Chris

The Idle Book Club 1: The Sense of an Ending

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I will always prefer physical books over digital books, but I have not the space for them. Maybe whenever I get a house (or at least a bigger apartment with more than just a living room and bedrooms), I'll start buying physical again. But, then again, by that time, physical books might be on the way out for good? I dunno if that'll ever happen permanently, though. Unlike movies or music or games, books can still be a very tactile experience, even if all that really means is the delicious smell you get when you open a book for the first time and the feeling of turning a page. X:

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I always detested reading with a goal of specifically thinking critically about it. High school English class is the worst place to learn about loving books. In my high school, Catch 22 was always on the curriculum for your senior year. I was so interested and excited about it that I read it during the summer before the school year. I love it, it's one of my favorite books. I even read Heller's sequel. When it rolled around to spring and it came time to read the book in class, it was horrible. The discussions were trite, the messages were forced, I couldn't just READ. I didn't even finish the book.

I think reading something and knowing you'll have someone to talk about it with is fun and exciting. Reading with an eye on specifically dissecting a book, taking notes, crunching it up, studying certain passages, and sucking all the messaging marrow out of it sounds like one of the most joyless activities on earth.

Not thinking specifically about the inclusion of a character like Chief Halfoat or Lt. Scheisskopf doesn't mean I didn't get anything out of those characters.

Yeah, high school reading killed a lot of books I think I would have otherwise very much enjoyed. There are only two books I ever read for school that I emerged actually feeling satisfied, and I think it's because I finished both of them in a weekend instead of over the course of several weeks like I was "supposed" to. Those books are 1984 and Lord of the Flies. I still like those books a lot, I think.

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Personally my affection for physical books started strong and waned with each move. Nothing like packing up 10 boxes of the things and lugging around what are basically huge blocks of wood to make you reconsider the benefits of digital reading. Right now, I'm just hanging onto the rare books and the ones where illustrations or layout are important (e.g. House of Leaves).

Also Vonnegut. I will never discard Vonnegut.

All of this discussion about high school English makes me glad I managed to avoid ever attending. It's sad that somehow people have started to think this is the proper way to read and discuss books. I can only imagine it emerged as highly educated and intelligent individuals explored the books they'd been reading in depth extemporaneously, out of pure enthusiasm for the works, and less educated and articulate people said 'ah, so that's how smart people discuss books' and set about aping the form without understanding the context. I'm sure that all sounds snobby as fuck, but I suspect that's basically how it went down.

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In public places, it's fascinating to be able to tell whether people are reading new or second hand books, hardback or paperback, how far or early they are into them, how fast they read, if they are very absorbed or not, what's the title or at least the general look of the cover... it's like having a peek into their personality. You definitely loose that with Kindle.

This is definitely something I love. Once at an airport going through customs, a guy was reading the exact same edition of The Island of the Day Before as I was; once on a bus, I was reading Foucault's Pendulum and got into a big discussion about The Name of the Rose with another rider; and just recently I was reading Wolf Hall in a cafe and was approached by a guy who not only had read and loved the book but was also much more familiar with Tudor-era history than I was, which was really fascinating.

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I wonder if the prevalence of ebooks is going to change the way authors construct their work. Michael Chabon's new book has an 'enhanced' ebook version with a long list of multimedia features that make it sound more like a Blu-Ray box set than a book. Personally, being the stuck up curmudgeon that I am, I have no interest in anything like that and really hope that 'enhanced' ebooks do not become a permanent thing.

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I'm very conflicted about the ebook vs digital book CONFLICT. Thinking about it makes me face all these aspects of my personality that I loathe, and it makes me feel everything from too materialist to thoughtless, unreflective and unprincipled. I can't even start forming a proper opinion because I call into question my own arguments for both sides. Do I really appreciate a nice, weighty hardback book, or a first edition or whatever, or am I just being pretentious or Luddite? Do I really care about the environmental benefit of not having to produce and transport heavy books, or do I just love technological gadgets? Do I really care about whether I own the book or just a license to read it according to the whim of some ever-changing terms of agreement? I start transferring my opinions onto other aspects of my life to double-check and verify them, and then I discover my whole existence is a shameful mess of conflicting statements, shallow reasoning, laziness and egoism. I bought a Kindle and it's great for outdoors reading, but when I'm inside I prefer reading on my iPad.

