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The Sense of an Ending

Barnes’s novel is also full of literary allusions, apt for a narrator
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION who strove during his school days to be as brilliant and clever
as his friend Adrian: Ted Hughes is explicitly invoked, but there
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF JULIAN BARNES are also a number of unspecified allusions to poet Philip Larkin
Julian Barnes studied modern languages at Oxford before (including the lines “wrangle for a ring” and “May you be
going on to work for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement ordinary”). Another contemporary writer to grapple with the
as a lexicographer (helping to compile its entries). In 1977, he questions of memory, identity, and history that so occupy
began reviewing books for the New Statesman and New Review Barnes is W.G. Sebald, author of works (including Austerlitz and
magazines, and later became a television critic. He published The Rings of Saturn) that often allude to the events of World
his first novel, Moreland, in 1980, but his first major critical War II.
success was the 1984 novel Flaubert’s Parrot, in which he
explored his protagonist’s obsession with certain features of KEY FACTS
the life of 19th-century French writer Gustave Flaubert. In
2000, Barnes would similarly meld history and fiction in his first • Full Title: The Sense of an Ending
bestselling work, Arthur and George, a work of fiction inspired by • When Written: 2011
a true crime investigated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the • Where Written: United Kingdom
creator of Sherlock Holmes). The Sense of an Ending, published
• When Published: 2011
in 2011, won the Man Booker Prize, among other literary
awards. He has continued writing to the present; his most • Literary Period: Contemporary
recent novel, The Only Story, was released in 2018. • Genre: Novel
• Climax: Tony realizes that Adrian’s son is the child of Sarah
HISTORICAL CONTEXT Ford rather than Veronica

Tony’s adolescence and young adulthood takes place in the • Antagonist: Tony seems to think of Veronica as his nemesis
for most of the novel, following their relationship—he takes
1960s, a time of vast cultural change, including movements for
solace in identifying her as manipulative and selfish, so as to
sexual liberation, women’s rights, and civil rights—even if, as
excuse his own actions. But Tony comes to realize that he has
Tony notes, the sixties only happened in some parts of his own been his own worst enemy: he struggles to overcome certain
country, whereas others remained a decade or so behind. intractable character traits that he doesn’t like and yet
Between that period and the late 2000s, when the retired Tony cannot seem to shed.
is telling his story, much has changed as well, as he • Point of View: First person: the narrator, Tony, is telling the
notes—including the rightwing reforms of British Prime story of his life. The way he narrates it—what he includes and
Minister Margaret Thatcher, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the leaves out (consciously or otherwise)—suggests that he is
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Tony particularly not an altogether reliable narrator.
lingers on the changes in gender norms, thinking at one point
about how the young girls he sees in short skirts would never EXTRA CREDIT
have been allowed to wear such outfits in the 1960s, nor would
Look it Up. During his time working at the Oxford English
they have been permitted to spend time near a boys’ school like
Dictionary, Julian Barnes once claimed to have been assigned to
his own.
the “sports and dirty word department.”

RELATED LITERARY WORKS

I Spy? In the 1980s, Julian Barnes indulged his grittier side by
The Sense of an Ending takes its name from a 1967 book of publishing a series of crime novels featuring a bisexual
literary criticism by Frank Kermode, which studies how fiction detective, Duffy, under the pseudonym “Dan Kavanagh.”
imposes cohesive structures and coherent narratives onto
what might otherwise seem like chaos, especially in uncertain
times of history. Barnes’s novel is similarly concerned with how PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY
all people, not just writers, construct certain selective
narratives about themselves and their lives—as well as how it’s The Sense of an Ending begins with a set of disjointed images—all
sometimes only an ending (like Adrian’s untimely death) that memories of Tony Webster, the narrator and
lends a sense of meaning to everything that came before. protagonist—beginning with a “shiny inner wrist” and ending
with cold bathwater behind a locked door. Tony reflects that he

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still doesn’t understand time very well, even though it’s formed Tony has Veronica meet his high school friends: he learns that
and molded him. But he notes that he should begin his story Jack, like Adrian, is at Cambridge, and feels another pang of
with his schooldays, since that’s where it all began. inferiority.
Tony describes the arrival of Adrian Finn to his all-boys London Veronica and Tony continue dating during their second year,
high school, where he forms a close-knit group of friends with and she lets him take more sexual liberties with her. She also
Colin and Alex: Adrian will become the fourth, though he’ll asks where he thinks the relationship is going, a question that
remain at a slight distance from the others. Adrian makes an makes him uncomfortable: he says he prefers to live in the
impression on Tony when he makes a clever comment in history present, and is “peaceable”—which she calls cowardly.
class with Old Joe Hunt: Tony compliments Adrian, but is Reflecting from the present day, Tony remarks that although
surprised when Adrian seems to take the comment seriously work and Veronica took up most of his time at Bristol, he also
rather than deflecting it ironically. Adrian is generally more has a few memories—particularly one night in which he and his
serious than the others, earnestly participating in school events friends stayed up late to witness the Severn Bore, marveling at
and seriously considering their teachers’ questions, rather than how time seemed to reverse itself as the river changed
seeking to be as clever as possible, as Tony, Alex, and Colin do. direction for a few moments and a wave charged upstream.
Adrian can be clever as well: in literature class with Phil Dixon, Tony’s next memory is of Veronica—after the two of them
he says that the meaning of a poem is “Eros and Thanatos,” sex broke up—sleeping with him, an event that he describes as
and love—which he will refer back to after the students learn happening essentially without him deciding or willing it. As he
that Robson, another student in the school, has killed himself. throws the condom out, he decides he actually doesn’t want a
The rumor is that he did so once his girlfriend became relationship with Veronica: when he tells her this, she gets
pregnant. After discussing his possible reasons, the boys enormously upset. Tony tries to put her out of his life. He has a
conclude that his action was unphilosophical and weak. one-night stand with another girl, and focuses on his studies in
The boys feel like they’re in a “holding pen,” like their lives are his final year. One day, he gets a letter from Adrian, saying that
waiting to start. Adrian is the only one of them who seems to he’s begun to date Veronica, and says he feels he needs to
have a slightly more novelistic life—his parents are divorced, check in with Tony—if Tony really isn’t fine with it, Adrian will
which is rare in their environment—but Adrian keeps much have to reevaluate things. Tony slips a jokey, casual postcard in
about his personal life to himself. What Tony remembers most the mail immediately, saying all’s fine with him, but he’s
about him is his stunning intellect. In the last history class of the seething; after a few days, he sends a real letter, in which he
term, in response to Old Joe Hunt’s question about how to writes (according to what present-day Tony can remember)
define history, Adrian calls history the certainty that results that he doesn’t think much of their moral scruples, and that
from inadequate documentation meeting imperfect Veronica is manipulative and probably damaged—though Tony
memory—and uses Robson’s suicide as his example. still isn’t exactly sure what he meant by that. He writes that
The group of friends disperses after they graduate: Adrian has Adrian should consult with Veronica’s mother on that count.
a scholarship to Cambridge, while Tony begins studying history After graduating, Tony spends a few months traveling around
at Bristol. He meets his first girlfriend, Veronica Mary Elizabeth the United States. He dates a girl named Annie during his time
Ford, whom he describes as “nice,” but he also finds her there, reveling in how easy-going (and thus unlike Veronica) she
intimidating, with her love of poetry, her sophisticated taste in is. When he returns, there’s a letter from Alex: it says that
records, and her bemused attitude with respect to his bumbling Adrian has killed himself. Tony and Alex meet to talk, and Tony
attempts to be clever. Tony is eager to have “full sex” with learns that Adrian left a letter saying that everyone has a
Veronica, who doesn’t let him go that far. One weekend she philosophical duty to examine life—a gift bestowed without
invites him to meet her family in Kent, at Chislehurst. Tony is anyone asking for it—and if one decides to renounce the gift, he
highly uncomfortable all weekend, especially with Veronica’s has a duty to act upon the consequences of that choice. Alex
father and her brother Jack, both of whom are pleasant and and Tony agree that his suicide is a waste, even as they admire
jocular but seem to Tony to be treating him with barely Adrian’s clear-thinking logic. A year after his death, they have a
disguised contempt—especially since he feels intimidated by reunion with Colin in which they reminisce about Adrian, and
their privileged social and economic status. Veronica seems to vow to meet again every year, but time passes, and they lose
be distancing herself from him as well, though he’s not sure if touch.
he’s being paranoid about this. On Saturday morning he has a Tony gets a job in arts administration, where he meets
rather strange conversation with Veronica’s mother, Sarah Margaret, marries her, and has a daughter, Susie, with her.
Ford, who seems to him artistic, casual, and carefree, and warns Eventually Margaret meets a restaurant owner and leaves Tony
him not to let Veronica get away with too much. As Tony leaves for him, but the man ends up leaving Margaret in turn. The two
on Sunday, she waves at him with a strange, enigmatic gesture, of them become friends again. Once Margaret suggests they
and he wishes he’d spent more time with her. Soon afterward, get back together, but Tony believes (or tells himself) that she

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doesn’t mean it. Now Tony is retired: he volunteers wheeling a she won’t hand over the diary, but does hand Tony an envelope
library cart around at a hospital, and is a member of the local with a letter inside. When he opens it, it’s his own long-ago
history society. He concludes that his life has been interesting letter that he sent to Veronica and Adrian. It’s vulgar, bitter, and
to him, though perhaps not to many others: although he once cruel: in it he calls Veronica a “cockteaser” and wishes, among
told Old Joe Hunt that history was the lies of the victors, he other things, that she can get pregnant before Adrian discovers
recognizes now that it’s the memories of the survivors, neither she’s a “bore.” Reading it, Tony is shocked and appalled at his
victorious nor defeated. younger self. He recognizes that it hadn’t been cruel of the two
The second part of the novel begins with Tony reflecting on of them to tell him they were dating; he realizes that he was all
how growing old changes the way one thinks about time. Some too quick to make Veronica out to be manipulative and
things have remained the same with him: he still enjoys some of deceptive. He feels remorse, not only for the letter, but also for
the same music, for instance. He gets along fine with Susie, his whole life—drab and ordinary as contrasted to Adrian’s
though sometimes he thinks she seems to be patronizing him. brilliance, which stands out all the more since Adrian’s own life
was so short. He continues to reflect on whether character
Somewhat abruptly, Tony shares what has really prompted all
changes over time, on why his marriage with Margaret ended,
the memories related in the book’s first half: he’s received a
and on how uncertainty about the past only increases with age.
long white envelope from a lawyer, Eleanor Marriott, relating to
One night, he writes an email to Veronica asking if she thinks he
the estate of Mrs. Sarah Ford. Tony goes through his vague
was in love with her back then, and quickly presses send: she
memories from that weekend in Chislehurst, but can’t think of
responds that if he had to ask, the answer was no. When Tony
anything significant. Mrs. Ford has left him 500 pounds and two
relates this to Margaret, she grows quiet and says that he’s on
documents: one is a letter from her saying that she’s left him
his own now.
Adrian’s diary—she’s not sure of her own motives, but wants
him to have it, and thinks that Adrian’s last months were happy. Tony decides he needs to make Veronica reevaluate her opinion
The diary, however, is missing: Eleanor Marriott says that of him, and realize that he’s not as awful as he comes across in
Veronica Ford, who was taking care of her mother in the years that letter. He writes to Veronica again, apologizing and asking
up until her death, has it, and prefers not to hand it over. Tony for details about her life. She seems almost happy to be asked,
gets in touch with his own lawyer, T.J. Gunnell, who advises him and shares details about her parents: her father ended up
not to characterize Veronica’s actions as a “theft.” Tony also drinking too much, and eventually got cancer; her mother
asks for Veronica and Jack Ford’s contact information, though moved to London and seemed to be doing well until her
only receives the latter. Jack isn’t too helpful—he writes a memory started failing a few years before she died. Tony looks
cheery email from Singapore (though Tony thinks he may be for manipulation in the email but sees only an ordinary, sad
pulling his leg, and is in fact sitting near an English golf course, story. He emails again to ask if they can meet—not for the diary
laughing at him after all these years), but does give Veronica his but just to catch up. On the way to their lunch date he has an
contact information. intense memory of her dancing, and reflects that although he
sometimes felt sexually frustrated with her, there was also
Margaret advises Tony to drop the matter, but he’s too
much about their relationship that he loved. When they do
stubborn to do so. Increasingly, a number of memories begin to
meet, he spends the entire time sharing details about his life,
come back to him about his time with Veronica—memories that
while she says nothing; she leaves before he can stop her,
make him newly attracted to her. Tony remembers Veronica
having barely spoken at all.
herself being stubborn and “difficult,” so he begins a dogged
email campaign, persistently writing to her every few days with Tony emails yet again to apologize for having done so much of
the goal of finally getting his hands on the diary. Finally, Eleanor the talking: he wants to hear more about her life and her family.
Marriot sends him a single page photocopied from the diary. She responds telling him to meet her at an unfamiliar Tube
The page includes a formula that Adrian has written with a station in north London. When he does, she asks him to get into
number of letters on them, asking how one might calculate the her car and drives up a street until they see a group of five men,
relationships between the people in his life, and whether it’s whom Tony assumes are mentally ill, together with a care
possible to identify a chain of responsibility. The page ends with worker. Veronica gets out and they seem happy to see her. Back
a fragment: “So, for instance, if Tony…” Tony has no idea what in the car, Tony is mystified, and asks about her connection with
the page means, but he’s shook by the final phrase: he wonders the “goofy man” and the others, including why they called her
if it’s a referendum on his entire life, the way he’s settled for “Mary.” Veronica is clearly upset, and orders him out. Tony is
easy peaceableness, the way he’s always been overly upset himself, feeling especially humiliated that he allowed
concerned with other people’s approval. himself to imagine that he might be able to remake some kind
of relationship with Veronica this late in life. He feels like a fool,
Tony keeps emailing Veronica, and she finally agrees to meet
and given that Margaret is also upset with him, lonelier than
him at what’s known as the Wobbly Bridge in London. When
ever. Still, he emails Jack to ask him if he might be able to shed
they meet, Tony thinks she looks somewhat ragged. She says

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any light on the subject, but Jack doesn’t respond. women over the course of his life. While he admires and seeks
Alone, Tony returns to north London, and revisits the pub and their approval, he also has a tendency to objectify these women
shop where he and Veronica had seen the group of men or to take advantage of their feelings for him in order to feel
entering. Without any obligations on his time, he decides to better about himself, all the while playing innocent. In some
become a regular at the pub. One day, the group of men does ways, Tony does come to terms with his more negative
enter, with another care worker. At one point Tony encounters characteristics—his pettiness, his avoidance of feeling deeply or
one of the men at the bar: the man looks Tony straight in the compassionately for other people, and so on—by the end of the
face, and Tony quietly says he’s a friend of Mary’s. The man novel, but in other ways he continues to see himself quite
grows upset as a result, and Tony leaves. He’s realized that the differently than how others, including the novel’s readers,
man is unmistakably Adrian’s son, and realizes that it must be might perceive him. However, the novel doesn’t condemn
his son with Veronica. Tony feels shock and compassion, but Tony’s behavior and character outright: instead, by portraying
also is forced to reevaluate the way he’s always thought of him as absolutely average, it suggests that even Tony’s cruelest
Adrian—now, he thinks, he’s recognized that Adrian’s suicide behavior and greatest self-delusions are entirely ordinary.
wasn’t grand and heroic, but was cowardly and weak in its own Adrian Finn – A latecomer to the all-boys school that Tony
way. attends, Adrian joins Tony’s friend group but remains at a
Tony sends Veronica an email referring to what he’s learned, certain distance from the others. Like them, he’s fascinated by
but she only responds saying that he still doesn’t get it, and literature and philosophy—his preferred authors are Camus
never will. One day, he drives over to the pub again, when the and Nietzsche—but unlike the others, he is outwardly earnest
group of men, including Adrian’s son, walk in once more. At one about his intellectual leanings, embracing seriousness and
point, a care worker, Terry, comes over to ask who Tony is, frustrated that others around him refuse to be as serious.
saying that he seems to be agitating Adrian’s son (also named Adrian is recognized by all the school’s teachers as a brilliant
Adrian). Tony apologizes and says he’ll leave: he tells Terry that young student: one of them even offers (though half in jest) to
he’s a friend of Adrian, or rather was a friend of his father and give Adrian his job when he retires in a few years. Adrian is
of his mother, Mary. Terry, however, says he must be mistaken: particularly obsessed with the existentialist question of what
Adrian is Mary’s sister, not her son; his mother died a few makes a life worth living, and whether one can logically deduce
months ago. such meaning from abstract theorizing. Adrian ultimately goes
on to commit suicide years later, and for most of his life, Tony
Finally, Tony “gets it”: Sarah Ford had slept with Adrian and had
believes that Adrian killed himself because he reasoned his way
gotten pregnant with his son. He understands the formula in
into it. By the end of the novel, however, it seems that Adrian
Adrian’s diary fragment, which was trying to understand the
may have done so for more concrete reasons—he slept with his
connections between himself, Tony, Veronica, and Sarah Ford.
girlfriend Veronica’s mother, Sarah, who became pregnant. But
Tony had told Adrian to consult Veronica’s mother in order to
no airtight conclusion is ever reached about Adrian’s ultimate
understand how “damaged” she was. Tony ends the novel
motives (just as other elements of his life—his parents are
knowing that he can’t possibly know or understand much more
divorced and he doesn’t share much about them, for
about this story, and also can’t understand the extent to which
instance—remain hidden too). Instead, the ability to trace
he really must feel responsible. He feels only great unrest.
causation and responsibility to a single source—something
Adrian has always wanted to be able to do—is, in the novel,
revealed to be ultimately impossible.
CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS
Veronica (Mary Elizabeth) F Ford
ord – Tony’s first girlfriend,
MAJOR CHARACTERS Veronica is studying Spanish at Bristol when the two of them
Anthon
Anthonyy (T(Ton
ony)
y) W
Webster
ebster – The protagonist of The Sense of an meet. She comes across to him as sophisticated and cultured in
Ending is also its narrator: sixty-something years old when he is a more authentic way than he is: she likes poetry, prefers
telling his story, he also appears as an adolescent and young classier music than he does, and (mostly) refrains from dancing.
man as Tony returns to memories of forty years earlier. Tony is She comes from a rather well-off family, and seems to have a
eager (and self-consciously so) to tell a certain story of his life, closer relationship to her father and brother Jack than to her
one in which he might appear in as positive a light as possible, mother (Sarah Ford). Veronica doesn’t want to have “full sex”
and this complicates the ability to understand his character in with Tony, though she finally does after they break up—leading
any objective way. Throughout his life, Tony does retain certain him to end things with her definitively, which deeply upsets her.
qualities: he is wry and ironic, pleasant in company, and, as he That Veronica subsequently begins dating Adrian makes Tony
dubs himself, “peaceable”—quick to deflate any situation in think of her, for decades into the future, as manipulative and
order to avoid confrontation. Though awkward around women deceptive. While the novel explores the difficulty of ever
early in adulthood, he has several intense relationships with knowing another person—and only ever portrays Veronica

