Tag Archives | julian barnes

The Sense of an Ending, explained

2 May 2012 · Reading · Comments { 22 }

First, some background: last year I wrote a review of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. I had a lot of comments from people who didn’t understand the ending, and since then I’ve been inundated with people searching for things like “Sense of an Ending explained”. I felt bad, because my original review [...]

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“The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes

19 September 2011 · Reading · Comments { 30 }

I bought a signed copy at Highgate Bookshop, took it home and read it from cover to cover without stopping. That’s partly because it’s a short book (150 pages, with fairly large type and liberal use of white space) but also because it really drew me in and made me want to read more. The [...]

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“The Porcupine” by Julian Barnes

10 August 2010 · Reading · Comments { 3 }

What I liked about this book was the complexity of its characters. It tells the story of a former Communist dictator being put on trial by the new democratic government. In another author’s hands, it could have been unbearable. The Cold War is often viewed in simplistic terms: we won, they lost, democracy=good, communism=evil. It [...]

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