Lexington, KY - Saluted British author Julian Barnes begins his well-crafted novel in the 1960s in a school in London where an adolescent clique of boys conducts their lives much as any other small group of young men.
Thoughts of sex, anarchic takes on politics, smatherings of drugs and alcohol, and the snickering of inside jokes compose their day --
and the addition of a new student adds to their daily intrigue. The new classmate presents himself more clever than they, and a certain air of mystery makes him an appealing addition to their group. It is the suicide of an awkward young classmate that adds a philosophical slant to their existence.
Moving ahead a number of years, Barnes follows one particular member of the group, Tony Webster, who is leading a banal but content life as an amicably divorced father of a vaguely distant grown daughter. An envelope arrives that provides him a small monetary inheritance, as well as the promise of a diary --
and the intrigue in Barnes' story is set.
The schoolmate's suicide is brought to light, and it is his diary that is now intended to be in Tony's possession. Oddly enough, it is left to him by a curious source --
the mother of his first romantic entanglement.
Looking back on the awkward relationship with the girl and the first graceless meeting of the mother, Tony finds himself drawn back to his old girlfriend. And the fact that she has the diary and is keeping it from him adds to his desire to meet her again.
In Barnes' precise method, he provides an incident early on that breathes throughout his tale with unforgettable exhalation. He writes: "... I witnessed the Severn Bore... one evening a group of us waited on the riverbank until midnight and were eventually rewarded. For an hour or two we observed the river flowing gently down to the sea as all good rivers do. ... Then there was a whisper, and a craning of necks, and all thoughts of damp and cold vanished as the river simply seemed to change its mind, and a wave, two or three feet high, was heading towards us, the water breaking across its whole width, from bank to bank. The heaving swell came level with us, surged past, and curved off into the distance; some of my mates gave chase, shouting and cursing and falling over as it outpaced them; I stayed on the bank by myself. I don't think I can properly convey the effect that moment had on me. ... It was more unsettling because it looked and felt quietly wrong, as if some small lever of the universe had been pressed, and here, just for these minutes, nature was reversed, and time with it."
Tony sees again and again that life can reverse what seems natural and normal, and though his life has provided its reverses, it is not until the familiar face of his departed school friend confronts him that he is swept away by its tide and left drenched in its unrest.
Suspenseful, graceful, devastating, rewarding --
and ultimately poignant --
Julian Barnes'
"The Sense of an Ending"
washes over the reader with an undeniably remarkable effect.