A quick explanation of the ending of Julian Barnes’s novel The Sense of an Ending—followed by a long discussion in the comments for those who want to go deeper.
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 didn’t really answer that question. So this post directly addresses the ending of the book and attempts to clear up any confusion.
If you haven’t read the book and don’t want to know the end, look away now!
So the big revelation is that Adrian had an affair with Veronica’s mother, and so the young Adrian is Veronica’s brother, not her son, as Tony had assumed. The reason Veronica kept saying throughout the book that Tony didn’t get it was because he never understood this link. The reason her mother had Adrian’s diary and said he had been happy in his last few months is because he had been with her.
Now, I think perhaps the reason why people are confused is because this doesn’t seem like much of a revelation. Perhaps you think you must have missed something, that a Booker-prize-winning novel must have something deeper to it than that. No, that’s it. At least, I’m pretty sure it is, unless I’m like Tony and just don’t get it at all 🙂
Tony feels guilty because his spiteful letter drove Adrian to Veronica’s mother, which led them to produce a son, which led to his suicide. The suggestion, then, is that Adrian’s suicide wasn’t an intellectual/philosophical decision after all, but a banal one on the same level as Robson’s suicide in their school days. As Tony says, “I looked at the chain of responsibility. I saw my initial in there.”
I have to say, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to see Tony as responsible for Adrian’s death. It’s true that if Tony hadn’t written the letter, perhaps Adrian would not have killed himself. But a man who accidentally runs over a child as he’s driving to work could just as easily say, “If only I’d left home a few minutes earlier, I never would have hit her.” Is he responsible, then, because he left home at that particular time?
He feels guilt, yes, because something terrible happened and he was involved, but is that the same as moral responsibility? Surely there has to be some cause and effect, some intent. Tony intended to hurt Adrian with his letter, but he couldn’t possibly have foreseen that when he said “Consult the mother”, Adrian would in fact sleep with the mother and then kill himself.
I also felt it was a revelation that Tony couldn’t possibly have guessed, any more than we could. So why was Veronica so angry at him all the time for not getting it? What was there for him to get? How could he possibly have got it?
To me, Veronica’s obstructive behaviour throughout the novel was not very credible. It seemed to function as a plot device: the author needed to ration information out, to dripfeed it to the reader to maintain suspense, so if Veronica had explained everything immediately, there would have been no book. But her reasons for withholding all this information are not clear.
I think this is also responsible for some of the confusion over the ending. People were looking for Veronica’s irrationality and hostility to be explained, and it wasn’t. Not really. She blamed Tony, apparently, but it seems too harsh. Doesn’t she bear responsibility too? Doesn’t her mother? Doesn’t Adrian himself? It seems to me that they bear more responsibility than Tony.
So there it is, anyway. The Sense of an Ending explained, at least as I understand it. Let me know in the comments if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said, or if there’s anything that’s still unclear – I’ll do my best to clear up any other loose ends.
I’d also like to make it clear that, while I’ve been quite critical of the book in this post, I actually really liked it. The ending was my least favourite part, and this post focused on the ending. For my response to The Sense of an Ending as a whole, please see the original review. Also feel free to check out other opinions in the reviews on Amazon.
If you enjoyed this post, please have a look at my other book reviews, or check out the free stuff I’m offering to readers at the moment.
There are 590 comments
Very good post Andrew. I couldn’t agree more. I guess it is natural for Tony to feel unhappy about the way the things have turned out for his friends, but it is indeed a stretch for him to feel responsible for the events.
Thanks Nivedita! I remember your original review of this book as well. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it was a bit of a stretch! I think that’s why there’s some confusion about the ending…
Andrew,
I appreciated your review and the comments I have read here.
I am interested in your view on the impact of the suicides (most importantly, Adrian’s) on Tony. His closest friend (and one from whom he had become estranged) takes his own life. Tony is not able reconnect with him and make amends – and we learn quickly that Tony has some challenges in forming deep attachments. I found it sad that in this man’s sixties, he has no male friends and I think that is telling.