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through Tony’s eyes—it does suggest that Veronica wanted a even though Margaret left him. By coming to understand the
more serious relationship with Tony and felt devastated and situation with Adrian’s son, however, Tony comes to appreciate
betrayed by the breakup. In some ways, she’s like him in her the fact that Susie has been able to live a full, independent life.
refusal to be direct—her attempts to make Tony “get it” (that is, Adrian
Adrian’s ’s son (Adrian) – A forty-something man around the time
understand what happened after she and Adrian started Tony begins telling his story, this Adrian doesn’t have his
dating, including the fact that he slept with her mother) forty identity revealed until the very end of the novel. He is mentally
years later are oblique at best. But over the course of the novel, ill and needs to be under constant care. Eventually Tony
it becomes clear that Veronica acts out of pain far more than realizes that the man is Adrian’s son, but it takes much more
out of deception. In addition, she is the character in the novel time to realize that he is not Adrian’s son with Veronica, but
who seems to have accepted responsibility for other people rather with Veronica’s mother (Sarah Ford).
more than anyone else, particularly in her close relationship to
Veronica
eronica’s’s Father – A civil servant, Veronica’s father picks up
her mentally ill half-brother, Adrian’s son.
Tony from the train station during his visit to the family home
Mrs. Sar
Sarah
ah FFord
ord – Veronica’s mother, Sarah Ford is a housewife and, like Jack, seems to Tony to treat him with a jokey
in Kent where she lives with her family. Tony remembers her as demeanor that barely hides his scorn. Veronica’s (unnamed)
a carefree, easily laughing woman, who warns him not to let her father is a heavy drinker and eventually dies of complications
daughter take advantage of him. She turns out to be far more from alcoholism; this is one of the possible sources of distress
enigmatic than that: Sarah Ford ends up sleeping with her and tension in Veronica’s family that Tony doesn’t spend too
daughter’s new boyfriend, Adrian, and has a child by him. Her much time thinking about, even when he casually calls Veronica
motives and mental state remain hidden throughout the novel, “damaged.”
as well as the real reasons she left Adrian’s diary and five
Annie – An American woman whom Tony meets while traveling
hundred pounds to Tony. Perhaps, it’s implied, she felt trapped
around the United States after graduation, Annie “hooks up”
by her situation; perhaps she wanted Tony to know the truth
with him for three months. She wears plaid shirts, has a friendly
and to feel responsibility; it’s possible that she is also the
demeanor, and is easygoing, which Tony contrasts to Veronica’s
greatest manipulator and deceiver in the novel.
manner. Later in life, Tony wonders if he was too quick to
Jack FFord
ord – Veronica’s brother and a Cambridge student like assume that Annie was actually that easygoing, and if she did
Adrian, Jack is casual and sardonic, treating Tony with rather want something more. Annie is thus another example of a
unconcerned bemusement during the weekend Tony spends at woman with whom Tony retains a certain distance, in large part
the family’s home. Tony feels insecure around Jack, due in part out of fear of getting hurt.
to his Cambridge education and in part to his privileged
Old Joe Hunt – The history teacher at Tony’s school, Old Joe
background. During that weekend, and decades later when he
Hunt wears a three-piece suit and maintains a slightly wry,
attempts to get back in touch with Jack, Tony continues to feel
distanced air with his students. Although Tony describes his
slighted by him, as though Jack is treating him with barely
classes as somewhat, though not excessively, boring, the
disguised contempt. This feeling is depicted as possibly based
conversations held during history class—about causality and
in some truth, though also stemming from intense insecurity on
historical responsibility, as well as about the very possibility of
Tony’s part. In fact, in many ways Jack and Tony are similar in
defining history—linger in his mind for the rest of his life.
their “unseriousness,” which is something that Adrian finds
frustrating about both of them. Phil Dix
Dixon
on – The literature teacher at Tony’s school, Phil Dixon
is a young, recent Cambridge grad whom the students adore.
Margaret – Tony’s wife, whom he meets through his job (in arts
He uses the New Criticism method that involves sharing a
administration) and with whom he has one child, Susie.
poem with students without identifying information, and asking
Margaret eventually leaves him for a restaurant owner, who in
them to determine what it means devoid of any context. Phil
turn leaves her; she and Tony subsequently become friends.
Dixon becomes a model for the kind of dashing intellectual that
Although Tony claims that their relationship is fully platonic,
Tony would like to be: he repeats one of Dixon’s phrases about
and that Margaret would never want to get back together with
the poet Ted Hughes to Veronica once at university in order to
him, that claim is contradicted in both explicit and subtle ways
impress her, though with little success.
throughout the story. Indeed, it’s implied that Margaret’s affair
was in part a desperate act, a way to get Tony to react more Robson – A student in the “Science Sixth” at Tony’s school,
strongly and perhaps fight for her in a way he proves unable to Robson never appears directly in the novel, but is a significant
do. reference point for Tony and his friends after he commits
suicide, having gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The boys view his
Susie – Margaret and Tony’s only daughter, Susie is grown up
suicide as less a tragic event than an opportunity for them to
and married herself by the time Tony begins his story. She is
speculate endlessly and abstractly on his reasons and motives.
depicted as tolerant toward her father: Tony is mildly offended
For Tony, Robson’s suicide is also a counterpoint to Adrian’s,
that she seems to have taken her mother’s side in the divorce,

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since he understands the latter as admirably well-reasoned and MEMORY, MANIPULATION, AND SELF-
the former as desperate and weak: much of the novel will work DECEPTION
to complicate and challenge that view.
When The Sense of an Ending begins, Tony Webster,
a sixty-something retired Englishman, has received
MINOR CHARACTERS a legacy of 500 pounds from Sarah Ford, the mother of an old
Colin – A school friend of Tony’s, Colin shares his jokey, ironic girlfriend, Veronica Ford. He also inherits the diary of an old
attitude, though coupled with true intellectual interests (he’s a school friend, Adrian Finn (another of Veronica’s exes), who
fan of nineteenth-century European authors like Baudelaire killed himself. For reasons that remain unclear for most of the
and Dostoyevsky). Colin embraces an anarchic view of the novel, Veronica’s mother has kept Adrian’s diary since then.
universe according to which there’s no ultimate meaning, and Although Veronica refuses to hand the diary over to Tony, the
everything is left to chaos. unexpected bequest unleashes memories of that time in Tony’s
Ale
Alexx – Another member of Tony’s friend group at school, Alex is life, from high school to university—memories that he admits
considered the philosopher among them before Adrian joins are approximate, but which “time has deformed into certainty.”
the group. He’s also the friend that shares the details of Little by little, however, it becomes clear that Tony has
Adrian’s suicide with Tony, who was traveling around the misremembered or actively repressed certain details of his
United States when it happened. relationship with Veronica, including his deliberate cruelty to
her and Adrian once they were together. The novel thus
Marshall – A student in Old Joe Hunt’s history class who is
becomes a haunting examination of the ways time can deform
depicted as slower-thinking and less clever than Tony and his
memory, even as Tony strives to correct his view of the past.
friends.
Whether consciously manipulated or unconsciously
Brown – A student of the Maths Sixth who spreads the rumor suppressed, selective memory in this novel as at once a source
that Robson killed himself because his girlfriend became of pain and, frighteningly, an altogether ordinary aspect of
pregnant (a rumor that Tony and the others subsequently human experience.
accept as fact).
The fallibility of memory is something that Tony seems to
Ton
ony’s
y’s Mother – A minor character in the novel, Tony’s mother acknowledge openly from the start. Simply living long enough,
appears most notably after Adrian’s suicide, when she suggests he muses, makes memory “a thing of shreds and patches.” He
that he was too clever—that he reasoned his way out of contrasts the ambiguity of memory in old age with the
common sense—and deeply angers Tony. relatively certainty that, for Tony, characterizes a short life like
Ton
ony’s
y’s Father – Also a source of Tony’s frustration after Adrian Adrian’s—Tony imagines that Adrian did not live long enough to
dies, when he doesn’t know what to say or how to act in order forget much of importance at all. Such acknowledgments signal
to comfort his son. that Tony is aware of the ways one’s own memory can be
deceptive (though the novel does go on to question the
Lucas – One of Susie’s sons (Tony’s grandson).
assumptions Tony makes about certainty in Adrian’s life). One
Eleanor Marriott – The lawyer responsible for Sarah Ford’s implication of this fallibility of important memories is that it
estate, who transfers her bequest to Tony, and with whom he undermines Tony’s various pronouncements about himself,
tries to negotiate in order to obtain Adrian’s diary. since even he acknowledges that it’s impossible to fully know
T.J
.J.. Gunnell – Tony’s own solicitor (lawyer), who he contacts in one’s own character. In this way, he unsettles his confident first-
order to try to obtain Adrian’s diary. person narration, but in another sense his willing
The black woman – One of the care workers responsible for acknowledgment of this impossibility continues to suggest a
Adrian (junior). narrator in confident control of his narrative, despite all its
slippages and gaps.
Terry – Another care worker responsible for Adrian (junior).
The two-part structure of the novel loosely divides the story
into “what happened” and “what it meant,” but these two
THEMES categories mingle and intersect, as Tony is forced to revisit the
past at multiple moments after new knowledge (and self-
In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color- knowledge) arises from his conversations and emails with
coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes Veronica, Tony’s ex-wife Margaret, and Veronica’s brother Jack.
occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have As the novel returns again and again to events such as Adrian’s
a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in suicide, Tony’s visit to Veronica’s family at Chislehurst, and
black and white. even lessons in his high school history classroom, Barnes
suggests that certain significant events can look quite different
to different people, and also can carry divergent meanings even

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for a single person over the arc of their life. subjective as memory.
Indeed, as the novel continues, it becomes increasingly clear In the scenes of Tony’s high-school history class taught by Old
that Tony has been editing and redacting his memories beyond Joe Hunt, various characters propose different ways of
his own acknowledgment. There is a level of self-deception in thinking about history. Colin suggests that history simply
Tony’s account of his past that far exceeds the flawed nature of consists of endless repetition; Tony eagerly describes history as
an aging man’s failing memory. Most strikingly, Tony only briefly the “lies of the victors”; finally, Adrian calls history the certainty
mentions a letter that he wrote once he learned that Adrian that results from imperfect memory meeting inadequate
had started dating Veronica, but later in the novel, a documentation (he cites a made-up historian named Patrick
60-something Veronica hands him the letter, in which Tony is Lagrange—though perhaps even this is another instance of mis-
shown to have been a bitter, vulgar young man who actively remembering on Tony’s part). These competing definitions of
tried to destroy Veronica and Adrian’s relationship by writing history suggest that, even as Tony and his friends have learned
the cruelest remarks he could think of—a far cry from the to master facts about the past, it may be impossible for people
person Tony presented himself to be in his memories. to agree what they mean by “history,” as well as what historical
In part, the letter reveals Tony’s self-deception, a product of his events mean.
desire to see himself as better than he was. In this way, the Tony returns at various points in the story to Adrian’s definition
narrative shows him (as an older man) coming to terms with the in particular, as he has to face the question of whether it’s really
ways he has rewritten his own past. And yet this letter also possible to ever know with confidence what happened in the
invites the question of what other memories may have been past. In the high-school scene, Adrian uses the recent suicide of
redacted, edited, or deformed—whether by time or by self- their classmate Robson to explain what he means: already,
deception. While Tony, for instance, has portrayed his uncertainties about Robson’s death abound, and the passage of
relationship with Margaret as a fully easy, platonic one, time will only create more uncertainty—making it impossible
allowing him to share details of his complicated feelings for for future generations to be certain what happened. In making
Veronica with her, it slowly becomes evident that she might not this argument, Adrian assumes that eyewitnesses should
see things that way; perhaps he has constructed his own always be trusted more than secondary sources, while Old Joe
narrative about their past and present together in order to Hunt cautions that one can sometimes reach a more accurate
avoid having to face her pain. By employing a first-person account of the past by studying other pieces of evidence, rather
narrator, the novel both invites belief in the narration and than by asking those who were involved.
makes it that much more difficult to determine the extent of Throughout the novel, Tony’s own searches for what he calls
Tony’s reliability or unreliability as a narrator. “corroboration,” for evidence that would confirm or deny his
Yet Tony’s status as an unreliable narrator is never presented own memory of the past, underline the novel’s interest in
as exceptional. Tony is, after all, perfectly ordinary: “average at exploring various means of writing and imagining history. The
university and work; average in friendship, loyalty love; fact, for instance, that Veronica burns Adrian’s diary (which
average, no doubt, at sex.” In that way, the novel presents Tony’s Tony has been attempting unsuccessfully to read)—or at least
distorted memory, too, as “average”—no more out of the tells Tony that she does—means that Tony can no longer know
ordinary than any other aspect of his character, or than any the “truth” about what really happened all those years ago by
average person’s manipulation of memory. Memories, Barnes relying on Adrian’s own words. But the novel calls into question
suggests, are simultaneously a powerful source of nostalgia and whether reading Adrian’s testimony would really give Tony the
a means of solidifying one’s character, even as they are subject certainty he craves, because his testimony would only be one
to the fallibility and forgetfulness of the human beings who partial, subjective version of the past.
bear them. The novel shows that the fallibility and even the The novel thus calls into question the very possibility of ever
manipulation of memory is something altogether ordinary, as is finding out what “really” happened in the past. This is clearest in
the damage and pain it can cause others. Tony’s struggle to figure out why the older Veronica so wants
him to understand why she’s acquainting him with a mentally
HISTORY, NARRATIVE, AND TRUTH challenged man in a care community in North London. At first
Just as The Sense of an Ending presents memory as he’s mystified, and then thinks it’s Veronica and Adrian’s son: he
subject to the corrupting force of self-deception, constructs an entire narrative around Adrian’s suicide that now
the novel also represents history as fallible, since stems from his inability to accept a girlfriend’s pregnancy. Then
it’s subject to rewriting, interpretation, and misinterpretation. he realizes that, in fact, the man is the child of Adrian and
The novel suggests that the past is only accessible via the Veronica’s mother (Sarah Ford). The narratives that Tony
narratives people construct about it: while history might seem constructs say more about Tony’s own past, biases, and
far more stable and more objective than human memory, in this desires—the “history of the historian,” as adolescent Adrian
novel it’s presented instead as unstable, uncertain, and just as says—than about what really happened. Yet even Tony’s final

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revelation is never explicitly confirmed. By refusing to tie up of any significant event is doomed to failure.
loose ends, the novel implies that people cannot help but make However, The Sense of an Ending also implies that living
history into a story—one with meaning, a climax, and the “sense according to that idea—that causes and effects are hopelessly
of an ending”—even in the absence of clear answers. Part of convoluted—allows people to avoid taking responsibility for
growing up, the novel thus suggests, is learning to live instead their own actions. Tony, for instance, tries to avoid personal
with the ambiguities of historical narrative—to accept that responsibility by floating through life without ruffling anyone’s
what we call history is really our interpretation of it, even as feathers—moving through a decent career in arts
that interpretation affects historical change into the future. administration, marrying, then amicably divorcing and staying
friends with his ex-wife, and trying not to alienate those around
RESPONSIBILITY, AGENCY, AND GUILT him. But one aspect of Tony’s embrace of mediocrity, the novel
In the halls of their London school, Tony and his suggests, is his blindness to his own agency: cruel toward
peers grapple with cause and effect, asking Veronica and overly dependent on his ex-wife, Tony does affect
themselves whether historical change is caused by other people, and is responsible for their pain, despite his
individual actors, vast social forces, or some combination of the claims to the contrary.
two. This is also a question about responsibility: about whether Over the course of the novel, Tony does begin to accept some
it is possible to trace the cause of a certain event to a specific responsibility for his past actions: but this doesn’t, the novel
time, place, and person. In Tony’s case, he wonders whether it is implies, mean that he can rewrite the past. In one of his most
possible to trace Adrian’s suicide, as well as Sarah Ford’s vivid memories, he and a group of friends marvel at the Severn
bequest to Tony and the mystery swirling around it, to his own Bore—a large wave that, as a result of tidal surges, moves
school days, to his visit to Veronica’s house, or to the letter he against the tide. The bore is so alluring because it seems to
sent to her and Adrian. Furthermore, he wonders whether reverse the very course of history: it’s an exception to the
changing one of his past decisions or actions could really general rule that the choices people make can’t be undone.
change everything that followed. Although the novel implies Tony’s and Adrian’s actions have far-reaching consequences in
that these questions are ultimately impossible to answer, it also the book, and they have to grapple both with knowing this—and
shows that denying personal responsibility for one’s actions is knowing they can’t go back in time and change things—and with
naïve and destructive to others. Assuming that webs of blame not knowing exactly how much blame really belongs with them.
extend far and wide ultimately justifies people’s denial of their
The Sense of an Ending implicitly critiques the idea that a chain
own responsibility for the pain and suffering they’ve caused
of responsibility extends too far to assign the blame to only one
others. Living with the burden of guilt, then, is the only mature
person. Even if Tony can’t isolate the reasons for his friend’s
way of dealing with one’s past actions and mistakes.
suicide or Sarah Ford’s pregnancy to a single cause, he is shown
The novel sets up the question of responsibility through a to bear some responsibility for both. Even so, merely accepting
problem that has plagued historians for a century: the cause of that fact doesn’t necessarily lead to any catharsis or
World War I. Encouraged by Old Joe Hunt, the characters redemption. Tony’s relationship to his past, remains, as the final
propose different causes, arguing for “one hundred percent page of the novel notes, “unsettled,” a subject of inevitable
responsibility of historical forces,” the assassination of regret because history, unlike memory, moves in only one
Archduke Ferdinand, and finally, mere chaos. Typically, Adrian direction.
opts for a middle ground: attributing the war to a chain of
individual actions, which balances blaming a single person with SEX, CLASS, AND POWER
blaming everyone. Like the debates about the meaning of
history itself, this school lesson sets the stage for various ways Tony heads to university in the 1960s, a decade
the characters reflect on their own agency in later life. Adrian, now synonymous with movements of political
for instance, struggles with these issues before his own suicide. protest as well as cultural change—including sexual
In the excerpt of Adrian’s diary that Tony reads, Adrian liberation, civil rights, and women’s and gay rights movements.
questions the very meaning of the “whole chain” of The Sense of an Ending is more generally interested in examining
responsibility and wonders how far the chain extends. He the effects of shifting sexual mores on the lives of its
formulates a set of mathematical equations to represent the characters, whether in the context of romantic relationships or
relationship between different people in his life, using integers among friends. Tony views his younger self as a sexual
that represent Tony (a2), himself (a1), Veronica (v), and her amateur—one whose early relationship with Veronica is
mother Sarah (s)—and, Tony finally realizes, the baby born to hampered by her family’s “posh,” privileged background. But his
her (b). By showing Adrian’s attempt to pin down responsibility sense of victimization, the novel suggests, hides the ways
through such quantitative, logical deductions to be hopeless, sexually manipulates Veronica. In general, the novel shows its
the novel seems to suggest that figuring out the ultimate cause characters exercising power over each other in various ways,

