how memories are connected with history. He criticizes history in regards to its reliability and origins.

            Overall I think this book has depth and significance within the topics of human life that are presented by Barnes. I have so say the ending wasn’t what I expected. It took me a second to really sink in the information and I think it is an interesting conclusion, however kind of random. Part two was directed completely at what Adrian had left behind and such, however I was left feeling unfulfilled. I am curious and happy to be discussing this book (if we are) in class so we can focus in on the details of the novel. 

Ciara's Final Reaction

The book started out discussing the idea of memories and time and history, and it ended that way as well. 

Throughout the novel, Tony finds himself remembering people based on outdated relationships he had with them long ago.  Tony is not one to delve; he does what he was supposed to: nothing more, nothing less.  His relationships with people are very much on the surface, and it does not help that he is quiet coy and reserved as well.  Tony forms these ideas of people based on the limited interactions he had with them, and these ideas develop into memories.  What we have as memories eventually becomes history, not only to ourselves, but to the people we share them with as well.  Tony was so sure about his memories and never questioned their validity, but as he got older he became more skeptical about their soundness. 

Tony says at one point: “How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves”.  In my opinion, this quote exemplifies the message of the book.  We often alter our life experiences as we go along, most times subconsciously.  We pick and choose, switch around, cut and paste the details of our lives with no one to challenge these changes because they are so and intricate and inconspicuous.  After a while, these embellishments become our memories, and soon after, they become history.  All the stories Tony tells Margaret about Adrian, Veronica, and her family are solely provided by Tony; Adrian and Sarah are dead, and Veronica will barely speak with him.

There was a question of legitimacy in the book, similarly to NFTU.  As Tony finds out more about Adrian, Veronica, and her family, he begins to question the memories he had of them.  For example, though he had convinced himself that Veronica was a witch of a woman that he would never want to be in contact with again, he began falling for her at the end of the novel.  As the reader, I was never sure whether or not to believe Tony’s description of a person or his relationship with them, because Tony was not sure whether his memory was objective or distorted either.

Tony’s journey in this book is as follows: he realizes that his memories may not accurately represent the past, and he must try to make amends for his decisions based on these false memories before he dies and they become an inexpungible part of history: a history he created.

Natalie's Final Post

I really enjoyed reading this book, and although it was an easy read I thought that it had a lot of meaning and presented many interesting comments. The concept of memory and how how we remember it was especially interesting. I think what the book was saying was that our memories are many times fabricated by our minds. Although they may be based on real events they are affected by many different factors. What we remember is rarely what happens. One thing that affected Tony's memory was his mood. When he went to visit Veronicas family he thought that they were all being mean to him and poking fun at him, most of this stems from his own insecurities. Later on in his life he remembers this event vividly and remembers it slightly different. This different perspective completely changes his thoughts about that night and what occurred. Similarly, many times our memories are modified by ourselves and tend to be a edited version we tell other, and consequently ourselves. I have to admit that this is something I have done myself, and I think that people do this because they regret what happened and it's easier to remember something else. Another interesting concept was the idea that life happens to us, instead of us making life happens which to an extent I agree with. I also thought Tonys constant struggle about making his life reflect literature vs. choosing the safest option is something many people can relate too. I guess that now, at this age, I would want my life to reflect literature and is something I have thought about before. But I guess as you get older it get's easier to pick the "safe" option, which is sort of depressing.

Alex's Final Post

     The Sense of an Ending was entertaining, however, it did not make a huge impression on me. I found the majority of the novel to be recounts of the same events, same people and it was told through a nostalgic, pessimistic perspective that did not make aging seem like something pleasant. Mr. Shapiro will probably argue with this and say that this is the reality of our situation; we will eventually age and life will reach it’s end and some of us chose to reject it. There seems to be a lot of back and forth on the concept of general history and personal memory, where memories obtained by someone throughout life are perceived as unreliable. Tony is constantly fighting his memory and fleeing from it. Something about his past made it more enjoyable than his present. Could it be that he was in love? Tony was unable to move beyond his adolescence, his time with Adrian and Veronica. They seemed to have made an impression on him, one that followed him for the rest of his life to the point where he could not attempt making new memories, or was unsatisfied with the way he led the second part of his life because he chose to settle with the “cookie-cutter”, simpler lifestyle. As readers we do not like to see our protagonist fall into this limbo of regret and remorse for decisions made in the past, this has most likely effected my opinion on the novel itself. 

     This idea of time and a lack there of, hence the title of the book, is constantly referred to by our narrator who seems to be approaching death. Time almost acts like a barrier for Tony. As he ages, his ability to make memories fades. 

     There is an obvious connection between Adrian and the Underground Man from NTFU. This idea of being “too conscious”, knowing too much or being too aware of the world that surround them is what causes them to retreat from society, and in Adrian’s case, causes him to commit suicide. Life somehow “accumulates” for these characters and becomes predictable and boring. I enjoyed The Sense of an Ending more than NTFU. I feel that it was easier to follow and I was more attracted to the overall format of the novel; characters/traditional plot line. 

Alex's Friday Post

     Part 2 is told by Tony in a present-day perspective where he continues to show signs of nostalgia towards his past; his past mainly with Adrian and Veronica. The other two friends- Alex and Collin, are rarely mentioned throughout this part of the novel. We learn that Tony married and had a child, Susie. He mentions Susie very briefly, almost as if he needs to constantly reassure himself about his relationship with his daughter, which is almost non existent. He is satisfied with having had a relationship with Margret, however, he does not seem to express much interest, or love for that matter, in her. Even though Tony has not admitted it to us directly, his love lies in Veronica after all these years. Mrs. Ford, Veronica’s mother, included Tony in her will, which I find to be very strange. The diary left for him in the will belonging to Adrian seems to be of great interest to Tony. I wonder whether it is the diary he is interested in or the fact that Veronica is the one guarding it and he wants to use it as an excuse to reconnect with her. 

     After his meeting with Veronica, we find that she burned the diary because she thought it wrong for them to read through it (something Margret mentioned earlier). She had to read through it in order to give Tony the photocopies so why did she believe she should and not Tony- is she trying to hide something from him? 

     Tony fails to mention to us that he sent a nasty letter in the past addressing Adrian and Veronica’s relationship. Using sarcasm and blunt offensive remarks about Veronica, he basically told the two that karma would get back at them with time. He seems to be embarrassed about having sent the letter and dissociates himself with that part of his past (he didn’t even tell Margret about Veronica until years later!). I find that Tony is constantly re-evaluating himself and decisions made in the past. His mind is never at ease when it comes to Adrian and Veronica. He states that he feels remorse- remorse for what? Having sent that letter?