Tony has excellent insight into life, history and meaning – but it’s one step back from being truly “engaged” in life. I don’t think he manipulates the reader – I think he is blunted. Life doesn’t fully register with him because he is (and was) too protective of himself to let it. He is filling in and changing what happened – as someone partially deaf will “fill in” words they don’t hear when they are being spoken to. Notably, it changes the meaning of the intended communication.
I like your analogy to the deaf completing unheard sentences. Thank you
Hi Andrew,
I interpreted the story that both Adrian (a1) and Anthony (a2) both slept with Veronica’s (v) mother, Mary (m). I’m surprised this interpretation didn’t make it into your article. Otherwise this Booker Prize winner is, as you say, a stretch.
Whether Mary bore Adrian’s baby (the man was similar to Adrian in physical appearance, the first equation, and Anthony played an introductory role) or Anthony’s baby (“I thought of a woman frying eggs in a carefree, slapdash way, untroubled when one of them broke in the pan”) is difficult to say.
a2 + v + a1 x s = b
b = s –v +/x a1
So for instance if…..
Veronica’s mother’s name was Sarah. Not Mary.
Mary is veronicas first name.
I agree completely with this view of the book.
I agree with Luke. I thought it was clear in all if the real time and flash backs that Tony also had a relationship with the mother. The leaving scene and her casual goodbye wave and his comment that he liked her mother. I think there was a point that he believed he could have been the father..
Luke – I’m where you are … the furtive wave to Tony as he left seemed to me to imply a relationship (though brief) that might have happened over that weekend. And Tony’s stalkery interest in Adrian II seemed beyond curiosity but rather pretty personal.
I just can’t get there. I see no information in his visit to Veronica’s house that would lead a reader to believe he had a romantic encounter with the enigmatic mom. Given how Tony shares every tortured and stilted emotional experience he has with the reader, how can we take a leap that he slept with Veronica’s mom and never once refers to it? Further, he accounts for almost every moment of his brief visit to their house. I think that is just imagining something that is not supported by the text.
The broken egg appears to me be a foreshadow of the future impaired pregnancy. Although the foreshadow would have been more complete if she casually aborted the pregnancy — throwing away the “broken egg”, so to speak.
I just finished reading it for the first time. I agree with you- there are no suggestions from Tony that he’d had an affair with Sarah. Tony would not have said “I like your mother” to Veronica and her father upon leaving Veronica’s family home. I interpreted Tony’s encounter with Sarah as an attempt by Sarah to seduce him but Tony was oblivious to it. Tony’s resentment towards Veronica and Adrian at the time he wrote the letter suggests he was truly hurt by Veronica moving on with his best friend. If Tony had had an affair with Sarah, would he not feel some sort of boyish triumph about having betrayed her more than she could ever have betrayed him.
I perceived Veronica’s actions 40 years later to be a result of her assuming Tony had slept with her mother as well. Veronica may have been coming to her own conclusions about her mother and all the boyfriends she’d ever brought home. She may have looked back on her relationship with Tony and felt that the relationship failed because of her mother back then as well. If Veronica reflected on the same moments Tony did it’s very likely she analysed Tony’s behaviour and her memory exaggerated Tony’s fondness of her mother likening it to what happened with Adrian and her mother. It’s natural for the brain to seek out a pattern of behaviour to apportion blame and to make sense of an otherwise independent event. For example Tony’s disinterest in continuing the relationship after they slept together may be viewed by Veronica as confirmation of the fact that Tony had an affair with her mother especially if this is stewed over for 40 years.
Veronica “blaming” Tony makes more sense when you view it through this lens. Veronica rejecting Tony’s attempts to speak to her all those years later also support this theory of mine. She treated Tony with such contempt possibly because she felt like Tony was the master manipulator much like Tony perceived her.
The blood money email from Veronica confused me. But blood money is paid by the killer to the victim’s family to compensate them for their loss. Similarly blood money is money earned at the cost of someone’s life. Veronica could’ve been saying her mother was compensating Adrian’s family for causing his death. But she also could’ve been saying those are Tony’s earnings for “killing” Adrian.