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through sex as well as money or status. But sex in the novel is Veronica has to both grapple with forming a relationship with
more powerful than class: it is a source of deception and his mentally challenged son—her half-brother—and come to
manipulation (in some ways it’s therefore similar to the way terms with the relationship between Adrian and her own
memory works in the novel) whose effects can be far longer- mother. Tony, meanwhile, remains for most of the novel
lasting than the sexual encounters themselves. blissfully unaware of that life, able and willing to think of
In some ways, the novel shows sexual behavior to be wrapped Veronica as having manipulated him. The novel portrays such
up in changes taking place during the period in which it’s set, ignorance as a form of power itself, one that the women in the
1960s Britain. Tony notes that what is now thought of as “the novel lack.
sixties” didn’t happen everywhere at once: in provincial Britain, In The Sense of an Ending, sex is portrayed as private and
people remained a decade or so “behind” the times, which intimate but also tied up with social expectations, cultural
proves confusing as he tries to navigate his first real changes, and class status. While Tony and his school friends
relationship with Veronica. His striving for “full sex” (meaning imagine sex as exciting and uncomplicated, the two suicides, as
penetrative sex, as distinct from various other kinds of sexual well as the webs of relationships between Adrian, Tony, Sarah,
experience) with her ends unpleasantly and ambiguously, as and Veronica, tell a much messier story. And while Veronica and
they sleep together only after breaking up and subsequently Sarah do wield a certain power over Tony because of their
part ways for good—though even Tony admits this may not privileged background, he also manages to extricate himself
have been exactly what occurred. His prose is oblique and from the relationship and go on to live a relatively boring,
hedging, undermining his claim of innocence in their uncomplicated life, while Veronica never fully recovers. Tony’s
breakup—his argument being that the ‘60s were a confusing “instinct for survival” may have allowed him to avoid the fate of
time for young men who were simply trying to understand what Robson and Adrian, but at the cost of accepting how he has
women wanted and what they would “allow” sexually. actually caused damage to people around him. While the novel
Tony is able to think of himself as innocent with respect to explores the extremes of sexual danger, it also ultimately
Veronica in part because of his own wealth-based feelings of suggests that refusing to admit that sex and power are
insecurity. The contrast between Tony’s middle-class family and intertwined is blind in its own way too.
the better-off Fords in their Chislehurst estate is, for him,
reflective of the power that Veronica had over him throughout PHILOSOPHY VS. REALITY
their relationship. Veronica seems to turn her nose up at the In attempting to understand the chain of events
records by popular bands like the Beatles and the Stones that leading to Sarah Ford’s inclusion of Tony in her will,
Tony keeps on shelf; although Veronica and Tony both attend Tony returns again and again to his school days, in
Bristol, she seems to prefer the mystique of Cambridge (where particular to his history, philosophy, and literature classes. In
her brother Jack attends, along with Adrian). Tony comes to the classroom, Tony and his friends tried to outsmart and
associate the differences between him and Veronica’s intellectually one-up each other, eager to be as clever as
family—differences in levels of education, class, and possible while also maintaining an attitude of cool detachment.
wealth—with his own inability to achieve sexual satisfaction But literary and philosophical ideas do have concrete effects in
with Veronica. the novel: they lead, one could argue, to Adrian’s suicide, and in
But in the novel, sex is more dangerous and fraught than the less dramatic ways they help characters like Tony, Colin, and
subtleties of class difference. Tony and his friends spend much Alex decide what kind of people they want to be by deciding
of their adolescence “sex-hungry” as well as “book-hungry,” which philosophers they feel affiliations with. The Sense of an
considering sex as a goal to be reached, like a book to be Ending explores the resonance and power of philosophy in
devoured—regardless of the feelings of the women involved. everyday life—even in decisions about whether to live or
But sex becomes far more serious than that: Tony’s older die—but also indicates the limits of applying general, abstract
classmate Robson kills himself after his girlfriend gets theories to the messiness and complexity of individual, real-life
pregnant, and Adrian kills himself after, presumably, Sarah Ford relationships.
becomes pregnant with his child. At stake in both suicides is the In school, Tony and his friends rebel against “all political and
question of freedom—both men seem to see a future in which social systems,” preferring instead “hedonistic chaos”—part of
they have to settle down with a partner and child as literally their embrace of the culture of the 1960s. Adrian, however,
worse than death. Men in the novel have the power and the remains preoccupied with finding a philosophical system that
possibility to leave such situations (even, the novel suggests, by will not just explain the world, but also tell him how to live in it.
killing themselves). Meanwhile, Veronica’s mother, Veronica He is drawn to abstractions as a way of giving meaning to his
herself, and Robson’s unnamed girlfriend all have to live with life. For instance, he refers to “Eros and Thanatos”—sex (or
the consequences of pregnancy. In the absence of Adrian love) and death, or the erotic drive and the death drive, as
(whose suicide might be considered a form of abandonment), psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud would have it—to explain the

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meaning of a poem assigned in class, but also, at another meaning of life can seem strangely detached from the realities
moment, to explain why the boys’ classmate Robson has killed of everyday life, it’s impossible to predict what people will do
himself. The group of friends all tend make such equivalences with such ideas or how they’ll interpret the theories into action.
between literary analysis and analysis of real-life situations, but The novel shows that abstractions can become concrete in
the novel cautions that Adrian’s reduction of life experiences to powerful and chilling ways, and difficult philosophical questions
a single abstract, learned expression is a troubling, immature can become a matter of life and death.
way of understanding other people.
If Tony is drawn to writers of dystopian fiction like George
Orwell, Adrian embraces existentialists like Albert Camus, who
SYMBOLS
considered suicide the “only true philosophical question.” Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and
Existentialism seems to equip him and his friends with theories Analysis sections of this LitChart.
and language to describe the excitement and despair that they
feel. But when they use such language to interpret Robson’s
suicide, analyzing it coldly and matter-of-factly as indulgent and SEVERN BORE
irresponsible rather than based in true philosophical logic, their One night during university, Tony and a few of his
lack of grief or concern for Robson, his family, or his girlfriend friends gather to see the famous Severn Bore at
shows a startling lack of sympathetic imagination. Their Minsterworth, not far from Bristol. A bore is a large wave
conversations underscore the limitations of applying theory to resulting from changes in tidal surges: for a few moments, the
life—especially when philosophy is divorced from context or course of the River Severn seems to change direction as the
from the human beings that such theories seek to explain and wave barrels upstream. Although subtler than a natural
describe. phenomenon like a tsunami or earthquake, the Severn Bore
If Tony and some of his friends come up short in their attempts seems to Tony to be just as stunning and earth-shattering. For a
to explain Robson’s suicide through philosophy, Adrian flips the few moments, time itself seems to reverse course—the laws of
logic, using philosophy to justify his own suicide. Adrian is history, which is supposed to move in only one direction, seem
shown to have grappled extensively with the idea that suicide no longer to apply. As The Sense of an Ending implies, however,
might give meaning to a life that (as the existentialists would the Bore is so alluring precisely because it is an exception to
say) has no inherent meaning. He ultimately philosophizes his such laws. Time does only move in one direction: as much as
way to suicide, in an extreme example of the ways that Tony would like to go back and change the past, deciding not to
philosophy can have very real power, even if abstract theories send the cruel letter he mailed to Veronica and Adrian, or
and ideas might seem far removed from everyday life. Despite deciding not to end things with Veronica so callously, or even in
this, the novel portrays Adrian’s suicide not as a sophisticated a more general sense choosing to live life with less fear and
philosophical act, but as the desperate, tragic act of someone caution, he cannot, like the Bore, move against the tide.
whose yearning for meaning—something he can only find In addition, though, the Severn Bore represents another
outside reality, in the abstractions of philosophy—has led him to problem introduced by the novel at the start: the difference
destroy his life. between remembering and witnessing. At one point Tony
Later in life, Tony’s various “theories” about Adrian’s character, recalls the conversation he had with Veronica while watching
his family, and his decision to kill himself are shown to be the Bore pass: they talked about how it’s possible to see things
equally limited in their ability to do justice to the messy and one would never believe if one hadn’t witnessed them directly.
complex realities of people’s lives and relationships. As Tony The Bore is one of those you-had-to-see-it-to-believe-it
gets back in touch with Veronica and begins to learn more moments, of course. Yet strikingly, when this memory returns
about the circumstances leading to Adrian’s suicide, he to the 60-something Tony later in the novel, for the first time he
replaces one “theory” with another, deciding at one point, for recalls that Veronica had been with him that night—when he
instance, that Adrian must have gotten Veronica pregnant and mentioned the night earlier in the novel, she wasn’t present in
killed himself as a result. Suddenly Adrian seems weak rather the memory. The Severn Bore is powerful in part because it’s a
than brave, immature rather than sophisticated; but when Tony remarkable, surprising event that he has witnessed, and thus
learns more and has to reevaluate his theories once again, the can believe—but even witnessing it directly doesn’t mean he
limitation of the very attempt to reduce Adrian (or other can entirely seize his memory of what happened that night (nor
characters) to abstractions becomes more evident. other moments during his time with Veronica). The Severn
By lingering over the abstract philosophical discussions of Bore thus proves a somber reminder of the deceptions and
Tony’s adolescence, the novel suggests that what one learns in self-deceptions of memory, and of the limitations of claiming to
the classroom can have unexpected and far-reaching witness something first-hand.
consequences. While discussing vast questions like the

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ADRIAN’S DIARY Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker)

After her death, Veronica Ford’s mother, Mrs.
Sarah Ford, leaves Tony two documents—a letter Related Themes:
and Adrian’s diary—as well as five hundred pounds. Tony had
only met Sarah Ford once before, at a rather uncomfortable Page Number: 4
weekend he spent with Veronica at her parents’ home, and is
Explanation and Analysis
mystified by this bequest—especially once it turns out that
Veronica is refusing to hand over the diary. As he begins his tale, Tony struggles to determine where to
begin. One of the novel’s major themes, indeed, is how to
The novel is to a certain extent structured around Tony’s
identify beginnings and endings, a process intimately
attempt to gain access to this diary. Tony believes that reading
related to the question of how to assign responsibility for
the diary will allow him to understand why Mrs. Ford left it to
what happened in the past. Although it isn’t clear at the
him, and what he doesn’t remember or didn’t understand about
beginning of the book, Tony is telling this story from the
his long-ago relationship to Veronica: in addition, he imagines it
vantage point of forty years later, when he’s received a
might serve as “corroboration” for his own innocence, allowing
letter that has forced him to relive his memories from many
him to undo vague feelings of guilt or responsibility for the way
years before, and attempt to draw those lines of
he treated Veronica in the past.
responsibility and construct or reconstruct the narratives
The diary is just the kind of physical evidence that Adrian with which he’s grown familiar.
himself cites in history class at school, as a straightforward
In fact, this passage is also concerned with just how
means of understanding history. By reading the diaries of
“incidents” become “anecdotes”—with how the raw data of
historical figures, historians can understand motivations,
experience gets molded into a coherent set of stories we tell
causes, and effects of long-ago events. His own diary thus
ourselves, in order to give our lives meaning. In the passage,
represents this ideal of historical evidence—but it also
time is the agent that propels this process. As time goes on,
symbolizes the complexities and even impossibility, according
and Tony forgets many of the details of his younger life, it
to Barnes, of ever seizing the past as it actually was. In part this
becomes paradoxically easier to be certain about what did
is because Veronica burns the diary—or at least that’s what she
happen, since he can refer back to a few strong images and
tells Tony—thus underlining how such pieces of evidence are
stories about his past. However, Tony’s insistence here that
fragile and potentially ephemeral. But even the fragment of the
time alone turns incident into anecdote also denies his own
diary that Tony does read, a single page, is a mystery itself: it will
active process of selection, editing, and willful forgetting.
take the rest of the novel for Tony to have any idea what it
meant. Things are complicated even further by the fact that the
diary is one person’s account of what happened—and it’s an
account that’s necessarily biased, both because it’s one “That’s one of the central problems of history, isn’t it, sir?
person’s view, and because Adrian, at least, carefully planned The question of subjective versus objective interpretation,
his suicide and thus knew that his diary would be read as the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in
evidence. Diaries may well give some kind of glimpse into the order to understand the version that is being put in front of
past, but that glimpse, the novel suggests, will always be a us?”
partial, biased, and even deceptive one.
Related Characters: Adrian Finn (speaker)

QUO
QUOTES
TES Related Themes:
Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Page Number: 13
Vintage edition of The Sense of an Ending published in 2012.
Explanation and Analysis
One Quotes In history class, Adrian—the class star—has just proposed a
view of historical responsibility in which it would be
But school is where it all began, so I need to return briefly
possible, all difficulties to the contrary, to isolate a chain of
to a few incidents that have grown into anecdotes, to some
causality and fix the cause of certain events in individual
approximate memories which time has deformed into certainty.
people and discrete actions. Here, however, he
acknowledges that his own view of historical responsibility

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is inevitably biased and partial. In high school, history is life, they fail to perceive how their own lives do contain high
often considered to be the compilation of facts and figures, stakes and difficult decisions, even if these seem more banal
events and social forces, that make up the past: but Adrian and less certain than they do when reading a book.
exposes one major problem of knowledge at the heart of
historical research even when it purports to be objective.
Adrian, as the novel will later show, will grapple with these “History is that certainty produced at the point where the
questions on an intensely personal level. He later leaves a imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of
clear, straightforward record of his reasons for killing documentation.”
himself, along with a diary that he presumably knows will be
read. These are all pieces of evidence, the kinds of evidence
Related Characters: Adrian Finn (speaker)
that historians can and do use to understand what
happened in the past. But Adrian, a “historian” himself, is
Related Themes:
eager to promote a certain version of why he killed
himself—one having to do with philosophical choices and Page Number: 18
abstract theory—that hides other possible reasons,
including the pregnancy he caused by having a relationship Explanation and Analysis
with his girlfriend’s mother. Tony will have to take into This is another of Adrian’s resounding intellectual
account this “history of the historian” as he attempts to statements, uttered during one of the high school history
understand the importance of what happened many years classes with Old Joe Hunt—and one that ends up deeply
ago. impacting Tony’s view of history, agency, and his own past.
The occasion is the final history class of the semester, when
Old Joe Hunt has asked the boys to think about the very
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn’t turn out definition of history. While the others respond glibly and
to be like Literature. ironically, Adrian characteristically takes the question
seriously, even if he distances himself from this quotation by
claiming that he got it from a French historian named
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker) Patrick Lagrange (who doesn’t exist). Once again, Adrian
emphasizes the fallibility of historians, and the uncertainty
Related Themes:
at the heart of the historical enterprise: since the memories
Page Number: 16 of those involved in history are weak and subject to
forgetfulness, and since there may never exist
Explanation and Analysis documentation that could serve as full evidence, it’s
Tony is describing his and his friends’ characters and impossible to know what really happened in the past. His
behaviors in their London boys’ school, where they’re point, too, is that people nonetheless join those two
getting an excellent education, though they prefer to keep inadequate features together and—as if overcompensating
an ironic distance from their teachers and texts. Their for them—claim to have an airtight understanding of history
sarcasm and unwillingness to be serious conceal, however, as a result.
how fervently they do desire their lives to live up to the Adrian will go on to cite Robson’s suicide as an example of
excitement that they find in “Literature.” What they mean by his theory. It’s difficult to know what happened or why
this is in part the high stakes of literature—they’d like their Robson killed himself even now, much less for future
lives to be full of difficult choices, adventures, profound love generations, and Robson didn’t leave any documents behind
affairs, and so on. When they do encounter something that explaining himself. Adrian’s own well-documented suicide
seems novelistic to them, like Robson’s suicide or Adrian’s might therefore be understood as a way to counter such
parents’ divorce, they seize on it, analyzing it to shreds as if weaknesses of the historical record. And yet the novel also
these real-life events were themselves elements of a novel. shows the understanding of history described here as
The Sense of an Ending suggests that this desire for the relevant for Adrian and the other characters as well—even
novelistic is understandable but troubling. By analyzing life Adrian can’t get outside the problems he identifies.
as literature, the boys fail to treat those around them like
real people. By looking for their own version of literature in