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I'm very conflicted about the ebook vs digital book CONFLICT. Thinking about it makes me face all these aspects of my personality that I loathe, and it makes me feel everything from too materialist to thoughtless, unreflective and unprincipled. I can't even start forming a proper opinion because I call into question my own arguments for both sides. Do I really appreciate a nice, weighty hardback book, or a first edition or whatever, or am I just being pretentious or Luddite? Do I really care about the environmental benefit of not having to produce and transport heavy books, or do I just love technological gadgets? Do I really care about whether I own the book or just a license to read it according to the whim of some ever-changing terms of agreement? I start transferring my opinions onto other aspects of my life to double-check and verify them, and then I discover my whole existence is a shameful mess of conflicting statements, shallow reasoning, laziness and egoism. I bought a Kindle and it's great for outdoors reading, but when I'm inside I prefer reading on my iPad.

Unless you already know you DO care about any of those things strongly, I don't see what's wrong with having a simple preference, or a set of preferences based on different contexts.

There are things that are inconvenient about physical books--mainly their weight--but on balance I still prefer them. I also don't have a problem with ebooks even though I don't read them. I don't think there needs to be any real conflict.

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Without the book club to keep me going, I probably wouldn't have read past the first part of this book. That would have been a shame for me, because the middle section of the book really knocked me out.

The subject matter of this book reminded me of the Raymond Carver short story Cathedral, except that story is reaffirming, and I think The Sense of an Ending's outlook on humanity is much more cynical.

I agree with the person earlier who said they felt sorry for brother Jack. Tony even says once or twice he feels sorry for making assumptions about Jack, but he still uses him like a jackass right up until the end. Tony seems unable to change his behavior. No matter how much he learns about Veronica's situation he keeps trying to use that information to press the reset button on their relationship. None of the characters in The Sense of an Ending seem capable of transcending their character flaws.

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Personally my affection for physical books started strong and waned with each move. Nothing like packing up 10 boxes of the things and lugging around what are basically huge blocks of wood to make you reconsider the benefits of digital reading. Right now, I'm just hanging onto the rare books and the ones where illustrations or layout are important (e.g. House of Leaves).

Moving is what prompted me to buy a kindle. I replaced a lot of the public domain books so I could whittle down the shelf. I like the physical books a little more but I also love the convenience of a kindle. I don't think I could read very many books on devices with back lighting.

But most of my reading is done through audio books. I'm lucky to have a job where I can work and listen to books with a good degree of attention (it helps I'm an auditory learner). I can also get a jump start on housework and not feel like I'm wasting my time.

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Without the book club to keep me going, I probably wouldn't have read past the first part of this book. That would have been a shame for me, because the middle section of the book really knocked me out.

The subject matter of this book reminded me of the Raymond Carver short story Cathedral, except that story is reaffirming, and I think The Sense of an Ending's outlook on humanity is much more cynical.

I agree with the person earlier who said they felt sorry for brother Jack. Tony even says once or twice he feels sorry for making assumptions about Jack, but he still uses him like a jackass right up until the end. Tony seems unable to change his behavior. No matter how much he learns about Veronica's situation he keeps trying to use that information to press the reset button on their relationship. None of the characters in The Sense of an Ending seem capable of transcending their character flaws.

Oh man, I love Cathedral! I can see where you're going with the similarity too. I see both narrators as being totally unreliable. They have their preconceived notions of what's going on, and they applaud themselves for how they handle each situation. However, they are so wrapped up in their own world that they scarcely take the time to have empathy for others.

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I read about something called 'emotobooks', which are light novels for digital delivery enhanced with abstract splash pages featuring psychedelic colors to set the reader in the right mood. So, that's a thing.

Whenever I read in public, I always envision getting caught up in interesting conversations, but that never happens.

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Whenever I read in public, I always envision getting caught up in interesting conversations, but that never happens.

You need to read what other people are reading. So whip out that Fifty Shades of Grey and watch people flock to have a conversation with you.

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I finished re-reading the book today and just like Tony feeling remorse over the letter he wrote I am feeling some remorse over my earlier thoughts about the book.

In the first part of the book there is a line about how history is what is written by the survivors no the victorious or defeated

and I can't help but see Tony with his desire to have a peaceful life as the surviror with Adrian playing the role of the victor/defeated depending on whether how you view his sucide

. The irony is that early in the book Tony critizes Adrian for not following up on why his parents split which is what the hero in literature would do. He just accepts what happened and goes on with his life.