From Sarah’s perspective- there may be no significance to the £500 left to Tony with Adrian’s diary. I’d assume Sarah and Veronica were estranged by the time Sarah passed away. Who else would she leave Adrian’s belongings to? Their son Adrian Jnr is in a care home and Jack is on a never ending gap year. I think she left what she could for Tony because he was close to Adrian and she knew him personally.
To Veronica this may have further confirmed her theories that Tony and Sarah had a relationship all those years ago. But again Tony doesn’t recount anything that solidifies the theory that he and Sarah were romantically involved. He doesn’t really describe Sarah as someone he finds attractive and his attention was solely on Veronica.
I believe Veronica was serious about Tony and that is the reason she invited him over at his house for the weekend. Her mother probably tried to seduce him which is shown by her cooking and throwing hot pan into the sink ( this was made to get Tony’s attention and that is why he remembered it). I believe Veronica knew about this trait of her mother. Adrian too had a mother who left them. So in a way both Veronica and Adrian had unreliable mother and hence connected and eventually dated.
Later as Tony pointed, he slept with Veronica’s mother and impregnated her. And died because of the same shame Roboson had.
But I still don’t know why would her mother leave Adrian’s diary to Tony in her will. Also 500 bucks too seem peculiar.
But why did she leave him 500 pounds?
I’d like to know that too. I found that confusing.
“Blood Money?” she felt responsible for his death and payed compensation to Tony because Adrian always talked fondly of him so she knew they were close and loosing him would be like loosing family and it was her fault
Yes, I found this site because I enjoyed the book so much at first thought, and then woke up with many questions and some skepticism. This post and the comments help a lot. But still… Why did the mother give Tony 500 pounds — all explanations seem like a stretch. And why did she give him Adrian’s diary? Why not his other friends? Because she had met him once? Did Adrian not have family? Did she not know of the terrible letter he had sent Adrian? Why give the diary to someone who was seen by then as an enemy? To thank him for sending Adrian her way? It’s all a bit of a stretch for the central action of a novel. And I believe in logic first, then comes all the rest.
And yet, as said here, I really enjoyed it.
Paid, losing, her fault.
Thank you.
i think Adrian gave her money for abortion she didn’t use. so sarah passed it on to Tony
Bravo! I think you have hit on something there…
Very good theory!
Love this! That is a very compelling explanation of something that was totally opaque to me.
But, why pass it on to Tony? Why are we supposed to believe that Tony had any agency in the love triangle between the mother, daughter and Andrian? Just because he once introduced them and then wrote a poison pen note? Tony seems to bear no responsibility whatsoever. Andria and the mother bear 100% of the responsibility for their actions.
I find it hard to believe that any of the three of them even paused for a second to curse Tony for ever introducing Adrian and Veronica/Mary.
This makes sense!
Exactly. And it was described as “blood money”. What does that mean in context?
I think it may have been as a sort of fee for him having unwittingly sent Adrian, her next underage conquest, her way.
Andrew – thanks for the insights, they really helped
What bothered me most was why did Sara leave Tony $500 and Adrian’s diary? and
Why did Adrian kill himself?
After reading your conclusions and others commments, these are my thoughts:
Tony did have an affair (if you can call a one night stand that) with Sara thus producing Adrian 2. Veronica sleeps with Tony only after this to get back at her Mother. There is some question about Veronica’s own parenthood “Could such a giant oaf produce an elf like Veronica” but will leave that in the disfunctionality of Veronica’s family. Brother Jack seemed like an odd lot from the get go.While this helps solve the issue of the $500, then why is the child named Adrian and why does Adrian1 kill himself, is it not emtional but philosophical as Tony first suspects ans as documented by letter to coroner? Veronica’s attesting that “Tony doesn’t get it” seems to refer to her mother’s sexual exploits and the child.