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“I hate the way the English have of not being serious about
being serious. I really hate it.” have included memories of Veronica, here he also notes that
one of the strongest memories he retains from his
university years was the night he and a few friends stayed
Related Characters: Adrian Finn (speaker), Anthony (Tony) up late in order to watch the Severn Bore, a famous tidal
Webster, Jack Ford bore near Bristol, in which the flow of the current reverses
direction for a moment, culminating in a wave moving
Related Themes:
upstream seemingly against the tide. Watching the Bore is
Page Number: 36 both a chilling and a marvelous experience for Tony, even
though, as he notes, it’s a subtler natural phenomenon than,
Explanation and Analysis say, a tornado or earthquake. Indeed, in part it’s so notable
Tony has just introduced Veronica to Adrian and his other precisely because it’s quiet and subtle, because nature
friends, and is eager to know what they think of her. He’s seems to reverse course without trumpeting the fact that
also just learned that Veronica’s brother Jack attends it’s doing so.
Cambridge with Adrian, and Tony is feeling both curious Tony will refer back to this moment and this memory many
about him and insecure because of the rarefied times over the course of the novel. The Severn Bore
environment to which they belong and from which he (Tony) becomes an alluring symbol of the desire to go back in time,
feels excluded. Adrian, however, doesn’t want to share many to reverse course, as if time and history could perhaps move
details about Jack or his crowd—this is the only remark he in multiple directions. However, as the novel goes on to
makes about them. In a way, Adrian’s frustration with the show, such reversals only happen within memory, which
“unserious” nature of English people goes back to high doesn’t work in a linear manner—and not in an individual
school, when he participated earnestly in events and took life, which cannot be undone or refashioned.
school much more seriously than his friends did. Indeed,
although Tony feels inferior socially, intellectually, and
economically to Jack, he’s in many ways similar to Jack in But I think I have an instinct for survival, for self-
their sardonic, flippant attitudes. Later in life, Tony will preservation. Perhaps this is what Veronica called
begin to acknowledge that this inability to be serious cowardice and I called being peaceable.
stemmed from a fear of fully engaging with life, of jumping
headlong into ideas and experiences rather than
maintaining an ironic distance from them. But Adrian’s Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
seriousness is not necessarily presented as the correct Veronica (Mary Elizabeth) Ford
attitude either: in some ways, after all, it contributes to his
decision to kill himself, and thus is shown to be tragically Related Themes:
limited in its own way.
Page Number: 45

Explanation and Analysis

It was more unsettling because it looked and felt quietly Tony has just learned, through a letter from Adrian, that
wrong, as if some small lever of the universe had been Adrian and Veronica are now dating. Tony ended things with
pressed, and here, just for these minutes, nature was reversed, Veronica himself, and has been attempting to put her out of
and time with it. his mind and out of his life entirely, but he is angered and
offended by the letter, which he immediately thinks stems
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker) from Veronica’s desire to manipulate and hurt him, and
constitutes a total betrayal on Adrian’s part. Yet Tony’s
Related Themes: instinct for “self-preservation” leads him not to share these
feelings with the two of them but to send, first, a jokey,
Related Symbols: ironic postcard that claims he’s fine with everything—and
then a bitter, cruel letter that ensures he’ll no longer have a
Page Number: 39 relationship with either of them. It might seem that such
actions are the opposite of “peaceable,” as Tony calls himself.
Explanation and Analysis But in this context, avoiding outright confrontation means
Although many of Tony’s recollections of his time at Bristol avoiding having to come to terms with his own pain, his

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History isn’t the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured
feelings of insecurity with respect to Adrian and Veronica, Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It’s more the memories of
and his guilt for the way he treated Veronica. Later in life, the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor
Tony will be forced to return to and question such an defeated.
instinct, even as he recognizes that he may not be able to
change this aspect of his character.
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
Old Joe Hunt

I did, eventually, find myself thinking straight. That’s to say, Related Themes:
understanding Adrian’s reasons, respecting them, and
admiring him. He had a better mind and a more rigorous Page Number: 61
temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on
Explanation and Analysis
the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I
suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then In concluding the first part of his tale—in which he has
build up an infrastructure of reason to justify it. And call the focused on his school days and then sped through decades
result common sense. of his later life—Tony reflects on the arc of his life (which has
as much to do with the way he’s chosen to narrate it as it
does with the actual experiences he’s had). In doing so, Tony
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
recalls his final history lesson with Old Joe Hunt in school,
Adrian Finn
when the teacher had asked the students to think about the
very meaning of history. At the time, Tony had been eager to
Related Themes:
be clever: he’d quickly responded with a definition
Page Number: 57 suggesting that, throughout history, the victors are the ones
who are able to say what really happened. In ordinary life,
Explanation and Analysis however, as he realizes, it’s not so easy to identify winners
Tony has returned from his trip to the United States to learn and losers. There are people who survive longer than
that Adrian has killed himself, and has left a full record of his others—Tony has lived far longer than Adrian, for
reasons for doing so. At first, Tony is shocked, upset, and instance—and yet he wouldn’t call surviving being
confused: he and Alex agree that the suicide is a “terrible “victorious.” Some of what Tony has learned in life, in other
waste,” as they call it. But here he reflects that there are words, has to do with how the black-and-white view of
reasons to admire Adrian’s decision, which ostensibly history he’d held as a schoolboy has become more nuanced,
stemmed from his own theory about the necessity to though perhaps also more somber.
philosophically judge whether life was worth living or not,
and to act on the results of that decision.
Two Quotes
However, the novel will go on to challenge the idea that
Tony is really “thinking straight” here. He has, after all, We live in time, it bounds us and defines us, and time is
accepted Adrian’s claims for why he killed himself without supposed to measure history, isn’t it? But if we can’t understand
reckoning with Adrian’s own view of history, one in which time, can’t grasp its mysteries of pace and progress, what
it’s necessary to take into account the bias of the person chance do we have with history—even our own small, personal,
giving the account. It will become clear that the reasons for largely undocumented piece of it?
Adrian’s suicide were more complicated than a noble,
philosophical choice—reasons having to do with his Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker)
relationship with Veronica’s mother, her pregnancy, and his
betrayal of Veronica, though the novel also suggests that it Related Themes:
will never be possible to fully understand Adrian’s motives.
(And it also implies that suicide based on purely Page Number: 66
philosophical reasons isn’t all that noble either.) Tony’s
admiration of Adrian will nonetheless impact the way he Explanation and Analysis
views his own character and his own past, regardless of how As Tony begins the second half of his story, he reflects on
partial and incomplete that version of Adrian remains. the difficulties of even telling such a story. This passage
returns to some of the questions with which Tony had

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begun his narrative: he’s perplexed by how to define and Jack’s behavior because of his own insecurities, ones based
understand time, which seems so straightforward and yet on the “shadings of class” that he mentions here—the
eludes precise definition. But, as the first half of the novel contrast between the “posher” Fords and the less well-off
shows, time can seem to speed up or slow down based on Websters. Tony had felt the sting of such class differences
the meaning that people assign to certain moments, events, forty years earlier, and strikingly, he still feels it now, even as
and relationships. Tony spent many pages lingering over a he is also self-conscious about such feelings of insecurity
few history classes in high school and a few conversations and inferiority.
with Veronica, while dispensing with his entire career and
his marriage in mere sentences.
Here, Tony suggests that the same problems of individual And for a moment, she almost looked enigmatic. But
time also plague history. Although in high school he was Margaret can’t do enigma, that first step to Woman of
confident that he could give a clever, glib definition of Mystery. If she’d wanted me to spend the money on a holiday
history, now he’s not so sure that he understands it at all. In for two, she’d have said so. Yes, I realise that’s exactly what she
addition, he also reflects on the relationship between did say, but…
individual experience and “History” in terms of important
people and great events. One is the part of the other, he
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
implies—although that only makes it more complicated to
Margaret
understand the meaning of both individual memories and
history on a broader level.
Related Themes:

Page Number: 84
Why did I imagine Brother Jack had seen me coming and
Explanation and Analysis
was having a bit of fun? Perhaps because in this country
shadings of class resist time longer than differentials in age. At one of their regular lunches, Tony and Margaret have
The Fords had been posher than the Websters back then, and been bantering, and the topic turns to the holiday that
they were jolly well going to stay that way. Or was this mere they’ve been meaning to book together for years, but
paranoia on my part? which—according to Tony—has just never “happened.” In
general, Tony insists that his relationship to Margaret is
easy and uncomplicated, in part because Margaret herself is
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
easy and uncomplicated. He tells himself that Margaret
Jack Ford
would never want to get back together with him, which
justifies him sharing details about his renewed interest in
Related Themes:
Veronica.
Page Number: 80 However, the novel implies that these claims on Tony’s part
are self-delusions: on some level he knows quite well that
Explanation and Analysis Margaret would happily get back together with him, but by
Tony has emailed Jack Ford, asking for his help in getting feigning ignorance he can also claim innocence, and
Adrian’s diary, which Veronica is refusing to hand over. Jack therefore have a relationship with her on precisely the
responds in a chipper, cheerful tone, making out as if he is terms that he’s comfortable with. His hedging and arguing
dispatching his response from an internet café in Singapore, with himself as depicted here only underline the ways he’s
before he has to dash off to catch the next rickshaw. Tony is managed to do this, even as the passage also reflects the
immediately suspicious, wondering if Jack is pulling his leg increasing difficulty that he has in maintaining such an
and thus implicitly making fun of him. Many years earlier, attitude. Even as Tony is forced to come to terms with his
Tony had had a similar sense that Jack’s bemusement own past, he never fully faces the potentially hurtful ways
toward him barely disguised his contempt for his sister’s he’s treated Margaret, thus suggesting that there’s a limit to
boyfriend. It’s difficult to tell altogether the extent to which any one person’s ability to face certain aspects of their
Tony’s suspicions are based in reality. At the very least, character head-on.
Adrian had also implied that Jack had an inability to be
serious (which, of course, is similar to Tony’s own character).
But it’s also possible that Tony has always over-interpreted

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It strikes me that this may be one of the differences
between youth and age: when we are young, we invent seen her in forty years—Tony reflects on the contrast
different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent between the expectations for his own future life that he’d
different pasts for others. had at that age, and the way his life has actually unfolded
since then. Those reflections lead, characteristically, to the
kind of general ruminations on the nature of time that Tony
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
has a tendency to indulge himself in. Here, by “time” he
Jack Ford
seems to mean the way in which things can look very
differently even if nothing else happens than the passage of
Related Themes:
time. A realistic view of life, for instance—which, in Tony’s
Page Number: 88 case, has led him to a humdrum career in arts
administration, an unwillingness to leap headlong into his
Explanation and Analysis marriage or to fight for his wife when she decided to leave
After receiving another email from Jack (in the interest of him—can seem reasonable at thirty and silly, even wasteful,
pursuing Adrian’s diary), Tony begins to wonder if he really at sixty.
needs to feel as inferior to Veronica’s brother, and insecure With the benefit of hindsight, Tony recognizes that much of
around him, as he always has. He begins to wonder if what he always believed is far more uncertain than he’d like
perhaps life has dealt Jack just as many difficulties and to admit. He’s no longer sure why he acted the way he did,
disappointments as anyone else has had to face—perhaps why he made the decisions he made. The tragedy of this
Jack joined a multinational company after university realization, however, is that it’s now too late: Tony can’t go
graduation, but proved not quite dynamic and clever back in time and live another life—and, indeed, he needed to
enough to face changing times; perhaps his life is rather live his entire life in order to realize that he’s lived it wrong.
quiet and depressing. After constructing a full-throated
imaginary life narrative for Jack, however, Tony recognizes
that this is precisely what he’s done.
I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and I had
When Tony was younger, he projected imaginary futures for succeeded—and how pitiful that was.
himself—assuming, as he’d noted, that his own life would be
exciting and adventurous. Now, though, there no longer
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker)
remains much of a future for him to project himself into.
Instead, he now takes solace in inventing an imaginary past
Related Themes:
for Jack, one that will contain the potential pain that Jack’s
status has always caused Tony, regardless of whether or not Page Number: 109
the narrative is based in fact.
Explanation and Analysis
After reading his own angry letter that he’d written to
But time…how time first grounds us and then confounds Veronica and Adrian many years ago, Tony begins to feel
us. We thought we were being mature when we were only remorse—both in specific ways, for the words he’d written
being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were and for the way he’d acted so many years ago, but also in
only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a more general terms for the way he’s lived his life.
way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time…give us Confronting his own pettiness on the page, Tony contrasts
enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem that attitude to what he continues to see as Adrian’s high
wobbly, our certainties whimsical. stakes and grand theories, the ways in which Adrian risked
everything in pursuit of an idea. In contrast, Tony has always
tried to avoid getting hurt, and now is faced with the fact
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker)
that such avoidance has meant that his own life feels small
and pitiful as a result.
Related Themes:
While the novel goes on to explore the implications of
Page Number: 102 Tony’s avoidance of pain (and therefore responsibility), it
also suggests that such a realization takes place as a result
Explanation and Analysis of misinterpretation. Tony views his own life in contrast not
Following his meeting with Veronica—the first time he’s

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I know this much: that there is objective time, but also
so much to Adrian’s real life as to the narrative he’s subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your
constructed about Adrian’s life. The reality is much messier, wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time,
as he will go on to learn. Yet The Sense of an Ending therefore which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to
implies that people’s real understanding of themselves and memory. So when this strange thing happened—when these
their lives can easily be based on such misunderstandings of new memories suddenly came upon me—it was as if, for that
other people, whose lives often seem clearer and more moment, time had been placed in reverse. As if, for that
straightforward. moment, the river ran upstream.

Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker)

“The question of accumulation,” Adrian had written. […]
Life isn’t just addition and subtraction. There’s also the Related Themes:
accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.
Related Symbols:
Related Characters: Adrian Finn (speaker), Anthony (Tony)
Webster Page Number: 133-134

Explanation and Analysis

Related Themes:
As Tony has begun to communicate with Veronica for the
first time in forty years, a number of the memories that he
Related Symbols:
had related in the first half of the story reemerge, though
Page Number: 113 often in a changed form. Characteristically, such memories
lead Tony to rethink, once again, the meaning of time—here,
Explanation and Analysis the difference between clock time and “subjective time”
Tony thinks back to the single-page fragment that is the only (something that he and his school friends had seemed to
part of Adrian’s diary he’ll ever get the chance to read. acknowledge the importance of, in their penchant for
Adrian had written a number of letters down in the shape of wearing their watches with the face on the inside of their
formulae, with multiplication, addition, and subtraction wrists).
symbols. This was Adrian’s abstract, theoretical way of As Tony indulges in these long-buried memories, he refers
attempting to understand and isolate the relationships implicitly to the Severn Bore, the tidal surge that he had
between people in his life—and therefore, perhaps, to assign witnessed during his time at Bristol, and which struck him
some kind of responsibility for their actions. Tony takes up for the way it seemed to reverse the flow time and history
this idea in a more metaphorical register: at one point he itself. Now, Tony feels that memories can do the same kind
quotes a poet, Philip Larkin, on the difference between of work. They make him feel that he doesn’t need to regret
mere increase and accumulation. The idea is that the his past as much as he’s been doing lately, because in some
meaning of a life doesn’t simply come from all the events ways he can return back in time. Memory is thus presented
that one has experienced, added together. Some events as one exception to the laws of history, even though it can
mean more than others; some experiences transform also be a delusion of its own kind, allowing Tony to pretend
everything that has gone before, thus exponentially that he could go back and change things about his past.
increasing the value (or, as Tony notes, the pain and
suffering) of the experience. In this case, Tony recognizes
that the failure of his relationship to Veronica was not just
What had begun as a determination to obtain property
one integer in his life: it cast its shadow on the ways he
bequeathed to me had morphed into something much
would go on to interact with women for the rest of his life.
larger, something which bore on the whole of my life, on time
and memory. And desire. I thought—at some level of my being, I
actually thought—that I could go back to the beginning and
change things. That I could make the blood flow backwards.

Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),

Veronica (Mary Elizabeth) Ford

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be at having the two of them for parents. Although Tony

Related Themes:
realizes that simply writing the letter didn’t make it happen,
he is struck and saddened by the fact that, in fact, the two of
Related Symbols: them did have a child, and that the child had a mental
disability that prevented him from living an independent life.
Page Number: 142
In returning to the notion of remorse—which Tony has
Explanation and Analysis identified as a stronger feeling even than regret—Tony
After an enigmatic encounter with Veronica in the north of continues his process of grappling with the unchangeable
London, Tony is forced to face the fact that he still doesn’t nature of the past. Remorse is so powerful precisely
understand what she wants him to realize about herself and because of the knowledge that it’s impossible to turn back
her family, nor does he seem to have succeeded in making time and change things. However, remorse is also shown to
her change her opinion about him. Here he also recognizes be an important and necessary feeling for Tony, precisely
how much larger the affair of Adrian’s diary has become: he because it’s so painful—as Tony has so often avoided taking
began by wanting to gain access to what Veronica’s mother responsibility for anything in his life.
left him in her will, but at this point he has come to engage in
a reckoning with his entire life. Once again, Tony implicitly
refers to the Severn Bore and the desire that it represents No, nothing to do with cleverness; and even less with
of moving backwards in time—but, unlike earlier, he now moral courage. He didn’t grandly refuse an existential gift;
recognizes that desire to be a futile one. Frustrated and he was afraid of the pram in the hall.
upset both at his failed encounter with Veronica and at his
own self-delusions, Tony is nonetheless increasingly able to
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
reckon with his past by understanding it as unchangeable.
Adrian Finn

Related Themes:
Remorse, etymologically, is the action of biting again: that’s
what the feeling does to you. Imagine the strength of the Page Number: 155
bite when I reread my words. They seemed like some ancient
Explanation and Analysis
curse I had forgotten even uttering. Of course I don’t—I
didn’t—believe in curses. That’s to say, in words producing In continuing to reflect on his epiphany about Adrian’s son,
events. But the very action of naming something that Tony is forced to reevaluate the way he’s understood Adrian
subsequently happens—of wishing specific evil, and that evil and his actions for the past forty years. Adrian has always
coming to pass—this still has a shiver of the otherworldly about been a counter-example to Tony’s own life: Adrian was the
it. brilliant student, the one who was happy with Veronica, and
the one who carefully considered the philosophical meaning
of life and, finding it unsatisfying, was courageous enough to
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker),
follow through with the consequences of his conclusion. His
Adrian Finn , Veronica (Mary Elizabeth) Ford
suicide was, Tony had concluded, certainly unlike that of
Robson, who killed himself once his girlfriend became
Related Themes:
pregnant. Now, however, Adrian looks weak and immature
Page Number: 151 (in Tony’s mind), just like Robson had. Tony thus has to come
to terms with the ways he’s assigned a certain reality, based
Explanation and Analysis on a certain narrative, to his friend—and that the ways he’s
Having encountered Adrian’s son in the flesh, and having done so say more about Tony’s own insecurities than about
recognized him, Tony has realized what he thinks is the Adrian’s reality.
truth: that Veronica became pregnant with Adrian’s son so Things are complicated even more, however, by the fact that
many years ago, and that this was the reason Adrian killed Tony hasn’t even fully grasped the situation: he still doesn’t
himself. Here he thinks back to the angry, bitter letter he’d realize that the child is Sarah Ford’s, not Veronica’s. The fact
written to Veronica and Adrian. In it, he’d written that he that Tony is immediately willing to rewrite Adrian’s
hoped Veronica could get pregnant before Adrian got sick narrative—rather than question the very possibility of
of her; he’d mentioned how cursed any child of theirs would

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knowing another person’s situation or of truly comprehend the relationships indicated by the one
understanding the past—is portrayed as limited in its own fragment of Adrian’s diary that Veronica allowed him to
right. Adrian may well have feared the consequences of read. Adrian had had an affair with Veronica’s mother, and it
having a child, especially with his girlfriend’s mother, but had resulted in a child, born mentally disabled—a child
Barnes wants to stress that it’s impossible to know all the whom Veronica nonetheless spent her life helping to care
complexities of any person’s motivations for such an act. for. Of course, Tony recognizes that even though his initial is
on the page—even though he was the one to tell Adrian to
“consult” with Veronica’s mother about Veronica’s
“damage”—he doesn’t bear all the blame for this set of
I looked at the chain of responsibility. I saw my initial in
there. I remembered that in my ugly letter I had urged events. But the fact that he doesn’t and can’t possibly know
Adrian to consult Veronica’s mother. I replayed the words that just how much responsibility he does bear is in many ways
would forever haunt me. As would Adrian’s unfinished even worse. Because it’s impossible to go back in time, it’s
sentence, “So, for instance, if Tony…” impossible to know how changing one event or decision
would have changed everything else. Regardless of how
Adrian’s counterfactual proposition ends, then, the facts
Related Characters: Anthony (Tony) Webster (speaker), can’t be changed.
Mrs. Sarah Ford , Adrian Finn , Veronica (Mary Elizabeth)
This inability to pin down exact responsibility accounts for
Ford
Tony’s feelings of being “haunted.” The novel suggests that
he does need to take some responsibility for the decisions
Related Themes:
that he’s made and the actions he’s taken; but because the
extent of responsibility remains unknowable, there’s no real
Related Symbols:
solace to be taken from such acceptance of responsibility.
Instead, Tony must be condemned to unrest, the word on
Page Number: 162-163
which the novel ends—despite the yearning for a “sense of
Explanation and Analysis an ending.”
Only at the very end of the novel does Tony fully

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

ONE
Tony Webster, the protagonist and narrator, begins his story by Over the course of the rest of the novel, the context and significance
listing certain images he remembers: they include steam rising of these images will become clearer. The final (and most sinister)
from a sink with a hot frying pan within it; sperm circling a basin image, however, sets the stage for the book’s exploration of the
before being flushed down the length of a house; a river weaknesses and possible manipulations of memory. The novel will
rushing upstream; and cold bathwater behind a locked door. He also go on to question the objectivity of testimony.
admits that he didn’t see the last one, but remembering and
witnessing, he thinks, are two separate things.

Tony muses on his difficulty in understanding how malleable Time, in Tony’s account, is experienced subjectively. In this way it’s
time is, how easily it can be slowed down, speed up, or go similar to memory.
missing as a result of pleasure or pain.

Tony decides he must return to his school days as the place “it Already, Tony potentially undermines the validity and objectivity of
all began,” even if he’s not too interested in that time. Though the story he’s about to tell—even as his acknowledgment seems to
he can’t be sure of what actually happened, he can be sure of make him more honest, and therefore trustworthy.
the impressions left on him after many years.

Adrian Finn, tall and shy, arrived at school long after friend Adrian is immediately alluring to Tony and his group of friends in
groups were decided and formed, though he would become the part because he seems a bit different from them: they’ll incorporate
fourth member of Tony’s group of friends. Tony recalls his him into their group, but he’ll remain slightly aloof all the same.
presence in the first day’s history class taught by Old Joe Hunt,
who always looked cordial and formal in a three-piece suit.

Old Joe Hunt asked if anyone could characterize the age of From Adrian’s first comment in class (at least insofar as Tony can
Henry the Eighth: Tony, Colin, and Alex all hoped they wouldn’t remember it), it’s clear that he is familiar with and interested in the
be called on. He chose a cautious dud named Marshall, to their philosophical dimensions of history. His response to Old Joe Hunt
relief, who replied vaguely that there was unrest. Old Joe Hunt might seem flippant, but in fact it signals his sincere concern with
turned to Adrian, who replied that according to one line of how to make meaning out of history.
historical thought, all one can say about any event, no matter
how extreme, is that “something happened.” Old Joe Hunt said
that if that were so, he’d be out of a job.

At the break, Tony introduced himself and said he was Tony and his friends are accustomed to performing a jokey, flippant
impressed by his line; Adrian said he was disappointed the manner. Even while they do care about abstract ideas (the way they
teacher didn’t explore his idea in depth. Tony thought that this wear watches suggests a view of time as intimate and subjective, for
wasn’t how he was supposed to reply. The elder Tony instance), they, unlike Adrian, are insecure about exhibiting too
remembers how the three friends used to wear their watches much sincerity.
with their face on the inside of their wrists, making time
personal or secret: Adrian never follows suit.

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That day, or perhaps another day, the boys all attended English Ted Hughes was a poet particularly known for his poems about
class taught by a young Cambridge grad, Phil Dixon, whom they animals. Phil Dixon’s remark about him is just the kind of glib but
adored. He used contemporary texts, addressed the students clever statement, implying intellectual mastery worn lightly, to
as “Gentlemen,” and once in discussing Ted Hughes, asked which Tony and his friends aspire.
wryly what would happen when the poet “runs out of animals.”

Phil Dixon handed out a poem with no identifying information Phil Dixon introduces an exercise typical for mid-century English
and asked Adrian what the poem was about. He immediately boarding schools, popularized by a literary critic named I.A.
replied, “Eros and Thanatos,” clarifying, “Sex and Death,” or Richards: the implication is that a poem’s meaning has nothing to
what ensues from the conflict between the erotic and the do with its context. The anecdote also highlights aspects of Adrian’s
death principle. Dixon turned to Tony, who said he just thought character while introducing a philosophical theme to which Tony
the poem was about a barn owl. Tony reflects now that while he will return.
and his friends spent most of their time “taking the piss” or
joking around, with brief bouts of seriousness, Adrian was
almost always serious.

Adrian was slowly absorbed into Tony’s group, but without All these details serve to underline how Adrian’s relationship to
adopting their attitudes. He joined the responses in morning ideas and beliefs is different from Tony, Colin, and Alex’s
prayer while Alex and Tony mimed the words; he joined fencing performative, distanced, and ironic relationship to them. Adrian’s
and track, while they considered sports a “crypto-fascist” earnestness is nonetheless fascinating and appealing to the friends.
means of repressing their sex drive; he played clarinet, while
they took pride in being tone-deaf. He seemed to believe in
things, while they remained resolutely skeptical.

Tony reflects now that things were simpler in their central At several points in the narrative, the current-day (60-something)
London school, without electronic devices or girlfriends: they Tony steps back from his memories and reflects on the distance
only had to study, pass exams, find a job, and start a life between the past and present, both individually and for society at
reasonably more successful than that of their parents, who large.
would approve while also considering their own simpler times
superior.

Tony now recalls Colin complaining about his parents being This memory suggests that Tony, Colin, and Alex are naïve and
“bastards”: Adrian ironically asked if they were like Henry the immature: they complain about minor quibbles with their family
Eighth. The cause of Colin’s anger was that his parents made while glamorizing Adrian’s “broken” family. The novel will go on to
him spend the weekend gardening. Adrian was the only person show how “theories” like this one can be intensely and even
they knew to come from what was known, Tony now recalls, as tragically detached from the real complexities of human experience.
a “broken home,” but he rarely joined in the griping about
parents. Separately, the three others developed a “theory” that
the key to a happy family is not to have one.

Tony remembers feeling like he was in a holding pen, waiting to The older Tony paints a rather somber portrait of life as an endless
be released into life, at which point time itself would speed up. waiting room—even as he also suggests that what happened to him
He couldn’t have known that his life had already begun, that long ago was not preparation for his real life, but significant in its
some damage had already been inflicted, and that his release own right.
would only be into a larger holding pen.

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At school, Tony and his friends were “book-hungry” and “sex- Tony and his friends are drawn to certain theories and philosophies:
hungry,” convinced that all systems were corrupt and that there Tony prefers dystopian fiction, while Colin likes 19th-century
was no better alternative than “hedonistic chaos.” But Adrian literature of angst and despair. Adrian’s embrace of existentialist
pushed them to consider how philosophy might be applied to philosophers—who sought to construct a meaning for life even while
life. They all had their preferred philosophers: for Tony, George accepting that life has no inherent meaning—will prove important
Orwell and Aldous Huxley, for Colin, Baudelaire and for his own life choices.
Dostoevsky, and for Adrian, Camus and Nietzsche. They were
pretentious and unbearable; their parents were anxious about
their corrupting influence on each other.

Tony returns to another memory: Old Joe Hunt asked the class Colin’s remark is typical of the clique’s desire to be intellectually
to debate the origins of the First World War. Most preferred an impressive while never entirely serious. In the novel’s account, the
all-or-nothing game: either the Serbian gunman who various interpretations about historical causation that one might
assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand was fully responsible, propose say as much about the people doing the interpreting as
or historical forces set Europe on an inevitable course. Colin about the historical events themselves.
declared everything up to chance, saying that a desire for
meaning was quasi-religious and naïve.

Old Joe Hunt asked Adrian what he thought. He said that The first part of Adrian’s answer works as a reflection on the causes
assigning responsibility was always a cop-out: by blaming one of something like the First World War, but the novel will also return
person, or giving historical forces or chaos responsibility, we to this question of responsibility again and again in its relevance for
remove the blame from everyone else. He thought there might much more intimate, personal matters. Adrian’s reflection on
be a middle ground, a chain of individual responsibilities that history as biased and uncertain is intellectually sophisticated, but
could be identified. But he added that his desire to assign the novel will also go on to show how this can be a source of great
responsibility might be a reflection of his own state of mind: personal anxiety.
you have to know the “history of the historian” to understand
the version of history being presented. After a silence, Old Joe
Hunt said that he’d be happy to give Adrian his job upon
retiring.

One morning at assembly, the headmaster announced that The boys’ response to Robson’s suicide is depicted as notably self-
Robson of the Science Sixth had died over the weekend. Adrian absorbed, even callous: rather than trying to imagine or empathize
repeated, “Eros and Thanatos,” to the others, saying that with Robson, they use his suicide as fodder for their own abstract
Thanatos had won again. The boys were almost offended: and even competitive theories.
Robson was unimaginative, uninterested in the arts, un-
offensive, but now he’d made a name for himself.

A few days later, Brown of the Maths Sixth told the boys that Adrian’s citation of Camus reflects the existentialist concern with
Robson had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and hanged himself whether it makes sense to keep living at all if life, in the absence of
in the attic. They debated how he knew how to do it, and God, doesn’t have meaning outside the meanings people create. In
wondered what his girlfriend was like. Adrian then said that Adrian and the other boys’ conclusion, suicide is thus a potentially
according to Camus, suicide was the only true, fundamental powerful theoretical act, rather than—as they flippantly decide
philosophical question. Ultimately, they decided that Robson about Robson—an expression of pain and despair.
had been unphilosophical, self-indulgent, and that his suicide
note, rumored to have said merely “Sorry, Mum,” was a missed
opportunity.

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Tony wonders if it was the revelation that Robson was having Tony and his friends do care deeply about what they’re reading and
sex, more than anything, that really bothered him and his learning, even if they (apart from Adrian) refuse to show it. The
friends. From their reading, they knew that Love sometimes problem with their reading here is that they are impatient with what
involved Suffering, but they’d happily accept the latter if the they take to be life’s banalities as opposed to the drama of literature.
former was on its way. They feared that life wouldn’t be like The note that Phil Dixon is the one to have taught them what
literature—their parents’ lives seemed to confirm this. Real literature “means” only underlines how the boys are eager to find
literature, for them, was about guilt and innocence, love and meaning elsewhere, rather than develop their own sense of it
sex, betrayal, good and evil—about emotional and social truth through experience.
developed through characters’ experience over time (or at least
that was what they gleaned from Phil Dixon).

Tony remembers grilling Adrian about his parents’ divorce, the The boys’ impatience with Adrian and their naïve desire to
only remotely novelistic-seeming event in their lives. He construct a novelistic narrative makes them unable to accept
deflected their questions, refusing to share details. In a novel, Adrian’s real-life pain or desire for privacy. As with Robson, they
Tony thinks, Adrian wouldn’t have just accepted his new reality, again view another’s pain with theoretical detachment.
as he seemed to be doing.

Tony remembers the year’s final history lesson: Old Joe Hunt Tony depicts his own younger self as precocious and a bit too eager
invited the students to draw some conclusions over the to be clever. Colin, too, performs a mix of intellectual sophistication
centuries they’d covered. “What is History?” he asked Tony, (a view of history as endless repetition) and adolescent immaturity
who, a bit quickly, replied that it’s the lies of the victors: Hunt in the metaphors he uses to describe it. Again, he and Tony are
responded that it’s also the self-delusions of the defeated. cavalier and jokey, unable to be as serious as they might actually
Colin offered the notion that history is a raw onion sandwich: it want—but are too insecure—to be.
just repeats, or “burps,” oscillating between tyranny and
rebellion, war and peace.

Adrian characteristically said that history is the certainty that The novel will return again and again to Adrian’s view of what
results from imperfect memory, joined to inadequate history is, as Tony reflects on the biases and imperfections of history
documentation: he said he got that quotation from the French and as the novel makes a case for the frightening uncertainty of
Patrick Lagrange. Asked to give an example, he said Robson’s both history and memory. The fact that Patrick Lagrange is a made-
suicide—and everyone was shocked, but Adrian tended to get up historian—whether invented by Adrian or misremembered by
away with more than anyone else. He continued that this was a Tony—is yet another way the novel interrogates objectivity and
historical event, with a single piece of (rumored) reliability in narrative on various levels. It is a subtly humorous irony
documentation: he asked how we could know if Robson had that the definition of history—usually seen as a subject dealing with
other motives, what his state of mind was, if the child was even facts—comes from a fictional source.
his, and so on. So, he concludes, how could anyone write
Robson’s history many years from now, if so much is uncertain
now?

Hunt, after a while, replied that Adrian might underestimate Hunt’s listing of the various pieces of evidence one might use to
historians, who have always had to deal with lack of direct determine what really happened in the past is resonant for the later
evidence. There might be a coroner’s report, a diary, or his parts of the novel, when Tony will strive to use just such evidence to
parents’ responses to condolence letters. Adrian replied that understand his own past. While Adrian emphasizes the importance
nothing could make up for the lack of Robson’s testimony, but of personal testimony, the novel itself will (like Hunt) question the
Hunt said that a participant’s own explanation always needs to reliability of that mode too.
be treated with a certain level of skepticism. Tony reflects that
this exchange almost certainly went differently from the way he
remembers it.

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Tony and his friends dispersed: Adrian won a scholarship to Even while Adrian is different from the other boys, who have never
Cambridge, while Tony headed to Bristol to “read” (study) been comfortable being as earnest as he is, they are drawn to his
history. They swore to meet during breaks, but this sometimes seriousness, seeing in it a model that they are nonetheless still too
didn’t happen. They wrote letters, though mostly Tony, Colin, scared to follow.
and Alex wrote to Adrian, seeking his attention and approval.

Tony’s life did “speed up”: after struggling to win girls without a These specific details are an implicit reminder of how random and
“technique,” he met Veronica Mary Elizabeth Ford, a student of selective memory can be. The description of Veronica as merely
Spanish who liked poetry, and whose father was a civil servant. “nice” signals Tony’s unwillingness or inability to allow himself to feel
Tony found her “nice,” even if only because she was willing to something deeper or stronger, or even to see her as a complex
bear his advances. human being.

Veronica owned a Black Box record player (Tony had a These details imply certain class differences. Veronica’s record
Dansette); she owned choral and lieder LPs and hated player is fancier than Tony’s more popular, mass-market edition, and
Tchaikovsky, whom Tony loved. Looking through his record her sophisticated musical tastes are also a sign of a more upper-
albums once, he was embarrassed at his extensive pop class upbringing.
collection: she asked neutrally if he liked such music, and when
he responded that it was good to dance to, she said she didn’t
dance.

Tony explains that “going out” is different now: he’s recently Once again, the current-day Tony intrudes on his recollections in
heard about a daughter of a friend who had been sleeping with order to make a reflection about the differences in sexual
a boy at university who was simultaneously sleeping with other expectations between the 1960s and the present (that is, the
girls. She wasn’t upset at that as much as at the fact that he 2000s, or forty years later). While sex may seem private and
ultimately chose one of the others. Tony feels like a survivor intimate, the novel portrays it as always wrapped up in quite public
from some ancient culture: in his day, he says, you would meet a social norms and expectations.
girl, invite her to social events, then on her own, then, after a
good-night kiss, you were “going out.” Only then did you learn
what her “sexual policy” was.