One thing that strikes me about Tony is that he doesn't seen to have any real friends so much as people he talks to. He doesn't stay friends with those he know as a kid, has a distant relationship with his daughter and the only person he talks to about anything of importance is his ex-wife.

Tony talks about his survivability and I think part of that is never getting too close to others cause he might get hurt. Both his ex-wife and his girlfriend Annie hint at closer relationships and he ignores these hints. One of the top regrets people have on their deathbeds are not spending enough time with friends and I wonder if Tony's outlook on life be far more positive if he didn't see close relationships with others as a threat as opposed to a good thing. It reminds me of the idea of the two hedgehogs and how the closer they become the greater chance there is that the smallest mistake can cause great harm to the other. Tony never has to worry about this cause he avoids the risk in it. At one point Veronica asks him about their relationship and rather than speak his mind Tony asks what is he meant to say. He says at one point how he lived a life with no great highs and lows and I think that is cause he never risked getting too close to anyone for fear of what could go wrong.

The final lines of the books says that there is Accumulation, Responsibility and beyond these great unrest. I think that we rarely see this unrest in others and/or express it ourselves cause we are afraid of how we will be viewed and a possible social idea that you shouldn't express such thouights .

In a book filled with alot of memorable lines a few that stuck with me on reading are :

The young want emotions to change their life while the old want emotions to support theirs and part of me wonders if books have the same function for people.

In the second part Tony mentions how his daugher Susie prefers to assume he has certain feelings and to act according to them rather than trying to understand his feelings which is exaclty what Tony has done throughout the book. Every piece of evidence he gets he uses to reinforce his opinion of Veronica rather that seeing it as a challenge to it which is an established psychological bias we all have - more information doesn't change our opinion but enforces it.

Re-reading this books reminds me of a section in Scott McCloud's the art of understanding comics where he says we can never know another persons mind and that art is something that allows that to happen as the creators thoughts are. This is a story about people either not being able since the events are beyond their knowing or not wanting to do so since it would change how they view the world/ themselves.

I really liked the line about Veronicas bookshelf was an organics out growth of her mind while Tony's was more about trying to become a certain kind of reader. It reminds me of a line in the start of the Great Gatsby where Carrow says he was well read in college and plans to becomes again. In both cases the books are not about the narrorats are interested in so much as what they believe they should be interseted in to be though of as a well read person capable of intelligent dinner conversations where everyone says the same things about the same books.

One thing I haven't seen discussion of is the title of the book. What does Barnes mean by the sense of an ending. At the end of the book Tony talks about how he feels he has come to the end not of his life but any chance to change his life. I keep thinking the use of sense implies that there is no actual ending and it comes down to the feeling of an end on the part of Tony concerning Veronica, Adrian and what happened between them.

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I just got done listening to episode 0 in the car and am psyched for the next episode. A request though: Can we have a theme song too, like the Idle Thumbs theme song?

I found myself singing along to the Idle Thumbs theme song (

) but with the lyrics:

Books, reading a book, reading a book, reading a boo-ok.

But I'm sure a better theme song can be had!

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Read and finished the book in one sitting. Spoilers below.

Looking back, the first half appears to be an attempt to describe Tony's memories of his life, up until the events of the second half. He isn't a super-reliable narrator, but I tend to trust that he's not intentionally lying to us in the first half. The difference between the first and second half is that in the second half you appear to be in temporal lock-step with Tony as he experiences the events. Whereas in the first half you only get to look back on the events through his memory.

I really enjoyed the first half. When it wrapped up I really wasn't sure what the second half would bring. My first guess was that the second half would be telling the same events from another characters perspective, that would have been interesting!

Regarding the twist. Obviously most readers probably saw _something_ coming a long ways off. I had a few guesses, one was that Adrian's mother was also Veronica's mother. I also considered that Veronica's mother was the one who had the child before it was revealed, but wasn't certain and hadn't settled on that, so I thought of it, but didn't "guess" it.

Was there any particular reason that Adrian Jr. called Veronica Mary? If there was I missed it.

Overall, for me, the plot doesn't matter. I'd give it a 3 out of 5. But as others have said, it is a beautiful study of memory and I highly enjoyed it.