Ok, so Adrian enters the scene, hooks up with Sara who is pregnaunt with Tony’s baby. Does he know? Does he kill himself because she is pregnaunt like Robson or because what he believes to be his child is malformed? Either seems out of character. Does Adrian figure out it is Tony’s baby thus leaving his diary to Sara, and Sara being guilt ridden names the baby after him? I believe Tony;’s statement “looks at the chain of responsibility and sees his initials there” is about realizing he is the father of Adrian2 and not about causing Adrian1’s suicide which seems far fetched.
I think a look at the names and their literary place bears noting.
Anthony: hermit who founds Christian monothicism (Tony is a hermit of sorts)
Veronica: Sta who wipes Jesus face and finds his image upon it – is our Veronica permanently stained?
Mary: Either Virgin Mary and immaculate conception (Adrian -2’s birth we never know for sure who the father is) or Mary Magdelene (loose woman, secret lover of Jesus, Mother of his child.. to put the reader off the scent?)
Margaret: patron Saint of expectant Mothers (Mother of all Mothers in the story)
Sara – wife of Abraham sho gives birth to Isaac at 90 (late childbirth of Adrian 2)
Adrian comes from Hadrian who is best known for his Wall across Britian – does Adrian put up a Wall or take one down with his suicide?
Think I have asked more then I have answered but I enjoyed the book.
I also think that the names contain some important clues.
One thing that nobody has mentioned in any of the blogs is Annie the girl that Tony hooks up with while traveling the States.
According to Wikipedia, the name Anne derives from the Sanskrit word “the one without sin”. It also mentions that “it is said that Mary’s mother was Anne and the name Mary and Anne are commonly used together.”.
I see that as corroborating the theory that Tony had an affair with Sarah (Mary’s mother) which he repressed in his memory. Instead, he seems to remember a lengthy affair with an American girl which is a much more innocuous memory to have. Hence, this particular memory is one where he didn’t committ a sin of sleeping with his girl friend’s mother and possibly getting her pregnant.
Just a theory, though…
Andrew and Jenny Gordan: I have finished this book just before half an hour (at 03:35 am) and after reading your interpretation.. I m able to get some sleep 😀 thanks a lot for the post.
I think (as Tony did) that Veronica’s whole family was odd and that it was expected that Sara would make advances towards Tony – which they accommodated by conveniently going for a walk the morning he was there so he could “lie in”, which he didn’t do and therefore thwarted the expected action.. He was a pretty straightforward kind of guy, who would have bee appalled if he’d realized that this was Sara’s intention! That pleased Veronica, which is why she was nicer to him the second night of the visit. His only need for guilt at the end was that he wrote that letter – but the guilty party in this tale is Sara, who did manage to inveigle Adrian into bed – for which he and his son paid a terrible price!
This is an interesting interpretation Colette. Indeed, it may have been that Sara was predatory on all of Veronica’s boyfriends, and in this sense Veronica’s behaviour that weekend was a test of sorts, which Tony passed. But then what does “Sleep the sleep of the wicked” mean which Veronica whispered to Tony on the second night?
Accordingly, because Tony passed the test of being faithful to Veronica and not being pounced upon by Sara’s mum, Veronica verbalized “He’ll do, won’t he?”, and then steered him to the next step of the relationship. But by this time Tony was fed up, confused, feeling outclassed and adrift, and indicated no inclination to deepen the commitment, so Veronica left.
What I didn’t understand is what Veronica was upset about when she returned to sleep with Tony, and the conversation that ended with Tony saying, “I didn’t know before”. Was it a premature ejaculation when the condom was rolled on, and after which he decided he didn’t want to go further, leaving her unfulfilled and accusing him of a strange type of rape? Or what?
