I hope you will participate in this year’s Africa Reading Challenge by Kinna @ kinnareads:

http://kinnareads.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/africa-reading-challenge/

Glad you are enjoying the discussion, and thanks for a great addition to it!

I see what you mean about the mother – there’s definitely a hint of flirtation there – but I am a bit more sympathetic towards her. It seems like a dysfunctional family on many levels, and Veronica’s father seems quite horrific. She reminded me of a captive somehow, desperate to escape in any way. I do take your point, though, about her culpability, and it’s interesting to imagine what it must have been like for Veronica to grow up in that household.

I think you’re quite right that a milder response from Tony would probably have saved Adrian’s life. I’m still not convinced that this implies moral responsibility, however. When a disaster happens, there are often people who can look back and say, “If only I’d called him / left the house earlier / been home that night, etc etc, it would never have happened.” But if the person, acting with the knowledge they had at the time, didn’t do anything particularly terrible, then I don’t think they can be held responsible for terrible consequences. They’ll feel guilt, of course, as Tony does. But I look at the letter he wrote and think that in the same situation I’d probably have done something similar. So I find it quite difficult to blame him. Also I do think that he valued Adrian’s friendship very highly – that’s why he felt so betrayed when Adrian got together with Veronica, and was haunted by Adrian’s death for the rest of his life.

Excellent, thought-provoking comments – thanks for stopping by! It’s been a while now since I read the book, so it’s great to be reminded of it and to think about it again.

I just finished the book in one setting and have spent the last half-hour skimming reviews. One thought that I don’t think I’ve seen is that Tony was wrong all along about both Veronica and her mother. He speculates about Veronica’s damage and wonders whether there was unpleasantness with her father or brother.

But it may be that Veronica’s mother is the ultimate villain in the book. What young Tony construed as her benign friendliness may have been a subtle but flirtatious overture from her. She ultimately seduced Adrian and initiated the events that led to his suicide, so I’m guessing she wasn’t a model of personal subtlety or judgment. Who knows what it might have been like for Veronica to have been raised by such a person; one of Tony’s core misunderstandings is attributing benevolence to the mother and manipulation to Veronica.

Additionally, I’m not so confident that Tony can be absolved of moral responsibility. Whatever his intellect, Adrian seemed more delicate than the other friends; he obviously emphasized his own seriousness; he was himself from a broken family. There was no reason to doubt that his letter to Tony was written in good faith. He appears to have valued Tony’s friendship more than Tony valued his. In a different version of the world, a milder response from Tony might have kept Adrian’s situation with Veronica and her family from exploding. So might his continued presence in Adrian’s life. Whatever we think of young Tony’s emotional state and inexperience at the time, he flippantly discarded Adrian. I think that Tony earned his guilt.

Also, while I enjoyed the book, a lot of the Geoff Dyer criticisms hit a chord with me. Barnes is pretty blunt and inelegant in pressing his themes and the problems of Tony’s unreliability. I appreciated the book more than Dyer, but some of his observations were on the mark.

Enjoyed your take and the dialog in the comments. Best regards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/books/review/julian-barnes-and-the-diminishing-of-the-english-novel.html?pagewanted=2&sq=geoff%20dyer&st=cse&scp=1

I may end up having to read S of an E again just to check all the things I liked about it, as I’m starting to feel increasingly defensive. But it *was* a good book, wasn’t it? I did think so at the time. Not my favourite, but good nonetheless.