Wednesday, August 19, 2015

review of Julian Barne's "The Sense of an Ending"

My A level student lent me this short novel to read.I wondered why she was raving about the novel so much that I borrowed it and I was literally hooked.It kept me engrossed in this crisp,precise tale of a coming of age narration of 3 buddies plus a newcomer who seemed so much smarter than the rest.
Oh ,How I love the turn of the phrase,the words which are simple,but evokes sheer emotions that makes me reflect on life and its twists and turn.

"We live in time-It holds us and moulds us-but I've never felt I understood it very well.......And yet it takes only ther smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability.Some emotions speed it up,others slow it down,occasionally,it seems to go missing-until the eventual point when it really dors go missing,never to return."
'Someone once said that his favourite times in history were when things were collapsing,because that meant something new was being born.To die when something new is being born-even if that something new is our very own self?Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints,so does adulthood.So does life.Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down,by proving,however long it takes,that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The ending was so unexpected that it rips your false veil of normality aside and tears it to shreds,the scars of the past oozes with rotting pus and it makes me cringe to consider that a small seemingly inconsequential moment taken in the heat of passion can have such devastating effect half a century later.i feel the ravages of time on my own body as the aches and pain of bodily disintegration is slowly,stealthily creeping in .So before one becomes a burden to the family or society,like Robin Williams ,I would rather make the pain a shorter one than prolonging the pain to family and society .
The seed planted has now become a strong tree,ready to bloom,flower and bear fruit.My duty is done.Soon it may be time to move on.

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