Reconciling Life with its Eventual Loss

Four fifths of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes was engaging and compelling. The final fifth devolves into a maddening “Groundhog Day” scenario where Tony tries to make sense of an inheritance he can’t seem to access, while emailing and repeatedly reconnecting with his former deceased’s family love interest, whose response feels like a real time version of angrily throwing pieces of a crumbled Rosetta Stone at Tony, confusing reader and protagonist together. 

This passage resonates: “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.” That final fifth of the book does wear a reader down, battering them with confusion, ultimately sending one into the internet nether regions searching for instruction. 

The theory that makes sense to me was in John Self’s review of The Sense of an Ending in his blog “ASYLUM John Self’s Shelves,” posted in “Barnes Julian” on August 11, 2011: “With the book’s repeated motif of regrettably rude correspondence – such as Tony’s own toe-curling letter to Adrian and Veronica brought back from the dead – I wondered if it might have been inspired, in part, by Barnes’s well-reported rift with Martin Amis.” Self proceeds to fill in the backstory, citing Barnes’ dedication of his book to his wife, Pat Kavanagh, who had recently passed away. (https://theasylum.wordpress.com/2011/... (https://theasylum.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/julian-barnes-the-sense-of-an-ending/)

In this sense the book evolves into a coming of age (old age) piece. Life is messy through our own bumbling over a lifetime, and darker deeds past indeed accumulate, carry forward, illuminating a sense of despair as days are numbered. Candor and transparency are in scarce quantity, as lives cocoon into self righteous rationalizations for past behavior. For some the butterfly emerges only at death, leaving family and friends seeking to unravel motivations in hopes of better understanding. It is a bit like looking into Shakespeare’s vision: “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.” — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)