Veronica’s family is ” different” and “weird”in the extreme.. When Tony spends a weekend with them, they all (except for her mother) go for a walk the first morning as Veronica tells them that Tony likes to “lie-in”. It seems to me that the mother is expected to make advances toward him, maybe after she’s taken the cooked breakfast up to his room.. But this doesn’t happen because he doesn’t lie-in and, being the straightforward guy that he is, he would have been horrified at such an event.. Nevertheless, the conniving mother (Sara) uses the intimate breakfast-cooking time to cosy up to him and leave doubts in his mind about her daughter. Veronica is pleased that nothing happened in their absence and is nicer to Tony the second night he’s there, and even gets a nod from her brother. Adrian, however, falls into Sara’s trap, with dire consequences for both himself and the son born of this union. Clearly, Sara is person to blame for the tragic outcomes for all, with Tony marginally to blame for the letter her wrote, which was pretty normal for the circumstances at the time . That’s my take on this book, and I would welcome responses!
Excellent insight! Your comment makes perfect sense of the weekend Tony spent with Veronica’s family. If Tony had slept with Sara, then the thought that young Adrian was her son might have occurred to him.
This is the most plausible explanation. The way that you explained that weekend makes a lot of sense – albeit sick sense – to me. I had taken everything at face value, but your perspective sounds spot on.
I agree with your take on it. It makes the most “sense” to me!
What does Tony really want in “The sense of an ending?”
&What does his quest for understanding lead him?
The problem lies with “brother.” “Half brother” and it all falls in place.
Occurred to me that perhaps Barnes had something else in mind with his bewildering ending. Clearly, Tony bears no responsibility for Adrian’s suicide other than the letter he wrote which cannot be seriously considered a credible provocation. It was just an angry, spiteful rant from a young lover scorned. Veronica is damaged, but we never really know enough details to understand her pathology. Tony is remorseful at the end when he realizes the truth, but Veronica continues to tell him he “doesn’t get it.” So maybe we and Tony don’t get it either. Maybe Tony’s surmising that Adrian slept with Veronica’s mother and gave birth to Adrian (Jr.?) is another example of Tony’s faulty memory. Maybe Barnes wants us to question the truth of the ending just as he has been questioning the truth of Tony’s memory throughout the book. Could it be that Tony is the father of young Adrian? And that Tony has suppressed that memory? Sounds crazy? Maybe, but for me it’s the only thing I can think of that would save the book from its own ultimate banality. If what Tony believes is the truth, then the reader is left feeling that the entire narrative has been a shallow and superficial self-indulgence on the part of the narrator and the narrator’s creator–Barnes himself. I like Barnes, and I have trouble imagining that his ending, if taken at face value, is what all that philosophical struggle to understand the meaning of memory adds up to in the end.
completely agree that there is more going on here. Narratorial reliability is a key issue in the book, what with the persistent focus on memory, what constitutes history, veracity. Our experience of the ending is in fact exactly Adrian’s experience of Robson’s death earlier in the book.
My own opinion is that Tony is always very deliberately manipulating how we see events. Clearly he is telling from his perspective, but I think it runs deeper. He very self consciously examines how some memories come back to him and yet his memory of the letter mysteriously augments every time he comes to it.
He also clearly doesn’t understand Adrian’s equations (which is probably for me the weakest part of the text, simply because of a lack of mathematical syntax): I think Adrian’s suicide probably is for some moral purpose: he is trying to find the equation that leads to the best result for ‘b’ – surely the conclusion he reaches is that he cannot be part of the equation.
I also think that the affair with Sarah that Andrew points to cannot be so simple – Veronica wears a red glass ring on her marriage finger. The interpretation of this is left completely open, but it is not too much to assume it is in memory of Adrian.
Last point: Andrew – why is Veronica known as Mary to Adrian 2?
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the comment, and for some good points. I’d forgotten the red glass ring. And I do believe you’re right that Tony is a manipulative narrator, not just an unreliable one.
We’ve had some discussion of the use of the name Mary further down in the comments. It’s Veronica’s middle name, and one commenter suggested that she uses it to distance herself from Adrian 2, who she feels obliged to help but feels no connection to. My feeling was that it’s also a subtle red herring, because Mary has Biblical connotations of motherhood, and it leads us to suspect that Veronica is Adrian 2’s mother, setting us up for the ultimate revelation that she’s his sister.
