Maya's Final Post 3/3/2014

        I enjoyed The Sense of an Ending overall. I think would be a good book for people to read if they are searching for something with meaning that is not incredibly dense. I think it was a good read, though less eventful than the other books we have read in class. I think it was good to read it at this time because you could apply some, not all, of the philosophies presented while reading Notes From the Underground.

        I think this book carries this overall meaning that nothing ever exists as it does the first time it happened. This idea is first brought up on page forty five. While Tony is recalling the letter Adrian wrote to him about he and Veronica’s relationship, he says, “Again, I must stress that this is my reading now of what happened then. Or rather, my memory now of my reading then of what was happening at that time”. It’s a very strange thing to think about; the fact that things only truly exist how they are just once. You can say that you remember it perfectly, but every time you tell the story or recall it another time, it changes slightly every time. Even Tony and his friends talk about this idea. When they all talk about their philosophies concerning history, they present it as if it were a subjective matter. It’s either the lies of the victors, the delusions of the defeated, and or the memories of the survivors. All these different perspectives kind of makes it impossible for whatever “history” to be retold verbatim to what happened. 

         This subjectivity factor that they introduce with respects to history also brings up something interesting; that people often invest great amounts of time trying to relive things as they once were; like when people reminisce on “the golden days” or they say “those were good times”. You can tell Tony kind of went through this when his friends all met again in college. He was dancing around what he actually wanted to say in order to avoid jeopardizing their time together. He then realizes that maybe it wasn’t the night itself that was deteriorating, but his relationships with all his school friends. He realizes that things are no longer the way that they were.