The Book Group
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The scene: A Quaker (The Religious Society of Friends) Meetinghouse in a street not far from St Albans City centre, Lattimore Road. St Albans is in the county of Hertfordshire, set north of London, bordering the M25.
It is a Friday, around 7 30 at night in the first week of March.
By one and twos members of the Book group enter the meeting house.
Tonight there are 5, three men and two women. 4 are retired the other middle-aged.
The latest news on the Coronavirus and the temporary fix for the broken lock on the door are the subjects of conversation while the kettle is boiled and each fixes themselves their drink of choice.
The host produces as he does a package of chocolate biscuits.
“Shall we get started.”
Did I mention the book? ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes
It was largely felt to be a man’s book. It centres on the life of sixty-something Tony Webster, who is father to a now-adult daughter and is not so long ago divorced but still on friendly terms with his ex. He becomes the benefactor in a will to an amount of money and a diary of an old schoolfriend. The story is his reflections of his life standing from where he is now.
‘A man’s book’ certainly the men in the group could identify with it the women less so. A member who had not attended texted in, “ I did not like this book. A beautifully written waste of time.” Another had messaged that it, “….wasn’t very positive.”
One member commented that Veronica, Tony’s university girlfriend who returned into his life was being manipulative by repeatedly using the phrase, “You just don’t get it, do you? But then you never did.” I hadn’t seen this in the book never mind in life but became aware that people employ such devices for their own reasons.
The conversation continued into the difference between our youths and our third and middle age. I reported that I had never read so much about male masturbation in a book that I had to see a photo of this Julian Barnes. It didn’t look like someone who would openly discuss masturbation yet here in his story he could hardly stop writing about it. Are such activities expected of young men but not of older men? He writes freely about the younger Tony’s lusts yet writes in the more traditional romantic fashion when Tony’s passion is reignited for his old flame. Of course, it says something about me writing about him writing it. Yes, it is a very taboo subject even in youth much more than sex. Rather in the conversations, I have the subject rarely is mentioned. I have become aware that in other peoples’ lives it is discussed so perhaps I have not yet forsaken my own prudishness. Reading Barnes writing so freely and knowing we are to discuss it at the Book Group made me slightly apprehensive, I mean to discuss it with people my parents’ age. But perhaps that is one function of books to write about our experiences that we rarely speak.
Another in the group spoke of their youth being an exciting time that rarely repeats itself in life with the same intensity. Experiences were recounted in youth that continue to move us.
Another reminded us that not everyone’s experience of their family as a youth and young adult is a positive one. But could we get what we may have missed from our families elsewhere?
One wondered whether one weekend in Tony’s one-year relationship with Veronica when he met her family could be so pivotal for him and story. Another felt it was possible.
We returned to the theme of how some of us employ techniques to control others of us. The story is a familiar one for most of us, the different stages of life’s journey and in which as Tony was reflecting we could reflect on our own lives. Indeed some of us believed we have been as naive as Tony in failing to understand that others were not always good for us.
I only finished the book today and don’t think I would have understood what happened, ‘the big secret’ if the others hadn’t enlightened me. I still don’t know why £500 was left to him. Perhaps I am as Tony ‘I just don’t get some things’.
Classical music featured as the cultural norm amongst the schoolboys. The question was asked how might that look today. Was it a nod towards the boys belonging to that other subject which is difficult to discuss a certain class? Some of us have remained in the class culture to which we were born while others of us have made our way into a different class by education, marriage or some other route. For those of us that move class what have we left behind? Do we conform to the social mores of the class in which we find ourselves or do we remain free to express ourselves as we did at home?
I wondered whether I am expected to be less emotional about matters when in discussion yet being emotional (perhaps the middle-class word is ‘passionate’) is part of my way of being.
A lot of what he writes I have experienced. He speaks of an email exchange I had ‘messenger exchanges with an old flame’ about 7 years ago, long since stopped. It can only go so far unless you want it to go further.
Tony is attempting to explain a vile letter he wrote to Veronica in their youth, he wrote, “All I can say is my vile words were an expression of a moment.”
If anything the book reminded me that although we may only be in peoples’ lives for a short time there may be a continuing story that we may not know but nonetheless remain involved.
This is great to learn if it is positive such as you were the first person to send your old Headteacher, ‘ A good wishes in your retirement card’ not so great to learn that a ‘vile’ act may have left its mark on another.
Perhaps the consolation in dealing with such vile past matters was highlighted by one of us who said, “The book is about trying to change remorse to guilt in order to at least deal with it.”
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