I'm 30 and I tend not to read for deep philosophizing. I read genre-fiction for story and character, but in this case I liked spending the mental energy thinking about the questions Sense raised in me about myself, both my past and how I live in my present (which was more of an afterthought by the author, but as a young person you likely can't read something like this without wondering what you are doing with your life.)

Looking forward to jumping into Cloud Atlas. I watched the first trailer, but am holding off on the second.

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I don't think anyone has pointed it out yet, but the fragment of Adrian's diary is an exact lift of the structure from Wittgenstein's Tractus Logico-Philosophicus, which was written as nested lists of propositions. I think he might be missing the point by jumping from 5.9 to 6.0, though, unless that was just a coincidence.

Also this book is even better re-reading it a few months after my original go!

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I don't think anyone has pointed it out yet, but the fragment of Adrian's diary is an exact lift of the structure from Wittgenstein's Tractus Logico-Philosophicus, which was written as nested lists of propositions. I think he might be missing the point by jumping from 5.9 to 6.0, though, unless that was just a coincidence.

Ah, um... yeah. We all thought that was too obvious to point out.

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The first thing is that I thought Veronica was being more than a little unfair in her treatment of Tony. She is constantly telling him that he’ll never understand and pretends like he is insensitive and incapable of reading her emotions. Whereas the root of the problem turns out to be that he didn’t know that Adrian and Veronica’s mother had a child together. This is a factoid Tony couldn’t have known, so it’s strange Veronica treats him as if he should have been able to ‘feel’ his way to this truth. I don’t feel like drawing the conclusion that it’s a failing of the book since part of the story hinges on Tony’s perceived simple nature, but like to view it more as Veronica being a needlessly difficult fruitcake.

This is the thing that bugged me the most as well. In fact, it was the only thing that detracted from what was otherwise a very pleasant experience.

I don't know if Barnes was just running with the "If you don't know what's bothering me, I'm not going to tell you" thing that gets pinned on women sometimes, but the last bit of the book made me feel like I was watching LOST in space (see this trope).

In fact, the "I know the answer but won't tell you" trope is one of my pet peeves. It seems like such a lazy way to build drama.

Other than this, a rather enjoyable book. I'll admit that at the end I went and looked for other people's responses due to the overwhelming sense of "wait, what just happened!?!"

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This is the thing that bugged me the most as well. In fact, it was the only thing that detracted from what was otherwise a very pleasant experience.

I don't know if Barnes was just running with the "If you don't know what's bothering me, I'm not going to tell you" thing that gets pinned on women sometimes, but the last bit of the book made me feel like I was watching LOST in space (see this trope).

In fact, the "I know the answer but won't tell you" trope is one of my pet peeves. It seems like such a lazy way to build drama.

I saw it as her way of seeing if he'd changed; Tony makes a big deal about wanting to show her he was different now, a better person, but he is still unable to pull himself away from himself long enough to see what was happening, or at least not be a bore about it. Of course Victoria has her own weaknesses like him, so that too made her behavior very non-absurd to me.

His decision to not contact his old school chums, on the other hand, felt a lot more contrived to keep him in the twilight of self-deception.

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remember though that he only figures it out because he recognises adrian's posture and features.

i've been considering that central phrase about tony not 'getting it', and what 'it' might be. the first answer is the twist, and that he eventually does get it, and end of story.

but veronica also says 'and you never will'. tony from that point reflects and reconstructs and decides that he has got 'it' but considering the tone and theme of the book i think 'it' is something else - something that we as the reader will never get either because we only have tony's side of the story - we can't decode veronica's (or adrian's) reasoning or history because we don't have that information. veronica has her own internal version of truth that we are not privy to - something that makes her character so much more real.

the point for me is that tony thinks he has figured 'it' out by the end - and in a practical way he has - but it is only his version he understands.

i don't know if that makes any sense, and i feel absurdly uncomfortable referring to him as tony given how much know he hates it...

Given the various philosophical outlooks of history throughout the book, to me, Tony is desperately trying to wrap up a version of a story that doesn't want to be documented, much like the suicide in the beginning of the book. To make meaning of the title, Tony only gets as far as a sense of an ending, rather than the actual one. When he recounts this story to other people it will be boiled down to its essential qualities of Adrian sleeping with Veronica's mother, getting her pregnant in the process, and offing himself when he wrongfully thinks that his potential will be put to waste with the responsibility of raising that kid.