Like other girls, Veronica was fine with kissing and touching Tony is ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory, about his
over the clothes; other girls would accept mutual masturbation, attitude toward Veronica’s “sexual policy.” It’s a source of frustration,
still others “full sex.” Tony notes that this wasn’t religious but also leaves room for different kinds of sexual experiences. His
prudery, since women like Veronica were at ease with their recollections also serve as a reflection about the ways sex is both
bodies; besides, he liked what he might call “infra-sex,” even if intimate and social, an experience that many share, but something
Colin and Alex had girlfriends with more liberal policies (though that is often difficult or improper to talk about frankly and honestly.
Tony knew he might not be getting the full story). Tony himself
lost his virginity between school and university: it was all the
more frustrating, then, that it seemed more difficult to sleep
with girls he actually liked.

Tony remembers heated moments, a woman’s hand restraining Another instance of the power of images in memory. It also suggests,
his wrist and saying “It doesn’t feel right.” This was the sixties, though, that Tony might have been more aggressive and unpleasant
he admits, but only for certain people, in certain places. in sex than he recalls.

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Tony recalls that his bookshelves were more successful than his The Sense of an Ending is interested in how literature and art are
records: he had more blue Pelicans (nonfiction) than orange sources of real meaning and pleasure for people, but also wrapped
Penguins (fiction), a sign of seriousness. Veronica had more up in socioeconomic status, signaling different kinds of cultural
poetry: Eliot, Auden, Thom Gunn, Ted Hughes, as well as Left capital. Tony, for instance, wants to perform his intellectual
Book Club editions of Orwell, expensive nineteenth-century aspirations (even as he thinks Veronica is exempt from such
novels, and so on. They seemed to all be of a piece with her jockeying for position—which the novel implicitly calls into
personality, while Tony’s book collection was his attempt to question). He is impressed with her in some of the same ways and
describe the character he wanted to become. He once fell back for some of the same reasons he was drawn to Adrian—their desire
on Phil Dixon’s line about everyone wondering what Ted to think for themselves, their embrace of the “serious,” and so on.
Hughes will do when he runs out of animals, but the line
sounded silly, not witty, in his mouth. Veronica responded
archly, and when he admitted this was just something his old
English master said, she replied that he should think for himself
now: but she seemed to be bantering more than dismissing him.

Veronica asked why Tony wore his watch inside out: since he Although Tony’s tendency to wear his watch inside out was meant
couldn’t justify it, he stopped doing so. He settled into a routine as a sign of his own intellectual freethinking, as well as performing a
of working, being with Veronica, and then masturbating alone devil-may-care attitude to time and obligations, the fact that he
back in his room to fantasies of her. He started to feel quickly sheds this habit shows that he’s eager to live up to
privileged to have access to feminine details like makeup and Veronica’s own, different ideas of what to do and how to be. The
periods. At the same time, he remembers thinking that he current-day Tony also acknowledges his younger self’s callousness,
never needed to broach where the relationship was going. She his self-justifying attitude in assuming Veronica had made a kind of
wouldn’t let them have sex: therefore she must have implicitly bargain with him.
agreed that he didn’t have to discuss their future. Tony realizes
now that he was wrong about this and most things. He wonders
why, for instance, he assumed she was a virgin, only because
she wouldn’t sleep with him.

Tony recalls being invited to spend a weekend with Veronica’s As Tony arrives at Veronica’s home in Kent, he notices particular
family in Chislehurst, Kent. He brought a huge bag and details that have to do with the Ford family’s privileged background.
Veronica’s father, a large, red-faced man smelling of beer, made Tony is self-conscious and uncomfortable, acutely sensitive to any
fun of him for it. On the drive, her father pointed out St. implication that the family thinks less of him. It’s difficult to tell,
Michael’s, the Café Royal, and other sights, and Tony wasn’t given the first-person narration, to what extent such feelings are
sure if he was meant to respond. At the house he noticed the based in reality or are instead over-sensitive worries by a young
heavy shine on the furniture and an extravagant potted plant. college student who is anxious and insecure.
Veronica’s father led him to an attic room and told him he could
pee in the small basin (connected to the plumbing) in the night;
Tony couldn’t tell if he was being jocular and male, or treating
him like lower-class “scum.”

Veronica’s brother Jack was healthy, prone to laughter, and Veronica’s mother will, it turns out, be central to this story. It’s all
teasing with Veronica: to him Tony was the object of mild the more significant, given the novel’s focus on the selectivity of
curiosity. Veronica’s mother was quieter and calmer, often memory, that Tony cannot recall much about her—except, tellingly,
disappearing into the kitchen. She seemed fully middle-aged to how old she seemed and a sense that she might be something of a
Tony (though he reflects that she must have been in her early free thinker.
forties), and he remembers her having a vaguely artistic air.

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Tony’s most vivid memory of the weekend is being so uneasy The college-aged Tony is still occupied with the gap between life and
that he was constipated the whole time. He vaguely recalls literature—disappointed when life seems to be more banal or
Veronica withdrawing, at first, into her family and judging him ordinary than the books he’s read. This disappointment is coupled
along with the others; he remembers awkwardly discussing with Tony’s continued insecurity about his background compared to
current affairs in front of the TV news after dinner. In a novel, the Fords’.
he thought, Veronica might have snuck up to his floor at night,
but she didn’t.

On Saturday, Tony descended for breakfast to find that This memory should be a reminder of one image with which the
everyone but Mrs. Ford had gone for a walk. Ill at ease, Tony book began—a sizzling frying pan in a wet sink—thus implying both
eventually asked if they’d lived here long. As she cooked eggs in that Tony’s conversation with Mrs. Ford will prove significant later
a frying pan, unconcerned when one broke, she told him not to on, and that what will remain in his memory are evocative images
let Veronica get away with too much. He wasn’t sure what to far more than a straightforward, trustworthy narrative about what
respond: finally she smiled and said they’d lived here for ten happened during this weekend.
years. She slipped eggs onto Tony’s plate and threw the hot
frying pan into the wet sink, laughing at the fizzing water and
steam.

When the others returned, the air of interrogation seemed to Even as the weekend improves somewhat for Tony, he continues to
dissipate, though Tony was paranoid that they’d just become feel awkward and out of place, particularly with the Ford
tired of him. Still, Veronica became more affectionate with him, men—imagining that they are making fun of him or simply tolerating
and even kissed him goodnight that evening. They ate roast him, that he isn’t good enough for their daughter or isn’t from the
lamb for Sunday lunch, and Tony remembered to say how right background.
delicious it was, though Jack winked at his father as if privately
dismissing Tony’s attempt at manners.

Jack didn’t show up to say goodbye when Tony left. He It’s extremely ambiguous what Mrs. Ford’s gesture is, but the
remembers Mrs. Ford leaning against the porch, waving not general enigma of her character will only become more significant
with a raised palm but a horizontal, waist-level gesture. He as the novel goes on.
wished he’d spoken more to her.

A week later, Tony recalls, Veronica came to London so she Tony’s surprise is evidence of the fact that, though he considers Alex
could meet his friends. They wandered around the tourist a close friend, there’s much he doesn’t know about him—including
neighborhoods and then met the boys. She asked Alex what his things that he might easily learn, were he to show the kind of
father did, and his answer (marine insurance) surprised Tony. interest in others that Veronica does. In general the narrative gives
She asked if Adrian knew anyone she did at Cambridge, and her the impression that the young Tony is extremely self-absorbed and
talk of dons and colleges made Tony feel left out: only then did somewhat oblivious, and the older Tony doesn’t seem to recognize
he learn that Jack attended Cambridge, studying moral this either. Jack’s Cambridge connection is further fodder for Tony’s
sciences like Adrian. feelings of insecurity.

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Veronica asked for a picture to be taken with Tony’s friends in Returning to the picture, and to his memory of this evening, Tony is
Trafalgar Square. Forty years on, Tony examines this photo grappling with the fact that there’s much about it he cannot grasp or
again to look for answers. He wonders why Veronica never remember—and, in addition, that he may never have understood
wore heels, and if it was a way of commanding attention in the Veronica in the first place. At this point in the narrative, it’s still
opposite way one might think: yet he always thought of her unclear why Veronica might be seen as “calculating,” or why that
actions as instinctive, not manipulative, when they were dating. might be important.
He’s not sure that it would help him now to know or decide that
she’d always been calculating.

After Veronica left, Tony asked his friends what they thought. Adrian may well be thinking of people like Tony and the other school
Adrian said he’d heard of Jack and knew of the people he went boys, who always avoided being too earnest about anything. But
around with. When Tony asked what he thought of them, because Adrian is most directly referring to Jack, Tony can feel
Adrian said with feeling that he hated how the English had a satisfied and “vindicated.”
way of not being serious about being serious. Tony should have
felt offended, perhaps, but instead felt vindicated.

Veronica and Tony dated through their second year. Little by Tony does not appear very flattering in this depiction: he’s eager to
little she allowed him more sexual privileges, though not “full have sex with Veronica, but unwilling to think seriously about their
sex,” and he began to feel slightly resentful. One day, out of the relationship—perhaps another sign of the difficulty he has being
blue, she asked if he ever thought about where their “serious” about anything. Were Tony to dive into this relationship, he
relationship was heading. He wondered immediately if this was might have to be more earnest, and he also might get hurt: his
why she was letting him go further with her. He asked if the avoidance of both is what he seems to mean by calling himself
relationship had to “go” somewhere, and she replied that she “peaceable.”
didn’t want to stagnate. He asked if they could just enjoy their
time together. She responded that he was cowardly, and he
replied that it was more that he was peaceable.

Today, Tony considers this the beginning of the end of their Even the scene just described only reaches the readers through the
relationship, but wonders if he remembers it that way in order imperfect memory and biased point of view of Tony today, only
to apportion blame and responsibility a certain way. He’d never complicating any interpretation even more.
thought of himself as either peaceable or the opposite until
that conversation.

Tony reflects that he has few other memories from Bristol A bore is a tidal surge in which the tide suddenly comes in in a single
other than work and Veronica. One that does stand out is the wave, going against the previous tide or current. In the novel, the
night he saw the Severn Bore, staying up until after midnight Severn Bore will become a powerful symbol for the characters’
with some friends at Minsterworth. Suddenly, after flowing yearning for history to be reversed and time to go backward—for
slowly for hours, the river seemed to “change its mind” and a things not to be as irrevocable as they usually are. Only in memories
wave headed the opposite direction, moving towards the (like in this one, for Tony) do events return out of order, such that
group, then surging into the distance. Tony remembers feeling history does seem able to be reshuffled.
dumbstruck: it wasn’t violent or earth-shattering, but felt
quietly wrong, as if nature and time were both for an instant
reversed.

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Tony shifts topics suddenly: after Veronica and he broke up, he The abrupt juxtaposition of the Severn Bore memory and this
shares, she slept with him. He didn’t see it coming at all, even memory underlines the stark contrast between the desire for things
after Veronica and he bumped into each other at the pub to have been different, and the reality that Tony did make certain
(which she didn’t like), or when they kissed after she asked him choices, that certain irrevocable events did happen—even if he
to walk her home. All the while he still thought she was a virgin, portrays himself as almost entirely lacking agency in this scene.
even as she clearly knew what she was doing. As he threw out
the condom afterwards, he concluded that this wasn’t what he
wanted.

The next time they met, Veronica called Tony a “selfish bastard.” While Tony has depicted sleeping with Veronica as an accident, one
First, she said his flippant decision practically made the sex without blame on either side, she obviously feels hurt and betrayed:
rape, then asked why he didn’t tell her beforehand that it was Tony responds unfeelingly, continuing to avoid responsibility and
definitively over: he said he didn’t know then, but he’d finally merely be “peaceable.”
thought about their relationship, like she’d wanted him to.

Veronica responded sarcastically, until Tony asked if she slept In this scene, Tony paints a chilling, even misogynistic portrait of
with him to get him back. When she didn’t answer, he asked Veronica as manipulative and deceptive, as dangling the possibility
why she wouldn’t sleep with him while they were dating. of sex before him in order to lure him into a relationship.
Perhaps she didn’t want to, she said; he asked if she didn’t want
to because she didn’t need to.

Bristol was large enough that they didn’t run into each other Tony implicitly suggests that he did feel guilty—or could have felt
too much: each time, Tony became apprehensive that Veronica guilty, if he hadn’t done as much as he could to avoid thinking about
would make him feel guilty, but she never spoke to him. He told Veronica. Instead he assigns responsibility equally to both parties.
himself he didn’t need to feel guilty: they were both responsible
for their own actions, and no one had gotten pregnant, no one
had died.

During summer vacation, a letter arrived from Chislehurst. It This is one of the first of many times that Tony uses the term
was Veronica’s mother, who said she was sorry to hear they’d “corroboration,” often without specifying exactly what he means.
broken up and hoped Tony would find someone more suitable. Veronica’s mother has seemed to be on Tony’s side rather than on
The letter didn’t imply that Tony was a jerk: indeed, there was a Veronica’s the entire time. Now he seems to want her to confirm the
suggestion that he might be better off. Now Tony wishes he’d narrative that Veronica was conniving, and that he was innocent.
kept the letter as proof or corroboration: instead he only has
the memory of a dashing, carefree woman who told him not to
let Veronica get the better of him.

Back at Bristol for his final year, Tony focused on his The “2:1” and “first” refer to the grading system for degrees in the
schoolwork, determined to get a 2:1, if not a first. He recalls a UK. Tony returns to the idea that sexual changes happened not just
one-night stand with a girl from the pub, something he thinks gradually but unevenly, at different times and in different places.
about more often now than he used to. Most people, he notes, Here, he uses such explanation to try to justify his own frustration
didn’t experience the sixties until the seventies: where he was, and confusion regarding sex in his relationship with Veronica.
bits of the sixties were coexisting with bits of the fifties.

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Tony asks himself what his logic should be, how his story should At various points in the narration, Tony will pause, take a step back,
continue. Six months later, he received a letter from and comment on the very process of telling a story—reminding
Adrian—rare, since Adrian was working hard for finals. Tony readers that the novel is unfolding as a story told by a narrator who
assumed he’d do postgraduate work, then academia or the civil is also the protagonist, and who also has some interest in protecting
service: he didn’t think Adrian was the kind of person to get his and justifying his own character. Here, the meta-commentary on
name in the newspapers. Tony admits now that he’s putting off the storytelling process is also a delay tactic. Thus it’s also one that
telling the reader the next part: he goes on to say that Adrian signals the importance of the information that follows, both for
was writing to ask permission to date Veronica. Or, as far as Tony’s response and for the events that this information unleashes.
Tony remembers, he actually wrote to say that they were
already going out, and that he hoped Tony could accept it; if he
couldn’t, Adrian owed it to their friendship to reconsider his
actions. It had been partly at Veronica’s suggestion, in fact, that
he’d written.

Tony felt angry and bitter at this ethical posturing, the idea that In a string of angry thoughts, Tony—or, the reader is reminded, the
Adrian would stop having sex with Veronica if Tony objected younger Tony invoked by memory—immediately assumes bad faith
(unless, he thought, she was “stringing him along” too), as well on the part of Adrian and Veronica. He also feels even more insecure
as at Veronica’s hypocrisy: she really just wanted to tell him about Jack’s Cambridge education now that he shares it with
that she had “traded up” to a Cambridge student like Jack. Tony Veronica’s new boyfriend.
stresses that this is how he interprets what happened, or
rather how he now remembers having interpreted, at the time,
what was happening.

Tony notes that he has an instinct for survival and self- Tony’s instinct for “self-preservation” can be construed as cowardly
preservation, perhaps what Veronica had meant by calling him because it means he refuses to face what upsets or angers him
cowardly. He chose a postcard at random and wrote, in the head-on, instead dealing with things obliquely and ironically. It’s
jokey way he and Colin and Alex maintained in school, that clear that Tony’s jaunty, casual letter betrays real feelings of hurt.
everything was fine by him. He convinced himself that he didn’t
mind, that he’d study hard and get his degree (he did get a 2:1).
He did spend some time imagining how Veronica would
complain about him to Adrian.

Finally Tony followed up with an actual letter and, as far as he Although Tony’s second letter does sound more serious than the
can now remember, said what he thought of their “moral jokey postcard he’d initially sent, in this letter he still doesn’t share
scruples.” He advised Adrian to be prudent, since Veronica his feelings openly or honestly, instead preferring to insult the two of
seemed to him to have suffered “damage” a long time ago. He them and hurt them as much as he’d been hurt.
burned Adrian’s letter and decided the two of them were
forever out of his life.

Wondering what he had meant by “damaged,” Tony now thinks Here and later in the novel, Tony reflects on the brief period of time
back on his weekend in Chislehurst: he knew there’d been more he’d spent with Veronica’s brother and parents—so brief that it
at stake than a young man uneasy among a posh family. In would seem impossible for the weekend to hold any clues to how
addition to that, he had sensed a complicity between Veronica Tony might interpret his or Veronica’s own past actions. In returning
and Veronica’s father, who was so casually disdainful of Tony, to the memory, though, he does resuscitate another detail, the fact
and between her and Jack—though a certain distance between that Veronica had lied in order to escape with her father and
Veronica and her mother Sarah, who obviously saw Veronica brother for an hour.
for what she really was. Veronica had gone on a walk with her
father and brother that first morning after telling everyone that
Tony would sleep late, a blatant lie—he never slept late, as she
knew.

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A lifetime later, though, Tony still isn’t positive what he meant Tony now seems to speculate wildly in wondering what he meant by
by “damaged.” He recalls that his mother-in-law once observed, “damaged” then, and if he still thinks Veronica was damaged now. In
in response to another case of child abuse in the papers, that either case, he’s presuming that Veronica’s actions, including her
everyone has in some way been abused. He wonders if there decision to date Adrian, are so absurd as to need that kind of
was “inappropriate behavior” with Veronica’s father or her explanation. It’s not clear that he’s right about that, even if the novel
brother Jack, some “primal” moment of loss. He remembers will go on to explore other kinds of real psychological and emotional
Old Joe Hunt saying that mental states can be inferred from damage.
actions, and thinks that in private life, it’s more that you can
infer past actions from current mental states. Tony does think
we all suffer damage, though much depends on how we
respond to such damage.

