📔 The Sense of an Ending - 예감은 틀리지 않는다

 

 

📕  The Sense of an Ending 

by Julian Barnes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a story of an ordinary old man whose past and present relate Adrain Finn,  his coming-of-age friend, and Veronica, his ex-girlfriend at college.

 

One day Tony Webster, the narrator, gets a letter including five hundred pounds and two documents from a solicitor, out of the blue. It is Veronica's mom who left them for him and he finds it very puzzling to get a bequest from someone he barely knows. All he remembers about her is that he met her just one time when Veronica took him to her parents' house. That doesn't seem to be something involved with the bequest. Her will says 'Adrian always spoke warmly of you, and perhaps you will find it an interesting, if painful, memento of long ago.' The solicitor lets him know that one of the documents is Adrian's diary and it is in the possession of her daughter, Veronica.

 

Little did Tony imagine he would get involved with Adrian or Veronica again in his life. Veronica was the first love and Adrian was a friend he wanted to believe to be the closest. However, he just ended the relationships after he sent a reply to a letter asking for permission to go out with Veronica from Adrian. Some time later he got the news Adrian had taken his life but it was out of the question to know why he did it. It came as such a shock to Tony but he tried to get on with his life, having a job, marrying a good woman, and having two kids, even though he's now a divorced retiree, fortunately, which he can't complain of. 

 

To get Adrian's diary, he emails Veronica and eventually they get together after all those years.

 

You probably expect it to be a senior romance, but it's rather a mystery thriller with a real twist that makes us follow Tony Webster's journey to find out how he affected the ones he had once loved. Our memories of events could be distorted especially when they are unpleasant or painful. What he did to Adrian and Veronica was harsher than what he remembers and did take a toll on both of them as an eternal curse, totally unknowingly. There are times it's impossible to know what was going on until you're faced with the harsh truth. Or even if we knew, there might be nothing much we could do to get it right.  

 

The Sense of an Ending (2011) was awarded the Man Booker Prize, and adapted into a movie (2017) with the same title. It's such a gripping story that any reader who is not against a little serious mystery will for sure like it.