It seems to me that Tony’s perception of Veronica colored his entire life after they parted. He chose the safety of marriage to a woman who was Veronica’s opposite and seemed to remain distant and dispassionate in his own life ever after.
Veronica’s life took a somewhat different turn with similar results. I believe her immersion in the “you just don’t get it” mantra became so central to her life that she chose it over living. It seems to me that her early fears of rejection were solidified when Adrian chose her mother over her. Rather than realize that Adrian and her mother were flawed, she chose to punish herself instead. Her unrelenting anger at Tony kept her bound in a relationship with him.
The ending was a revelation of sorts – Tony and Veronica each based their existence on faulty beliefs. It makes one wonder about the influence of perception and the shifts that occur throughout one’s life as a result of these perceptions.
Veronica’s refrain “You don’t get it.” seems to come from a place of serious anger.
Imagine having a mother, Sara, who purposefully seduced her love interests. In retrospect, it seems she was working on Tony during his only visit – the egg imagery, her flirtatious behavior – she simply didn’t have time or opportunity to bed him. I think the hints of her intentions were for the reader, not Tony. As Veronica said, he “didn’t get it.” I believe what resonated for him from that visit was her ironic comment not “to let Veronica get away with too much,” ironic since the mother was the one who got away with too much.
Tony helped deliver Adrian to Sara by telling him to “consult the mother.” Again, Tony “didn’t get it.” He thought Sara’s role would be to help Adrian understand how to handle Veronica.
I think Veronica knew what Sara was capable of. She understood how dangerous her mother was, and she was furious with Tony because he didn’t “get” that. He encouraged Adrian right into her web.
Yes I agree with Bonnie.
It is Sarah who is the dangerous one, she was trying to seduce Tony but he did not pick up on that.
She may have tried to seduce all Veronica’s boyfriends.
She succeeded with Adrian.
The damaged egg was symbolic of the damaged foetus.
Adrian killed himself for the same reasons Robson did, which made him finally, as pathetic.
Loved the book, not concerned all the ends were not tied up so neatly, after all it is fiction and meant to provoke thought.
Very late to the party here; just finished for the first time last night. Very puzzling ending. Too many loose ends for there not to be a hidden subtext.
Is it possible that Adrien 1 doesn’t exist at all, but is rather Tony’s alter ego? Tony is Adrien 2’s father, but he became somewhat unhinged and an unreliable narrator because of or around the time of the pregnancy.
Some possible support for this:
1. Could explain Adrien 2’s visceral reaction to Tony who he otherwise only saw once and fleetingly. Why would Adrien 2 bury his face in tissue and become upset when he sees Tony, unless maybe he has previously seen a photo of his father?
2. Could explain the depth of Veronica’s hostility, especially when driving to see Adrien 2
3. Could explain the “secret horizontal wave” of Sarah to Tony which comes up again at the every end. Definitely seems plausible that Tony is Adrien’s father, regardless of alter ego theory.
4. Could explain why Sarah left the diary to Tony who really doesn’t seem so close to Adrien 1 that 40 years later Sarah would leave it to Tony.
5. Speaking of the diary, could that be Adrien 2’s diary? Or maybe Tony’s own diary from before- maybe he left it with Sarah?
6. In Adrien’s equation in the diary, the variable “a” is used twice, but “a” equals “a” regardless of its exponent (ie “a” exponent 1 or 2 is still “a”).
7. Explains the caregiver telling Tony at the end that his explanation of his relationship “makes no sense.” Tony dismisses the comment by reference to Mary, but there’s no indication that satisfies the caregiver.
8. Makes parallel to Robson seem less contrived. Is suicide the official punishment for unintentional impregnation or did Tony just project that fate upon his alter ego?
9. Sarah is actually going to give Adrien 2 the same name as his father? That would be a bit awkward around the breakfast table! More subtle to just use the initial.
Just a few thoughts. Please tell me I’m crazy!
