The Sense of an Ending
13 journalers for this copy...
This was a very pleasant read, what a relief after last year's shortlist! The story is about a retired man looking back at his life, his first girlfriend, and his childhood friends that he doesn't see too much of anymore. After he gets notice of the dead of one of them, he tries to find out what has happened in these years with no or little contact.
I finished the book in one go. Liked it, despite the sad theme.
Sending order:
(man booker prize roundabout participants)
1. Leamhliom (Ireland)
2. Sidney1 (Germany)
3. Katrinat (UK)
4. mafarrimond (UK)
5. Sternschnuppe28 (Germany)
(more readers!)
6. Shovelmonkey1 (UK)
7. Klaradyn (South Africa)
8. Stoepbrak (South Africa)
9. Edwardstreet (New Zealand)
10. PJLBewdy (Australia)
11. Rezuna (Finland)
12. A3ana (the Netherlands)
13. Tsjara (the Netherlands)
14. ChrissyHam (UK)
15. Okyrhoe (Greece)
16. Gunvor (Denmark)
17. Sintra (Germany)
18. Originalmulli (UK)
19. Biisbsw (USA)
20. Judygreeneyes (USA)
...even more readers?
And back to me, franaloe (Switzerland)
I am posting this on to the next person on the list, Sidney1.
This certainly merits the Booker Prize.
On to katrinat tomorrow.
I enjoyed the story and find that it was far more of a rounded and fulfilling read than the other Booker short list that I have read so far, it certainly seems to be a clear winner so far (I still have The Sister Brothers to read), however I would not rate it all that highly and have to say that a lot of it has already faded in my mind.
I will request the next address and get this sent out next week, thanks for sending.
I have now requested the next address and will get it sent off as soon as I recieve this. My apologies again
Released 11 yrs ago (10/11/2012 UTC) at -- Controlled Release, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- United Kingdom
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
Thanks for taking the time to journal this book. Bookcrossing aims to keep books moving and meeting to readers, firstly to spread the love of reading but also so books don't just aquire dust for years on end. I hope that you enjoy reading this book and when you have finished with it that you are able to pass it to a new reader or leave it somewhere for somebody new to discover.
"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 stroy we have told about our life. Told to others, but - mainly - to ourselves."
... an absorbing, thoughtful and saddening read ...
... forwarding this book soon ...
Shovelmonkey1 (UK) dropped out of the reading list after I had contacted him for his address ... so I will try with Klaradyn next.
update August 13, 2013: Klaradyn did not answer my address request, so the book goes off to South Africa today. Enjoy reading!
The book arrived safely in Cape Town.
Thanks for hosting the ring, franaloe, and for passing it on, Sternschnuppe28! I'm looking forward to reading it.
Winner: Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011.
Shortlist: Costa Novel of the Year 2011.
On the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die List.
Some people just know how to write a novel and make it look deceptively simple.
Unputdownable, but not in the sense the term is often used. This is no thriller or whodunit. The writing is just so scrumptious that one has to try out the next passage, often after having reread what was just said.
Somewhere between the idealism of youth ...
The things Literature was all about: love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. And barn owls.
... and the despondency of some of the realisations of his mature years ...
Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.
... Tony Webster finds a sense of closure with incidents from his past that never left him alone. Ironically, many of the aspects of what he perceived Literature to be about formed part of his story as well. No (hu-)man is an island, and the way our lives interact with others should never be underestimated.
Definitely worth reading.
The book is on its way to Edwardstreet in New Zealand. I posted it this morning, opting for surface mail. Quite often a registered package like this gets lucky and is included with items dispatched by airmail. Only time will tell.
International tracking number: RJ014662211ZA
http://sms.postoffice.co.za/trackingparcels
http://www.track-trace.com/post
Released 10 yrs ago (9/14/2013 UTC) at —- by hand, post, or courier in Wellington City, Wellington Province New Zealand
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
A very quick, charming read.
Released 10 yrs ago (9/30/2013 UTC) at Salamander Bay, New South Wales Australia
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
The story begins as a coming-of-age story, and then the age has come. In the first third of the book, the protagonist Tony tells about his student time. He has an affair with a girl, Veronica, but loses her to his friend, the smart fellow student Adrian.
At the age of some 60, when Tony has led a conventional life – career, wife, child, divorce -, he encounters his past, and that was not, and is not, as easy as he had taken it before.
This psychological novel turns out to a kind of complicated triangle drama but you "don't get it" until the end. And even then, some essential questions remain – hence the cheese holes. No doubt they are left in the text on purpose, and to indicate them here would be spoiling. (A delicate book for a reading group!) The text is often aphoristic and philosophic. It deals with youth and aging, forgetting and remembering, failure, guilt, family secrets, honesty... A great book.
-ruzena
A3ana asked to be skipped, and the book will soon be travelling to Tsjara.
Released 10 yrs ago (11/15/2013 UTC) at By mail, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
This sounds interesting, looking forward to read it. :)
The book also has a sort of old fashioned feel to it, but then terms like Skype and WiFi-spots come along and suddenly you get jolted back to the present (I wonder how a reader 10 - 20 years from now would experience that?). The ending has a most surprising twist too (maybe his life is more like Literature after all).
This book has a lot of beautiful descriptions, and I also really like the ones in the previous journal entries, so here are a couple that aren't quoted yet:
"Masters and parents used to remind us irritatingly that they too had once been young, and so could speak with authority. It's just a phase, they would insist. You'll grow out of it; life will teach you reality and realism. But back then we declined to acknowledge that they had ever been anything like us, and we knew that we grasped life - and truth, and morality, and art - far more clearly than our compromised elders."
"Or perhaps it's that same paradox again: the history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet it's the most deliquescent. We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is supposed to measure history, isn't it? But if we can't understand time, can't grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what chance do we have with history - even our own small, personal, largely undocumented piece of it?"
**SPOILER: Only later did I realise that we never get to find out what Adrian's diary contained, or if Veronica actually burned it? I was really curious about that. :p**
I haven't received a reply from ChrissyHam yet (PMed twice), but she doesn't appear to be active anymore (last entries were from 2011).
So if I don't hear from her by New Year's day, I will skip her and contact the next in line.
Released 10 yrs ago (1/8/2014 UTC) at Assendelft, Noord-Holland Netherlands
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
Released 9 yrs ago (9/29/2014 UTC) at By mail, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
I like that we are constantly reminded that the account we are reading can't be trusted. In the end I felt very sorry for Tony; he believes he is fully aware of the limitations of memory and of the tendency to embellish and to self-justify; so he thinks he is telling his story objectively and that all his actions can be validated. But he is ultimately self-serving, as perhaps we all would be in telling our side of a difficult story, and he is utterly alone at the end. "You get towards the end of life...time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?"
Julian Barnes is such a versatile and surprising author.
Sorry to have kept this for so long, my computer was away being fixed for a couple of weeks and then I was so behind with work that I lost track of everything else. I've PMed the next reader twice now, so if I don't hear back by tomorrow I will skip to the next.