Very few books have left me with a such a strong sense of unease (as the Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes). It’s eerie (not evil), and it hits you hard. Especially in the last 25% of the book.
I do make it a point to read books that I like again. This is one of the few times when I have read the book twice in successive months (March and April).
This has to hands down one of the best books of my life. Haunting is the only way to describe it. A bit like Samantha Harvey’s The Wilderness....just that “Sense of an Ending” is written by a master and it shows.
On a scale of 10 I would rate this book 11. Goes straight into my top 10 book list, maybe even at the top, only if Rushdie and Kundera did not crowd it out so much.
Pp 163 pages of pure literary magic. It’s like reading poetry.
I am going to so far as to say, that if I am dying...I want someone to read this book slowly to me. Thre is a truth here, that is more perverse than the lie.
Overall 11/10 (ha ha !!)
Brings my 2018 reading total to ~ 2610 pages
“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
I do make it a point to read books that I like again. This is one of the few times when I have read the book twice in successive months (March and April).
This has to hands down one of the best books of my life. Haunting is the only way to describe it. A bit like Samantha Harvey’s The Wilderness....just that “Sense of an Ending” is written by a master and it shows.
On a scale of 10 I would rate this book 11. Goes straight into my top 10 book list, maybe even at the top, only if Rushdie and Kundera did not crowd it out so much.
Pp 163 pages of pure literary magic. It’s like reading poetry.
I am going to so far as to say, that if I am dying...I want someone to read this book slowly to me. Thre is a truth here, that is more perverse than the lie.
Overall 11/10 (ha ha !!)
Brings my 2018 reading total to ~ 2610 pages
“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
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