Hi
I also came to the conclusion that Adrian had had an affair with Sarah, until I read your comments which made me think again.
Couple of things : the author uses the narrator to deliberately hint at what memories are relevant, and the very first paragraph of the novel contains the line about sperm sluicing down a tall house (the attic room on that weekend), which is then never referred to again in the novel. But since the other memories in that short list are elucidated in the novel, we are to assume that this is a significant memory which he has suppressed? We know what the shiny inner wrist refers to, as well as the frying pan steam, and the Severn bore. Not sure about the cold bath water. Why does he also look back at Sarah when he leaves, then notice the funny wave?
So what IS the significance of this memory?
After the young male carer tells him about Adrian, he says ‘I understood it. I got it’. Is the author being ironic – the narrator still doesn’t get it, that Adrian is his son? Tony doesn’t get a lot of stuff until much later, esp. the effect of his stinging letter to Adrian.
And might this not fully explain the undoubted fury of Veronica, as revealed by the bizarre driving episode around the block without saying a word?
But then, if Adrian did not father the boy, why did he committ suicide?
Just pointing out – the sperm line was referred to again much later in the book, when Tony remembers more about Veronica taking upstairs and saying goodnight…
…and the cold bath water refers to Adrian’s suicide…
Speaking of narratorial reliability, is it also possible that Tony tries to mislead the audience about the symbols in Adrian’s equations?
Perhaps, he swaps a1’s actual symbolic value with that of a2
Mary is veronica’s first name.
I totally agree with everything you said in your post.
I’d enjoyed the first part of the book; it was told from the perspective of Anthony as a young boy (then, a young man) who thinks he knows everything, but is lacking in life experience. The pretentiousness between he and his three friends reminded me (admittedly) of myself, at that age.
I also enjoyed the second part of the book. We now see Anthony as an older man and learn what happened to him throughout the years. Like you, I couldn’t “get” Veronica–what the bleep was wrong with that chick? I thought, “Let it GO, already!” What had Anthony done that had so offended her? I mean…they’d been kids!
I didn’t like not understanding the ending of the book.A reader shouldn’t be left with the feeling of not being sure. It’s not satisfying; it’s a failure on the part of the writer, no matter how talented h/she is.
I wondered if Adrian (Jr) was, truly, the child of Adrian and Veronica—yet, for some unexplained reason, Veronica had changed her name. On the one hand, had Adrian (school friend) been her…gulp…brother…and the two of them had produced a child? Yick.
Or, as is most likely, Adrian had slept with V’s mom, who’d gotten pregnant, which is why the reader is told that Veronica is the sister of the “goofy guy” (I think that’s how Anthony describes him). Neither ending was worth it. A good book was turned into a lousy movie, if you know what I mean.
OR, did Tony, who remembers he really didn’t love Veronica really that much he was to young, have a one night stand with Mrs. Ford and got her pregnant by mistake way back then? That might explain why Veronica slept with him after they broke up, she was getting back at her mother? I guess this seems far fetched why would Adrian want to hook up with a pregnant woman? Or had she already given birth to the baby and he didn’t know that? Mrs. Ford seduced another friend of Veronica’s? Would explain why Veronica was so mad at Tony her whole life. Tony choose to see Adrian’s face in the Adrian Jr. but it was really his face he saw? We don’t really know what Tony choose to see his whole life, just his side of the story.
The book left us discussing which is what a good book does.
Adrian’s mother left him as a child and he was raised by his father. Tony says that Adrian never talked about his home life. I think that sets up that Veronica and Adrian became involved without knowing that they were siblings and produced a child, who possibly due to incest ended out with developmental disabilities. It doesn’t really explain why Veronica is so angry though. I agree that I would rather have been able to be sure of the ending, but it is kind of fun not knowing too!
I believe the title of the book “The Sense of an Ending” explains the ending. Tony is suppressing what happened to him. He has a sense of what happened but not the whole story. So the ending of the book is only his sense of what happened — not what actually happened.