Immediately after finishing the book, I wanted to read through it again. I equate it to the first read would be me seeing everything through the eyes of Tony as he searches for this information that wasn't a problem until it was resurfaced late in his life. The second read would be seeing what Tony willingly or not tried to hide about his history and what other characters tried to get him to see. There's a lot of mirroring in the events that makes me think history, and the recounting of it, is the real protagonist of the book. We see how it's collected, how its altered, and even how it repeats itself in such a short amount of time.

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Immediately after finishing the book, I wanted to read through it again. I equate it to the first read would be me seeing everything through the eyes of Tony as he searches for this information that wasn't a problem until it was resurfaced late in his life. The second read would be seeing what Tony willingly or not tried to hide about his history and what other characters tried to get him to see. There's a lot of mirroring in the events that makes me think history, and the recounting of it, is the real protagonist of the book. We see how it's collected, how its altered, and even how it repeats itself in such a short amount of time.

I too would like reread this book. My BF is currently reading it for the first time, but he's aware of the 'twist ending. After he read the first part, he told me that the big reveal from the ending is very obviously laid out at the beginning. Meanwhile, I had the exact opposite reaction when I first read the book, and was just as shocked as Tony at the end. If I were to reread it, I think I would see the ending as even more devastating, because now I'm aware of how completely oblivious Tony is to what's happening around him.

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I think it's a fair assumption that Tony

is actually the father of Adrian jr. It was the thing Veronic wanted him to see, but he wouldn't, not necessarily that his letter made Adrian do it.

The "blood money" was money Tony gave the mother for an abortion she chose not to get. He then fled to the US where he had a jolly romp with some young lady, something light and fun, compared to what must be happening back home. Also, the incident where Tony meets the mother is largely framed around a scene of "broken eggs" which might be crass of me to say, but I think there is some symbolism with the older woman, plus Adrian Jr's disabilities.

Personally I'm convinced that Adrian had given the diary to V's mother, as to keep the fact that Adrian Jr. was, in fact, his child. Then she passed it on to Tony and included the money as an incentive to keep him from telling Veronica the truth. I don't really understand the whole "blood money" thing because I guess I imagined it to be more "hush-money."

In any case I think at least it's apparent that, like Veronica says, Tony never will get it, and with his so flawed account of the whole ordeal, neither will we. I really enjoy reading what you guys think about the book, and I absolutely cannot wait for episode 1!!

How's that coming by the way...?

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I've read a little disappointment with the 'twist ending', but for me the twist wasn't there, but well before that point, in the revelation of the letter. Here we had the narrator, who had previously presented himself as genial and easy-going to a fault, reveal a completely different side. But it was a shock to himself, too, to recognise he was capable of - and I think this is the right word - evil.

By coincidence, I was reading Bruce Hood's The Self Illusion just after I finished this, and at the point I went back to it he was discussing self-narratives and the "totalitarian ego", which seems to be a reference to a classic study:

Psychologist Dan McAdams proposes that when it comes to making sense of our lives, we create narrative or personal myths to explain where we have come from, what we do and where we are going.16 This is the narrative arc of our lives – the background, the struggle, the climax and resolution that people readily attribute to the story of their lives. For example, some may see themselves as victims of circumstances beyond their control, reinterpreting events to fit with this perspective. Another could take the same set of circumstances and cast themselves as the resilient hero, triumphing over adversity to get where they are today...these accounts are myths because they are not grounded in reality but rather rather follow a well-worn narrative path of a protagonist character (our self) and what the world throws at them.

I guess his point, and Barnes's point too, is that there is no such thing as a reliable narrator, ever. In this Guardian review there's a reference to his memoir:

admits that he and his brother disagree about many details of their childhood. His brother, a philosopher, maintains that memories are so often false that they cannot be trusted without independent verification. "I am more trusting, or self-deluding," writes Barnes, "so shall continue as if all my memories are true."

Regarding "Mary" - well, the most famous Mary of all is a virgin mother, which kinda fits, maybe?

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OH MAN.

Now I really feel like I should get on with Cloud Atlas, but it seems so daunting... (Coming from the guy currently on the fourth in the A Song of Ice and Fire series).

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