Tony admits that this is self-justifying prattle, that he was By admitting that his entire interpretation is potentially biased,
probably just a typical callow man, that the Fords were a Tony one-ups his potentially skeptical reader by suggesting that he’s
normal family subject to his “theories” about damage, and that well aware of the problems entailed in telling a highly personal story
Mrs. Ford was strangely jealous of her daughter rather than from his own perspective—even if he offers no solutions to that
concerned on Tony’s behalf. His reader might even ask that problem.
Tony apply his “theory” of damage to himself, he admits, and ask
how that might affect his reliability. Tony isn’t sure he could
adequately respond.

Tony never heard back from Adrian, and began to lose touch In this transitional part of the narrative, Tony’s life does move on,
with Colin and Alex too. After graduating, he left for the United and the people who were the most central to his life in high school
States for six months, where he did odd jobs and traveled and college begin to recede from importance.
around. Unlike today, there was no way for his parents to reach
him instantly.

In the U.S., Tony met an American girl named Annie, who wore Tony treasures his memories of his time with Annie, who is depicted
plaid shirts and was friendly. They were lovers for three as far more easy-going than Annie. Even so, there’s a brief
months: drinking, smoking, and traveling together, before suggestion that Tony may have merely assumed that she never
separating easily (“easy come, easy go,” Annie said—though now wanted something serious—once again he sees his girlfriends in
Tony wonders if there was a question in that response). terms of what they offer or deny him, rather than as complex
individuals on their own terms.

When Tony got home, his mother cooked him dinner, then gave After the brief interlude of Tony’s time in the United States, there’s
him his mail. At the top of the pile was a letter from Alex, saying an abrupt return to reality of the most sobering kind. Tony’s parents,
that Adrian had killed himself. Alex had called Tony’s mother, who are never fully fleshed out in the narrative, seem especially out
who’d said she didn’t know where he was. Tony’s father said of touch to him now, unable to help him grasp how Adrian could
“Sorry, lad,” which seemed utterly wrong to Tony; after a pause, have killed himself. One immediate effect of his suicide is to bring
his mother asked if it was because Adrian was too clever. Alex back into Tony’s life, however.
Unwilling to respond, Tony opened Alex’s second letter, which
said that Adrian had done it efficiently and had left a record of
his reasons. Alex asked if they could meet and talk.

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Tony returned in his mind to the innocent discussions after Tony returns to the conversations around Robson’s death that he
Robson’s suicide, when it was evident to the friends that had as an adolescent—but not in order to realize how offensive or
suicide was a free right, a logical act when faced with terminal thoughtless they were, and how unconcerned with Robson as a
illness, heroic in the face of torture or glamorous as a response person. Instead, he thinks back to them in the same callous mindset
to disappointed love. None of these criteria applied either to as before, but now to determine whether Adrian had philosophically
Robson or to Adrian. Adrian’s letter to the coroner said that life rigorous-enough reasons to kill himself. Adrian’s letter seems to
was a gift given without anyone asking for it; everyone had a suggest that he, at least, thought he did.
philosophical duty to examine the nature of life, and even to
give it back depending on his or her conclusions. He had asked
the coroner to make his argument public, which the official had.

Alex and Tony discussed how Adrian killed himself: he cut his For Tony and his friends, mainstream society can’t possibly
wrists in the bath during a weekend when his flatmates were understand suicide as an open philosophical question, one that
gone. The Cambridge Evening News wrote that the coroner’s intense thinking might lead one to resolve. The novel, however,
verdict was that Adrian Finn had killed himself while “the implies that Tony’s disgust may be more self-righteous and cold
balance of his mind was disturbed.” Tony found this unjust and than noble.
untrue—but according to the law, you were by definition mad if
you killed yourself, making it unlikely that anyone would listen
to Adrian’s argument.

Adrian had asked to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered: Tony and Alex are clearly shocked and upset, and yet they still find it
he considered it a philosophical choice for his body to be easier to think about how they are affected—how the suicide might
quickly destroyed. Alex said that he couldn’t decide whether have been meant as a message to them, for instance—than to really
the suicide was impressive or a terrible waste. Tony wondered consider or imagine Adrian’s own feelings and motives.
if there was an implicit criticism of everyone else in it, including
the two of them. He wondered, too, if Adrian’s philosophy
tutors felt at all responsible for his act.

Alex said that the last time he saw Adrian, he’d said he was in Even after six months away, and in the midst of tragedy, Tony is still
love. Silently calling Veronica a bitch, Tony decided that bitter enough about Veronica to think as insultingly about her as he
Veronica was the one woman a man could fall in love with and can.
still think life worth refusing.

Back home, Tony conveyed some of the conversation to his Tony thinks that his mother can’t possibly understand the high
mother. Tony’s mother said that Adrian was too clever—that stakes of suicide or grasp the complex philosophical debates in
someone like that could argue himself into anything, leaving which he engaged with Adrian, Alex, and Colin. Briefly wondering if
common sense behind. Tony almost couldn’t respond, he was so there was more to the story than he knew, Tony quickly throws out
angry. The next few days, he tried to imagine how Adrian could that possibility, and in doing so he remains self-centered, assuming
have loved Veronica and still killed himself. He wondered if that he can decide what Adrian meant and why he acted the way
something terrible had happened in the months he was gone, he did.
but decided Adrian would have been honest about it, as the
philosopher he was.

Finally, Tony came around to understanding and admiring Tony’s admiration of Adrian speaks to his acceptance of the idea
Adrian’s reasons, his logical reasoning—so different than the that suicide can be a meaningful philosophical act, even if he and
knee-jerk way most people make decisions. He decided there Alex also agree that Adrian’s very intelligence and promise made his
was no implicit criticism of himself or his friends in the act. Still, early death a waste.
he agreed with Alex that it was all a terrible waste.

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One year later, Colin, Alex, and Tony met up for a reunion, going Tony reflects on how easy and natural it feels to make the messy,
over old memories—turning past into anecdote already. They painful past into a set of digestible and repeatable stories and
recalled, though, that they had never been to Adrian’s home, anecdotes. At the same time, the group also recognizes that there
though he’d been to all of theirs. They swore to repeat the was much about Adrian that they never knew.
reunion annually. Yet their lives were moving in different
directions: even Adrian retreated in importance over time.

Tony began work in arts administration; he met a coworker, While nearly half the book has been taken up with a few short years
Margaret, married her, and had a daughter, Susie. His first job in Tony’s life, here he speeds up, skating over large swaths of his later
turned into a long career. He liked his marriage, but was life, including his career, marriage, and daughter. Tony had theorized
perhaps too peaceable—after twelve years Margaret had an earlier that everyone is somehow damaged—it’s just their responses
affair with a restaurateur, and they rather amicably split up, to that damage that differ—but at the time he was thinking of
sharing custody with Susie, who never seemed too damaged Veronica, not of his own family.
(though he now realizes he never applied his theory of damage
to his own daughter).

Tony had a few subsequent affairs: it always felt right to tell Tony describes his break-up with Margaret as almost inevitable, and
Margaret about them, though now he wonders if that stemmed certainly not as a cause for heartbreak. Here, however, his blasé
from jealousy or self-protection. Susie grew up and married a tone and insistence that he and Margaret have an easy, jocular
doctor named Ken: they have two children. Margaret’s second relationship seems to hide real pain: not just that Margaret left Tony,
husband took up with a younger woman, and now Tony and but that she perhaps has always loved him and has wanted to get
Margaret remain on good terms, meeting sometimes for lunch. him to feel more deeply and strongly about her.
Once, after some wine, she suggested they might get back
together, but Tony is now used to his solitude and routines, and
perhaps, he reflects, just not odd enough to do something like
that.

Now Tony is retired. He has a few drinking friends, some Tony seems to conclude the story of his life here, even though the
platonic female friends; he volunteers running the library at the book is barely halfway over. He also reflects back on a conversation
local hospital and is a member of the local history society. His he’d had with Old Joe Hunt about possible definitions of history.
life has been interesting to him, though he admits it probably Here he modifies both his and the teacher’s suggestions, changing
wouldn’t seem so to others. He “survived to tell the tale,” as the protagonists from “victors” to “survivors.”
people say. He’s learned that history isn’t, as he once said, the
lies of the victors, but rather the memories of the survivors,
most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.

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TWO
Tony reflects that when you’re young, you expect certain As the book’s second section begins, Tony reflects upon the specific
difficulties of old age: being lonely and widowed, your friends difficulties of old age and how it affects the way one interprets the
dying and your own death approaching. But you never look past. That is, he thinks, it’s increasingly complicated to try to
ahead and then imagine yourself looking back to the past, remember one’s own life the older one gets. Adrian’s definition of
having to deal with less certainty as friends die and leave you to history, as inadequate documentation meeting imperfect
revisit your former self. He thinks back to Adrian’s line about memory—and resulting nonetheless in a feeling of certainty—seems
the imperfections of history. Lots of official history has to hold true, in Tony’s case, for official and long-ago history, though
happened in Tony’s life, including the fall of Communism, 9/11, less so both for recent history and for the events of his own life,
and global warming, but he’s never quite trusted it like he does which are of course embedded within the events of the recent past.
events in Greece and Rome or the British Empire. He feels
safer with agreed-upon history; perhaps, too, it’s that the
history that should seem clearest is the most treacherous. If we
can’t understand time, which bounds and defines us, he
wonders how we can understand even our personal portion of
history.

Tony thinks about how for young people, everyone older than a In these musings, Tony compares and contrasts his assumptions as
certain age looks older, eventually belonging to the category of a young man to the person he’s become today, balancing what has
the “non-young.” Tony also notes that he still plays a good deal changed with what has remained constant.
of Dvorak, though not Tchaikovsky. Sometimes he smiles to
think that Ted Hughes never did run out of animals.

Tony gets along well with Susie, though he reflects that Tony’s relationship to Susie is rendered all the more obscure by the
younger people no longer feel the need to keep in touch. He fact that he is obviously biased, both as her father and as the
imagines her thinking condescendingly of her doddering narrator-protagonist, in telling of it.
retired father, though then thinks he’s just being self-pitying.

Tony thinks of a friend who has a son in a punk rock band: she’d If every day is Sunday, the work week never begins: this anecdote
mentioned one title, “Every day is Sunday,” in which that phrase can be related to Tony’s memory of feeling like he was in a “holding
is simply repeated over and over for the entire song. It made pen” in high school.
him laugh and remember feeling like his own life hadn’t yet
begun.

Tony now describes a letter he received in a long white For the first few pages of Part Two of the novel, Tony simply lingers
envelope, from a legal firm: they are writing “in the matter of over seemingly unessential details. Now, though, it becomes clear
the estate of Mrs. Sarah Ford (deceased).” He has been left 500 that this may have been yet another delay tactic, before he
pounds and two documents. After responding with the launches into the event that, it turns out, first triggered him to
necessary legal details, he sits down and tries to recall that return to the years of his past described in Part I. His frustration
weekend in Chislehurst from forty years before. Hard as he remains regarding the importance of that Chislehurst weekend.
might, he can’t recall anything substantial other than being
manipulated by Mrs. Ford’s daughter (and patronized by her
husband and son): why would that require such an expensive
apology?

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Tony, besides, has successfully put the pain Veronica caused What Tony has elsewhere called his “peaceable” nature seems to
him out of his mind: he never wondered if things would have have prevented him, until now, from revisiting the past fully—he’s
been better with Veronica, and never regretted his years with preferred to leave it behind him in order not to feel hurt or guilty.
Margaret. Perhaps he lacks the imagination to have fantasized
about a wildly different life than his own.

Tony opens the first document to read a letter from Mrs. Ford. Mrs. Ford’s letter seems to confirm all the discomfort, bitterness,
She says she thinks he should have what is attached, since and class envy Tony had felt during that weekend many years ago.
Adrian always spoke warmly of him. She isn’t quite sure of her However, her motives for sending the other document, as well as
motives, but is sorry for the way her family treated him many why she’d say that Adrian’s final months were happy, both remain a
years ago, and wishes him well. In a P.S., she says she believes mystery.
the last months of Adrian’s life were happy. The second
document is missing: the solicitor (lawyer) says it is still in the
possession of Mrs. Ford’s daughter.

Tony reflects that Margaret used to say men were attracted to This reflection is another hint that Tony’s relationship with
one type of woman or the other: those who were clear-edged Margaret may be more troubled, at least on her side, than he
and those who implied mystery. Sometimes she seemed to wish believes or admits. She seems to have felt that if she were more
she was the latter, though Tony always said he’d hate for her to mysterious, perhaps Tony would not have treated her so
be a woman of mystery: for him that was either a façade or, complacently.
worse, a sign that she was a mystery to herself.

Tony has been influenced by Margaret’s clear edges over the Although Tony portrays his relationship with Margaret as a simple
years: rather than patiently beginning a correspondence with friendship, it’s obviously deeper than that: this and other anecdotes
Mrs. Eleanor Marriott, the lawyer, he calls her to ask what else show how much she’s affected and changed him over the years.
he’s been left. She replies that it’s a diary belonging to Adrian Tony’s own stubbornness, though, is also in evidence.
Finn. Veronica Ford apparently has said she isn’t yet ready to
part with it. Tony asks her for Veronica’s address.

Tony reflects that the less time remains in one’s life, the less What Tony long ago learned to think of as his “peaceableness”
one wants to waste it. But he also realizes that he spends much continues to be a major aspect of his character. Here, though, his
of his time tidying and cleaning things, both in concrete ways attempt to “tidy” his own affairs involves inserting himself into
(recycling) and less concrete, settling his affairs with his messy, long-buried memories and relationships that he’d thought
daughter, grandchildren, and ex-wife, and achieving a general were definitively part of his past. It seems that he’s peaceable more
state of what he continues to call “peaceableness.” He doesn’t to himself than to others.
like mess, he reflects. So he makes a series of phone calls: to
Mrs. Marriott to ask for Jack Ford’s contact details; to
Margaret to arrange a lunch date; and to his own lawyer, T.J.
Gunnell.

Tony admits that when he first met Margaret, he’d pretended The way Tony tells this story, it seems to confirm his view of
Annie was his first real girlfriend: he had been telling himself Margaret as reasonable, uncomplicated, and easily accepting of
that his relationship with Veronica was a failure, anyway, so he him. Of course, it’s possible to draw other interpretations from her
wrote it out of his past. But after a year or so married to behavior, and to infer that she may have been more upset by this
Margaret, he told her the truth. She understood, asking revelation than she let on.
questions and looking closely at the one photo Tony kept with
Veronica and his school friends. As he expected, she didn’t
make a fuss: she easily forgave him.

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On the phone with T.J. Gunnell, the lawyer advises Tony not to Although Tony still has no idea why Mrs. Ford left Adrian’s diary to
doggedly pursue Veronica’s “theft” of the diary—the police him, or what it might contain, he now has come to think of it as
wouldn’t be eager to pursue charges against a woman who just properly his. Even though it’s a stretch to think that Veronica’s
lost her mother. He also tells Tony that if the Fords are paying withholding of the diary constitutes a crime, Tony will increasingly
the bills, it’s not a great idea to badger Mrs. Marriott either, as come to use such language (including evidence, corroboration, clues,
she could slow things down further. It might take 18 months to and so on) to make sense of what follows. The image that comes to
two years for things to be sorted out. Finally, Gunnell asks if mind, most likely a memory of Veronica (or of Tony himself doing
there’s anything in the past between Tony and Miss Ford that something he’s too ashamed to say), isn’t specified.
might become relevant, were they to pursue civil (or criminal)
proceedings. A certain image suddenly comes into Tony’s mind:
he thanks Mr. Gunnell and hangs up.

Mrs. Marriott takes two weeks to give Tony Jack Ford’s email; In the brief period that Jack and Tony knew each other, Tony had
Veronica has declined to have her contact details passed along. always felt that Jack treated him with bemused skepticism—as if
Tony sends a formal email, offering his condolences and asking Tony was so unimportant that full-throated scorn would be too
if Jack might use his influence to persuade Veronica to hand strong an attitude to take towards him. Now it seems like little has
over the “document” left to Tony. Ten days later Jack replies changed, that Jack is just as subtly and yet gleefully condescending
with a long, rambling email: he’s semi-retired, traveling in as he’d always been. The fact that Tony still feels the bite of such
Singapore, and makes an excuse about unreliable Wi-fi. He then possible teasing speaks to the persistent strength of his feelings of
says he’s never been his sister’s keeper: in fact, putting in a inferiority even forty years later; he continues to feel this way even
good word for Tony might have the opposite effect. He ends as he admits class difference is the primary reason.
with a jovial phrase about having to dash off for his rickshaw.
Tony is suspicious: for all he knows, Jack is in some mansion by
a golf course in Surrey, laughing at him. Perhaps class
differences resist time longer than other kinds of difference, he
thinks. He emails back politely, asking for Veronica’s email
address.

Tony meets Margaret for lunch. He thinks how nice she looks, Tony’s relationship to Margaret is, again, not necessarily as easy or
and how he notices what’s remained the same about her looks simple as he makes it out to be—nor as direct as her personality. It’s
rather than what’s changed with age. Barely having sat down, possible, for instance, not to take Tony at his word when he insists
she asks him what this is all about, and he laughs: such that they easily talk about each other’s previous lovers. The
directness is typical for her. He immediately says it’s about “Fruitcake” anecdote is also another example of the novel’s interest
Veronica Ford, (he and Margaret, he notes, aren’t insecure in the way people revise and rewrite their pasts, making
about each other’s previous lovers). She responds, “the others—who are conveniently not around—appear in a different
Fruitcake?” Tony is uncomfortable, but knows that when he’d light.
told Margaret the story, he’d made Veronica out to be far more
unstable, and him more innocent, than was the case, so it’s his
fault if Margaret has a rather negative view of her.

