Alex's Thursday Post

     I am really starting to enjoy The Sense of an Ending and I am finding myself reading more out of pleasure than anything else. I appreciate Barnes’s English sense of humor and his wit. He has a very clever way of composing sentences, I have actually highlighted a few that stood out to me: “...what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed”, “All political and social systems appeared to us corrupt, yet we declined to consider an alternative other than hedonistic chaos.”. I have read up to the end of Part 1 in which Tony focuses the most on his adolescence and earlier years and recaps his later years. Tony really honed in on his early life and only mentioned his later years within a couple of pages (I noticed a lack of interest). He notes that his life in present day has no connection to “his story”, which justifies his brevity on the matter. Perhaps Tony will share his story in Part 2. 

     Ironically enough, Adrian commits suicide just as Robson did back in high school. In my previous post I had predicted that something would occur later in the novel in regards to Adrian and it was proven to be true during tonight’s reading. There was a sharp shift in tone after Adrian’s suicide. It is almost as if Adrian’s suicide marked a turning point in Tony's life which caused him to mature instantly. The reasons behind his suicide remain unclear to Tony and to us. Some argue that he was “too clever” and Tony takes the most emotional/irrational approach and blames Veronica. I cannot help but relate Adrian’s character back to the Underground Man. In this novel he represents logical thought. We discussed in NTFU that logical thought often times comes with the consequence of losing common sense. Perhaps Adrian’s lack of common sense resulted in the suicide? I am eager to find out in Part 2. 

     Tony mentions childhood trauma briefly in regards to Veronica. He states that we are all somehow damaged and it is up to us to chose whether to repress it our act out on it. I am questioning whether this could apply to Adrian as well. Tony, along with the rest of the clique claim to not have known much about Adrian’s personal life, perhaps childhood trauma could be a contributing factor to the suicide?