Tag: literary fiction

Book Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

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What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed

TheSenseofAnEndingAbout the Book

Publisher’s description: Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is retired. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

 

Book Facts

Format: Hardcover Publisher: Jonathan Cape Pages: 150
Publication: 4th August 2011 Genre: Literary Fiction    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Sense of an Ending on Goodreads

My Review

This book forms part of my From Page to Screen challenge. I’ll be writing separately about my comparison of the book and the film.

I’m ashamed to say this is the first book I’ve read by Julian Barnes but, safe to say, it won’t be my last. As well as telling an intriguing story, whose lesson might be that actions have consequences, the book explores a familiar theme for writers, namely storytelling and the line between truth and fiction.

The book opens with fragments of memories that slot into place and make sense only as the book progresses. The narrator, Tony, reminisces about adolescent friendships, early romantic relationships and their aftermath. However, the book gradually evolves into something darker, centring on a key event, Tony’s reaction to it at the time and the events set in train by that response.  I can’t say much more for fear of spoilers but the reader knows early on that the narrator, Tony, is omitting or amending facts about his life both unconsciously and consciously.

‘I told her the story of my life. The version I tell myself, the account that stands up.’

He pretty much tells us that he is choosing what is and isn’t going to part of his story.

‘How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts?

As Tony ruminates on ageing and looks back on his life, he regrets not being more adventurous. He reflects that as a young man he’d imagined he’d live ‘as people in novels live and have lived’.

‘But time…how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.’

Tony believes he is a good father to his daughter (he keeps telling us so), that he remains friends with his ex-wife and has never deliberately hurt anyone. This is the ‘story’, if you like, he has created for himself. I was reminded of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Pip’s confession that: “All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers and with such pretences did I cheat myself.”

In the end, faced with evidence from his past, Tony puts together the pieces of the jigsaw to form the picture he has been unable (or unwilling) to see and is forced to face up to his part in life-changing events.

A very accomplished piece of writing, as you might expect from an author of this calibre. It’s a slim volume and not a word is wasted.

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In three words: Reflective, intimate, drama

Try something similar…Atonement by Ian McEwan

JulianBarnesAbout the Author

Julian Barnes is a contemporary English writer of postmodernism in literature. He has been shortlisted three times for the Man Booker Prize for Flaubert’s Parrot (1984), England, England (1998), and Arthur & George (2005) and won the prize for The Sense of an Ending (2011). He has written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. Following an education at the City of London School and Merton College, Oxford, he worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary. Subsequently, he worked as a literary editor and film critic. He now writes full-time. Julian lived in London with his wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, until her death in October 2008.

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Book Review: The Former Chief Executive by Kate Vane

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Without your past, who are you?

TheFormerChiefExecutiveAbout the Book

Deborah was a respected hospital manager until a tragedy destroyed her reputation. She has lost her career, her husband and even her name. Luca wants to stay in the moment. For the first time in his life he has hope and a home. But a fresh start is hard on a zero-hours contract, harder if old voices fill your mind. When a garden share scheme brings them together, Deborah is beguiled by Luca’s youth and grace. He makes her husband’s garden live again. He helps her when she’s at her lowest. But can she trust him? And when the time comes to confront her past, can she find the strength?

Book Facts

Format: ebook Publisher:   Pages: 150
Publication: 8th June 2017 Genre: Fiction    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

Find The Former Chief Executive on Goodreads

My Review

Don’t be misled by the title – this isn’t the memoir of a former management high-flier or a self-improvement book, it’s a taut psychological study of grief, secrets and trying to leave behind your past.  Its dark, slightly chilling atmosphere reminded me at times of the books written by Ruth Rendell under the pen name Barbara Vine.

Deborah and her husband, Peter, had planned their retirement together, moving to a bungalow near the sea where Peter could indulge his love of gardening. Those plans were cruelly thwarted by Peter’s cancer diagnosis and swift demise. Now Deborah finds herself alone, with only unhappy memories and regrets for company.

‘Deborah looked around at the emptiness, and listened to the quiet, the percussive thrum of electrical appliances and thought, this is it, this is my life now.’

I was moved by the author’s insightful and affecting depiction of Deborah’s grief and her sense of loss and displacement following bereavement.

‘So it was only really with Peter that she had felt she could be herself. Be yourself. Whatever did that mean? If she could only be herself with Peter, who was she now? No one, she thought. A husk.’

What makes the situation worse for Deborah is the contrast between her life before as a successful senior manager and the emptiness she feels now.

‘She had been a mouse on a wheel that was spinning very fast. A mouse who happened to be a good runner. Now the wheel was broken.’

And there are hints of an event in Deborah’s past – a decision she took that had tragic consequences and which led to her being vilified in the press. Despite moving to a new area and changing her surname, Deborah still lives with the nagging fear that she will be recognised and it will start all over again.

Enter Luca, to tend the garden Peter loved, as part of a community rehabilitation scheme.  I have to say at this point that, as a gardener myself, I loved the way the author presents gardening as a therapeutic activity, both physically and mentally.  Luca is also trying to put his past behind him and move forward with his life. He’s an intriguing figure, with an almost mystical aspect to his character that contributes to the unsettling atmosphere of the book.  Luca seems to be able to sense instinctively the needs of others and feel drawn to help them.

When Deborah’s daughter, Eleanor, comes to stay, she is surprised her mother has made no attempt to find out more about Luca’s past.  Deborah is reluctant to do so – after all, he hasn’t asked about hers. I won’t say much more for fear of spoiling other readers’ enjoyment. Whilst not exactly a thriller, the author nonetheless creates a feeling of suspense as secrets gradually emerge and events take an unexpected turn in a way I had definitely not anticipated.

I was really impressed with this book. The assured writing really made the characters come alive in a way that was credible and it had a dark, intense feel to it that made you want to read on. I also love the gorgeous cover.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Intriguing, intense, compelling

KateVaneAbout the Author

Kate Vane is the author of three novels, Not the End, Recognition and The Former Chief Executive (published on 8 June 2017). She has written for BBC drama Doctors and has had short stories and articles published in various publications and anthologies, including Mslexia and Scotland on Sunday. She lived in Leeds for a number of years where she worked as a probation officer. She now lives on the Devon coast.

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