The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending is a 2011 novel written by British author Julian Barnes. The book is Barnes's eleventh novel written under his own name (he has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh) and was released on 4 August 2011 in the United Kingdom. The Sense of an Ending is narrated by a retired man named Tony Webster, who recalls how he and his clique met Adrian Finn at school and vowed to remain friends for life. When the past catches up with Tony, he reflects on the paths he and his friends have taken. In October 2011, The Sense of an Ending was awarded the Booker Prize. The following month it was nominated in the novels category at the Costa Book Awards.
Publication and marketing
The Sense of an Ending is Barnes's eleventh novel and was released in hardback on 4 August 2011. The Sense of an Ending is published by Random House (as a Jonathan Cape publication) in the United Kingdom. The book was released in October 2011 in the United States, after its previously scheduled publication date for the United States was brought forward by three months by Random House's Knopf publishing group to capitalise on the shortlisting of the book as a candidate for the Booker prize. Suzanne Dean designed the cover for The Sense of an Ending. The cover shows floating dandelion seeds, with its edge and the edges of all the pages blackened.
Title
The title is shared by a book of the same name by Frank Kermode first published in 1967, subtitled Studies in the Theory of Fiction, the stated aim of which is "making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives". Kermode's book is a well-received piece of literary criticism. Critic Colin Burrow called it one of "the three most inspiring works of literary criticism written in the twentieth century", comparing Kermode's work with Erich Auerbach's Mimesis and E. R. Curtius's European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.
Barnes has stated his choice of title was coincidental with that of Kermode, of whose book he had not previously heard, and which he has never read. He came up with the title before one of his friends pointed out that it had been used already, but decided "there's no copyright in titles". Notwithstanding which, several reviewers described the novel as being "in conversation" with Kermode. For example, the critic Boyd Tonkin adds the additional interpretation that Barnes's "show-off" characters could be typical readers of Kermode's work.
Reception
The Sense of an Ending has received mostly positive reviews from critics. Michael Prodger of The Financial Times said the novel's inclusion on the Man Booker Prize longlist was "absolutely merited" and he praised the intricate mechanism of the novel and said Barnes's writing is "founded on precision as well as on the nuances of language."
Prodger added "Its brevity, however, in no way compromises its intensity – every word has its part to play; with great but invisible skill Barnes squeezes into it not just a sense of the infinite complexity of the human heart but the damage the wrong permutations can cause when combined. It is perhaps his greatest achievement that, in his hands, the unknowable does not mean the implausible." The Guardian's Justine Jordan said "With its patterns and repetitions, scrutinising its own workings from every possible angle, the novella becomes a highly wrought meditation on ageing, memory and regret." Boyd Tonkin from The Independent said The Sense of an Ending is "A slow burn, measured but suspenseful, this compact novel makes every slyly crafted sentence count." Anita Brookner, writing for The Daily Telegraph, said the novel is not a thriller, but a tragedy, which resembles Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. She opined that Barnes's reputation would be enhanced by the novel and added, "Do not be misled by its brevity. Its mystery is as deeply embedded as the most archaic of memories."
Entertainment Weekly's Stephen Lee gave The Sense of an Ending a B+ and said "Barnes's latest—a meditation on memory and aging—occasionally feels more like a series of wise, underline-worthy insights than a novel. But the many truths he highlights make it worthy of a careful read." Robert McCrum writing for The Observer thought the novel would win the Man Booker Prize because it is "a work of art, in a minor key." During a feature on the 2011 Man Booker Prize nominees, the Channel 4 newsroom team gave The Sense of an Ending a nine out of ten for readability and said "It's beautifully written, very readable, and raises questions which linger in the mind long after the covers are closed." Geordie Williamson from The Australian said the novel is a pleasure to read and explained there is "a fierce and unforgiving lucidity about The Sense of an Ending, a mature reckoning with ageing that makes its competitors seem petulant and shrill." Geoff Dyer in The New York Times said the novel is average at best. "It is averagely compelling ... involves an average amount of concentration and, if such a thing makes sense, is averagely well written: excellent in its averageness!" David Sexton in The Spectator drew a comparison between the narrator of the novel and the "unreliable narrator" of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, for which – he noted – Barnes wrote an introduction to the Folio Society edition. Although Sexton praised Barnes's skill, "Yet this novella does not move or satisfy ... It is a story repelled by the responsibility of having children, and its final disclosure is offputting ... where's the heart?"
Awards and nominations
In September 2011, The Sense of an Ending was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Barnes had been shortlisted for the prize on three previous occasions for Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur & George (2005). On choosing The Sense of an Ending for the shortlist, judge Gaby Wood said: "It seems to be the most obvious book on this list. It's a quiet book, but the shock that comes doesn't break stride with the tone of the rest of the book. In purely technical terms it is one of the most masterful things I've ever read." On 18 October 2011, The Sense of an Ending was awarded the Booker Prize. Head judge Stella Rimington described the novel as "exquisitely written, subtly plotted and reveals new depths with each reading." She added: "We thought it was a book that spoke to the humankind in the 21st Century."
On 15 November 2011, it was announced The Sense of an Ending had been nominated in the Best Novel category at the 2011 Costa Book Awards, though the book lost out to Andrew Miller's novel, Pure.
Film adaptation
A film adaptation of the same name made its world premiere as the opening film at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in Palm Springs, California, on 5 January 2017. The limited US release began on 10 March 2017. It was directed by Ritesh Batra from a screenplay adaptation by Nick Payne with a cast including Michelle Dockery, Emily Mortimer, Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, and Harriet Walter.
References
2011 British novels
Booker Prize-winning works
English novels
Novels by Julian Barnes
Postmodern novels
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Jonathan Cape books
British novels adapted into films