December 2012 Book Selection
The Fairfax Library Book Discussion Group will meet Thursday, December 13th
at 7 p.m. in the meeting room of the Fairfax Library to discuss our December book: The Sense
of An Ending by Julian
Barnes.
Discussion questions are below.
Here are some links for
additional background and information:
Some videos of the Severn Bore
Coming up, we have the
following titles to look forward to reading:
Thanks for reading with
us. I look forward to seeing you at the Fairfax Library.
Beth
Bailey-Gates
Friends of the Fairfax
Library
Discussion Questions
The
Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
1. What does the title mean to you?
2. The novel opens with a handful of water-related images. What is
the significance of each? How does Barnes use water as a metaphor?
3. The phrase “Eros and Thanatos,” or sex and death, comes up
repeatedly in the novel. What did you take it to mean?
4. At school, Adrian says, “we need to know the history of the
historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us”
(p. 13). How does this apply to Tony’s narration?
5. Did Tony love Veronica? How did his weekend with her family
change their relationship?
6. When Mrs. Ford told Tony, “Don’t let Veronica get away with too
much” (p. 31), what did she mean? Why was this one sentence so important?
7. Veronica accuses Tony of being cowardly, while Tony considers
himself peaceable. Whose assessment is more accurate?
8. What is the metaphor of the Severn Bore? Why does Tony’s
recollection of Veronica’s presence change?
9. Why did Tony warn Adrian that Veronica “had suffered damage a
long way back?” (p. 46). What made him suspect such a thing? Do you think he
truly believed it?
10. In addition to Adrian’s earlier statement about history,
Barnes offers other theories: Adrian also says, “History is that certainty
produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies
of documentation” (p. 18), and Tony says, “History isn’t the lies of the
victors . . .It’s more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither
victorious nor defeated” (p. 61). Which of these competing notions do you think
is most accurate? Which did Tony come to believe?
11. Discuss the character Margaret. What role does she play in
Tony’s story?
12. Why does Mrs. Ford make her bequest to Tony, after so many
years? And why does Veronica characterize the £500 as “blood money”?
13. After rereading the letter he sent to Adrian and Veronica,
Tony claims to feel remorse. Do you believe him? What do his subsequent actions
tell us?
14. When Veronica refuses to turn over the diary to Tony, why
doesn’t he give up? Why does he continue to needle her for it?
15. What is Tony’s opinion of himself? Of Adrian? How do both
opinions change by the end of the novel?
16. How does the revelation in the final pages change your
understanding of Veronica’s actions?
17. Discuss the closing lines of the novel: “There is
accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond these, there is unrest. There
is great unrest” (p. 163).
18. Would you
describe Tony Webster as an "unreliable yet sincere narrator"? What
do you think of Tony Webster? Is your impression at odds with what Tony Webster
thinks of Tony Webster? Do you know anyone who’s like him? Does he remind you
of you? When did it occur to you that Tony is not a trustworthy witness to his
own life? That you may know more about him than he does? How does Barnes
achieve this effect?
19. To what extent do
you think Julian Barnes uses “peripeteia,” the unexpected twist in plot, to
encourage the reader to adjust their expectations?
20. The Sense of an
Ending is a novel about the imperfections of memory. What insight does it
give the reader into ageing and memory?
21. Is the ending
unforeseen, does it leave you with a sense of unease?
22. There are several
references in the book to Ted Hughes - the poet who famously destroyed sections
of the diaries of his ex-wife Sylvia Plath after her suicide (as Veronica
destroys Adrian's diary). The world was furious at Hughes; they deserved clear
answers, they insisted, and believed that the missing pages of the diaries
would cast a crucial light onto the final state of mind of their beloved
literary genius. But Plath and Hughes's children deserved protection, Hughes
argued, and that need was paramount to history's need for clear answers - or,
more cynically, to its simple curiosity to "know what happened." They
deserved protection from the violence of their mother's final state of mind,
Hughes argued. Is Tony being grossly insensitive by demanding to know "the
truth" when a greater reality is at stake: the feelings of Veronica, her
mother Susan, and Adrian Jr, who were far more affected by Adrian's life than
he ever was?
Images. The novel opens with them. We can’t get wrists out of our minds: the watch worn facing inwards, Veronica wanking, Adrian’s suicide. And then semen sluicing down the drain, contrasting with the upstream tidal wave. The Thames and the bloody bathwater. What image or scene in the novel has stayed with you? Did Tony forget or did he fail to mention something that happened while they were watching the Severn Bore?
Style. Tony Webster is your classic unreliable narrator: his memory is faulty, his credibility wonky. (Julian Barnes has cited the unreliable narrator classic, The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. Read it, it’s harrowing. So what IS a reliable narrator? Isn’t anything first-person dubious?)
