The Sense of an Ending

"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.  Time... give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical."

"I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was."

I enjoyed this short novel - apparently much more than anyone else in our book club.  So I found myself feeling like an advocate for the book.  Maybe I enjoyed it more because I didn't even know it was a Booker Prize winner when I started reading it (yes I spend most of my time under a rock) so I just approached it as a something to relax with, rather than judging its merits as a Booker winner.  

I found it to be a real page turner.  So much so that I had to exert self-discipline to put it down for a day or two so that I could savour the ending even more.  

I liked the way Barnes dealt with the unreliability of memories and examined how our version of the past may not be as accurate as we like to believe.  I found the idea of corroboration of memories thought provoking, and it lead me to want to journal more regularly so that I will have more of my own "in the moment" reflections to look back on in years to come.  That's not to say I won't be interested in your version of the past too - so try to lay down some accurate memories please.  :)

He did manage to surprise me with the final twist, but I found the 'twist' convincing and believable.  It wasn't a sky hook and did not induce an "how dare he trick me" fit as all the necessary clues were there, they were just more subtle than the usual bleeding obvious "look here is an important detail" kind of clues.

Maybe the novel was particularly engaging for me as memories and our view of ourselves is something I have been thinking about lately.  I started raving on about memories, neurons and psychobabble but decided to move that discussion over to Mandy's Musings where it belongs.