gimley reviewed The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending …
Review of 'The Sense of an Ending' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I'd been avoiding Barnes because
- A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
This book didn't feel that way. It felt like a book should--like it was about real people. I wasn't on Goodreads when I finished it so I didn't review it when it was fresh in my mind. I do want to say that it had a remarkable feel of the passage of time to it. So detailed and overly important when you're young yet less clear and surprisingly formless in the present, despite it being "now." Maybe the point is that hindsight creates the cohesion of the past (there is much discussion of the validity of history in the book) but I believe it is the loss of illusion that removes the binding that held the past together. That, plus the the present's lack of uniqueness when organized in the light of what has already happened.