After a series of questions, Margaret asks wryly what the “long- More seems to be going on in this passage than Tony is
divorced” Tony would do if the presumably unmarried Veronica acknowledging. His blush, for instance, suggests that Tony is
were to walk into the café at that moment. Tony blushes, but intrigued by the sudden return of his long-ago girlfriend. Margaret is
says he wouldn’t be particularly excited to see her. Margaret performing an easygoing, platonic interest in Tony’s feelings, but her
tells him to forget about it and cash the check, taking them both holiday suggestion may well be more serious than she admits (and
on that budget holiday they’ve often thought of doing. She says more earnest than Tony, too, is willing to admit).
it’s nice they’re still fond of each other, even if she knows he’ll
never book the holiday. She looks almost enigmatic as she says
this, though Tony knows there’s no enigma to Margaret.

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Tony realizes that he wants the diary so badly because it might Once again, the term “corroboration” suggests more than simple
be evidence, or “corroboration”: it might jump-start some confirmation of what Tony remembers—it’s a word with more legal,
aspect of his memory. Margaret again suggests he let it go, but even investigative overtones, although it’s not clear if this is because
finds it touching that he’s so stubborn. Then she tells him a Tony feels like an innocent victim, guilty himself, or some mixture of
story about her friend Caroline, who had a husband, children, the two. Margaret’s advice, meanwhile, has to do with the pain and
and an au pair she wasn’t sure about. She asked another friend suffering that can come from knowing too much—Tony’s curiosity
for advice, who told her to go through the au pair’s things. about what happened next suggests that he’s precisely the kind of
Caroline found the girl’s diary, and read it: it was full of cruel person who might fall into such a situation.
judgments about Caroline and speculations that the husband
had feelings for her. Tony asks if she fired the au pair: Margaret
says that’s not the point. As they leave, he recalls another thing
she once said: some women aren’t mysterious, but are only
made so by men who can’t understand them.

After a week, Jack sends Veronica’s email along with a cheery Adrian, more earnest and serious than any of his school-age friends,
note about blue skies in Sydney. Tony is surprised and grateful: had also been frustrated with Jack and other Cambridge students’
he tries to return to the few things he remembers about Jack, flippant attitudes—something that seemed to join Jack and Tony,
including Adrian’s harsh judgment about the way English even if Tony always felt socially inferior to Jack. Now, however, Tony
people have a way of not being serious about being serious. He imagines another narrative for Jack—one that, crucially, has value
wonders if time has punished Jack for his lack of seriousness. not because it’s true or probable, but because it’s a comforting one
He begins to imagine another kind of life for him: perhaps Jack for Tony. The novel suggests that people do this kind of thing all the
stumbled into a multinational company job, competent at first time, constructing comforting stories about other people in order to
but increasingly inept in a changing world. Perhaps he’s a kind ease their own pain.
of emissary for a big company, sent to various cities to back up
the local bigshot, taking his laptop to cafés with Wi-Fi, since
hotels are too depressing. Having invented a past for him, Tony
can now think about Jack in a way that allows him little to no
discomfort.

Tony recalls that Veronica’s father drove a Humber Super Tony is dredging up old memories in an attempt to get what he
Snipe—a strange name, it strikes him. He’s wondering if he does wants out of Jack: here he remembers the upper-middle-class car
in fact suffer from nostalgia, if that means the “powerful (one that was discontinued after the 1960s), but as he does so he
recollection of strong emotions” and a regret at the absence of begins to reflect more generally about nostalgia and regret, about
such feelings now. In that case he is nostalgic: for his early years the inability to relive happy (and perhaps also less happy) times
with Margaret, for Susie’s childhood, for the road trip with outside of memory.
Annie. He wonders if it’s possible to be nostalgic about
remembered pain, too.

Tony writes to Veronica and receives a one-line reply: “Blood Tony has been assuming all along that the process of guilt,
money?” He can’t understand it, other than the idea that Sarah corroboration, and forgiveness will happen in one direction: that
Ford has offered money in exchange for the pain her daughter he’s the one who’s been wronged. It’s this assumption that the rest
caused him. At least this is consistent with his understanding of of the novel will go on to reveal as tragically narrow-minded.
her as a “woman of mystery,” though at this point he has no
interest in “solving” her.

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Tony notes that Veronica seems confused by his dogged but This anecdote, seemingly out of place in the story, does a few things:
tranquil approach. His precedent is the strategy he took when it fills in another detail of Tony’s life with Margaret, which he may
the villa he and Margaret used to live in together began to not have fully appreciated while he had it; and it underlines his own
show signs of wear, cracks and crumbling bits of wall. The stubbornness, his insistence on not giving up until getting what he
insurance company blamed the lime tree in the garden. wants. This determination isn’t quite depicted as admirable,
Although Tony was never a fan of the tree, he objected to the however.
principle of obeying invisible bureaucrats. He prepared a long,
stubborn campaign of letters, site inspections, et cetera, until
finally the company gave up, to his immense satisfaction.

Finally, Tony receives a letter from Mrs. Marriott containing This diary fragment is crucial, both as a key to the relationships
what she calls a “fragment” of Adrian’s diary, from what seems between Tony, Adrian, Veronica, and Mrs. Ford, and to the rest of
like a page at random. The text is written in numbered the novel’s plot, which will unfold in large part as the result of Tony’s
paragraphs, and it begins by asking (as note “5.4”) if life might attempt to understand what Adrian means here. It’s already clear,
be considered a wager, and if human relationships might be however, that Adrian continued to be obsessed by questions of
expressed in a formula. There follow a few formulas with the responsibility as discussed in school—though here he is trying to
integers b, a1, a2, s, and v. Then Adrian asks if logic can and apply such abstract questions to his own life.
should be applied to the human condition. If a link between the
integers breaks, he writes, who on the chain is
responsible—how far might the limits of responsibility extend?
The final phrase is “So, for instance if Tony” before the page
ends.

Tony is first struck by how admirable Adrian still seems, how Tony and his other friends were always in awe of Adrian’s intellect. It
intense his rational argumentation still remains. He suggests was in part this intellectual respect that allowed Tony to eventually
that if psychologists were to plot a graph of pure intelligence accept Adrian’s suicide as a rational, even admirable philosophical
measured by age, most people would peak between sixteen and act.
twenty-five. At that age, he remembers now, Adrian had
seemed like he was designed to reason and reflect: it was a
treat to accompany his intellectual process.

Tony finds himself comparing his life to Adrian’s: he wonders, Although Tony doesn’t mention who he’s thinking about, Philip
thinking of a certain poet, if his life had “increased” in richness Larkin’s poem “Dockery and Son” has a line, “Why did he think
and value or if he’d simply accumulated years. Looking at adding meant increase?” to which he might be referring. Tony is also
Adrian’s formulas, he wonders if there’s been multiplication, returning to the terms of Adrian’s logical formulae in order to
not just addition and subtraction, in his life: he feels uneasy. He reassess his own life, which now looks pale, boring, and wasteful
realizes that the “If Tony…” refers to something specific that compared to the high stakes of Adrian’s.
he’s forgetting, but now he reads it as a general hypothetical: if
only he hadn’t been so fearful, if only he’d refused to settle into
“peaceableness.”

Tony recognizes that he does find comfort in his own Although Tony has just expressed frustration with his own character
stubbornness, however. He keeps sending jovial, jokey emails as contrasted to that of Adrian, the fact that he quickly reverts to his
to Veronica every other day, though also includes “half-sincere” habit of stubbornness underlines the difficulties of changing one’s
questions about her life. He is pursuing what is rightfully his, character and personality, especially so late in life. Indeed, Tony is
not harassing her, he reasons. Finally, one morning he gets a still incapable of being serious even about what he cares about.
reply: Veronica is coming into town (that is, into London), and
says she’ll meet him at 3 in the middle of the Wobbly
Bridge—the new footbridge over the Thames, which used to
shake a bit when it opened.

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Tony instantly recognizes Veronica by her posture as he Tony’s thought that he has changed substantially seems rather
approaches the middle of the bridge the next day. She seems obviously false. Even though Veronica always seemed enigmatic to
tense, as if unhappy to be there. She notes that he’s lost his Tony, she is actually more direct than he is, expressing impatience
hair; he replies at least it shows he’s not an alcoholic. She with his jocular attempt at small talk and witty banter, just as years
directs him to a nearby bench, then asks why people think he’s before she had asked him straight out why it was that he wore his
an alcoholic. He says it’s just that heavy drinkers never lose watch inside-out.
their hair: she probably can’t think of a bald alcoholic. She
replies that she has better things to do with her time. Tony
thinks that he’s changed, but she (and her conversational
tactics) haven’t.

Veronica looks somewhat shabby, in Tony’s eyes. Her hair is the Tony’s immediate judgment of Veronica’s visual appearance seems
same length it was 40 years earlier, though gray now, and he to underline the fact that certain things about him haven’t changed
thinks it doesn’t become her. She asks him to get to why he over the years—the ways he objectified Veronica, for instance. Yet
asked her to meet. He protests that he never asked for a Tony continues to consider himself the victim, responding with
meeting, then finally asks her if she’ll let him have Adrian’s anger and bitterness to the revelation that Veronica did away with
diary. Veronica replies that she’s burnt it. First theft, then Adrian’s diary. Tony seeks and does find what he'd call
arson, Tony thinks angrily. But he remembers his strategy to “corroboration” that he was right about not having asked for a
treat her like an insurance company, and merely asks neutrally meeting—it’s implied that this may be beside the point, however. His
why she did so. People shouldn’t read each other’s diaries, she final reflection in this scene returns to Margaret’s theory about
responds. When he protests that she and her mother must women being either mysterious or straightforward, but also
have read it, she tells him he can read something else if he’d like, underlines the way he’s playing with both women, all while
and hands him an envelope before turning and walking off. At assuming himself to be innocent.
home, Tony looks through his emails and confirms that he never
directly asked for a meeting. He also thinks that Margaret’s
theory of women should be modified: he was attracted both to
her and to Veronica.

Tony remembers thinking, when he was young, about all the Tony increasingly feels as though these events are a kind of
adventures that would await him, how he would live as people adventure—which only emphasizes how much his life has lacked
in novels did. At some point in his late twenties, he realized he’d any kind of adventure before this. Thinking life should be like an
never live out those dreams: instead he’d mow his lawn, take adventure novel may be naïve, but here Tony realizes that he’s
holidays, and simply live. With time, though, he’s realized that veered too far in the opposite direction.
he tried to be mature and was only safe—it was his way of
avoiding life rather than facing its difficulties.

Tony waits a day and a half before opening Veronica’s envelope, Tony has a penchant for coming up with theories to explain and
knowing she’d expect him to rip it open immediately. He categorize other people’s behavior. As plausible as these theories
wonders why she had suggested a meeting, eventually coming might be, the novel suggests that Tony may be unable at times to
up with a theory: she needed to say something in person, which see the difference between theory and reality.
was that she’d burnt Adrian’s diary—something that she
wouldn’t have wanted in writing.

Tony sits down with a glass of wine to read what’s in the Before sharing the contents of the letter, Tony shares his immediate
envelope. It’s a photocopy of a letter in his own handwriting. He reactions: the letter is meaningful enough to unleash a set of
reads it, quickly pours his wine back into the bottle, and pours reflections on certain chilling aspects of self-editing one’s memories
himself a whisky instead. He thinks about how in telling our life (and shocking enough to require a stronger drink).
story, we shift things around or make cuts—and the longer we
live, the fewer people are left to challenge the account.

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The letter, reproduced in the text, is addressed to Adrian but In Part One of the novel, Tony had mentioned this very letter—it was
also to Veronica, whom he calls the “Bitch.” Tony says he hopes the one that he briefly described as more serious than the jokey
that the two of them will end up mutually damaging each other, postcard he’d initially sent, but nothing too memorable. At that
and will be left with a lifetime of bitterness. Part of him hopes time, and really until this moment, Tony has been considering
she gets pregnant so that time can make its own revenge, but himself to be a victim far more than Veronica. Here, however, Tony
then Tony writes that it would be unjust to give an innocent reveals himself to be strikingly callous, bitter, cruel, and
fetus the burden of knowing it came from the two of them. misogynistic. He alludes once again to the “damage” theory, which
Addressing Adrian, he writes that Veronica is a cockteaser who he’d mentioned in his earlier memory of this letter: but the theory
pretends she’s struggling with her principles: if she hasn’t yet comes across as far darker when yoked to his insults about
had sex with him, he advises that he break up with her, and then Veronica’s character and sexual “policies,” as he’d described them.
she’ll be ready and willing. He tells him to ask Veronica’s mother
about “damage” that’s probably been done to her in the past.
Addressing Veronica, he says she can’t outsmart Adrian,
despite her tactics of isolating him, making him dependent on
her, etc., and suggests it’s only a question of whether she can
get pregnant before he finds out she’s a bore. The letter
continues in this vein.

Tony keeps drinking whisky and rereading the letter. Unable to Here, Tony is faced with just the kind of “corroboration” he’s been
refute its authenticity, he can only plead that he no longer looking for in various contexts—the only problem is that the
recognizes that version of himself. He thinks about how cruel evidence is not at all what he wishes to see or hear. Strikingly,
and jealous he’d been. But then he wonders why Veronica however, Tony almost immediately moves to questioning Veronica’s
would give the letter to him: he imagines it’s a tactical move, motives, continuing to assume a level of manipulation and deceit on
meant to warn him that he’ll be his own character witness her part that increasingly seems unwarranted. Still, the diary
should he try to make any fuss about Adrian’s diary. He thinks, unleashes memories of his final piece of communication with his old
then, about how this was the last piece of communication friend that are newly, and painfully, meaningful to him now.
Adrian received from him before he died. He’d written that
time would tell: he recognizes now that time is telling against
him. Finally, Tony remembers the first, fake-cool postcard he’d
sent Adrian: it was of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a place
where people commit suicide every year.

The next day, Tony keeps thinking about himself, Adrian, and Tony spends the next day reacting in a number of different ways to
Veronica, and about how much more hurtful people can be the letter: here he first reflects in a general way about the
when young. He thinks that it wasn’t cruel of the two of them to hurtfulness of young people, but then seems to take some personal
tell him they were an item. Rather than shame or guilt, he feels responsibility for his own past actions, both through the apology he
something stronger and rarer: remorse. He describes this as a sends Veronica and through his feeling of true remorse.
primeval feeling, characterized by the fact that nothing can be
done, no amends can be made. All the same, he sends Veronica
an email apologizing.

Tony then thinks about Adrian again, about how compared to In causing Tony to reevaluate his own cruelty, the letter also
Adrian he’d always been a “muddler,” settling for life’s banal provokes him to regret what might be considered something quite
realities. He feels remorse more generally about his whole life: different—his mediocrity. He compares himself to Adrian even more
about the loss of his friends from adolescence, of the love of his now that he knows how hurtful he was to his friend, and how little
wife, of his early ambitions. He hadn’t wanted life to bother him his own life lived up to the allure and courage of Adrian’s own (at
too much, and he’d succeeded—succeeded at being average at least in Tony’s eyes).
life. Veronica replies to the email, simply saying that he doesn’t
get it, and that he never did. He knows he can’t justifiably
complain.

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Tony keeps wondering: why Veronica had his letter, why she’d At this point, Tony finds himself needing to return to many other
bothered to answer his email if she hated him so much, if he’d aspects of his past, struck by the fact that if he so dramatically
been awkward or pushy or selfish during their relationship. On revised one memory, he may well have done the same with others.
another lunch date, Margaret listens to the story. Tony knows At the same time, he seems to both want a certain level of closeness
she likes being a sympathetic ear, even if he ignored her advice: to Margaret and to remain willfully naïve about her feelings for him.
he also thinks she likes being reminded, by stories like this, of
why she’s glad she’s no longer married to him. He asks if she left
because of him; she replies that she left because of “us.”

Tony reflects again on his relationship with Susie, with whom he Tony’s reflections on Susie lead from Margaret’s prior comment: he
gets on “fine.” He remembers thinking, after her wedding where seems to want to justify his own competence at fatherhood, even
he served as witness, that he’d done his duty: all he had to do while acknowledging his weaknesses in that field. He begins to seem
now was not get Alzheimer’s and remember to leave her some even defensive about the fact that Susie blames him for the divorce;
money. Margaret has been a better grandparent than he has, it’s hard to know to what extent either of them is right.
he admits; Susie once told him he could take Lucas to see
football when he’s older—failing to notice that Tony doesn’t like
football. At some level she blames him for the divorce, even
though Margaret left him.

Tony wonders if character develops over time: perhaps it’s like This passage is enigmatic, but has to do in part with Tony’s
intelligence, but peaks a little later, between 20 or 30. That frustration at how people’s characters often have only a limited
might explain many lives, he thinks: it might explain what he capacity to change.
calls “our tragedy.”

Tony thinks back to Adrian’s diary and what he had written To accumulate implies that everything builds on, changes, and
about “accumulation”: life is not just the addition or subtraction develops from what has come before—there’s a process of
of what is gained or lost, but the accumulation (or exponential growth rather than mere addition. However, Tony also
multiplication) of loss and failure. He also reflects on what reflects that in questions of personal responsibility, the
Adrian wrote about responsibility: Tony is all for drawing the accumulation of guilt can become excruciating.
limits narrowly, and he thinks that he and Adrian came to more
or less the same conclusion on that front.

Tony envies the clarity of Adrian’s life: in your twenties, he Once again, Tony shows a certain level of thoughtlessness in his
reflects, you have much greater certainty of what life is, and envy of Adrian’s short life—cut short, of course, by suicide. But
what you are and might become. You can remember everything Adrian’s life seems more meaningful precisely because it has ended:
about your short life. Later, memory becomes “shreds and Tony can try to make meaning out of it by perceiving it as a whole,
patches.” Like a black box in an airplane, the tape erases itself if which he can’t do for his own life.
nothing goes wrong—so it’s obvious what happened if you do
crash, but much less clear if you don’t.

Tony reflects that there’s lot to be said for the spontaneity and Tony may think that it’s a good thing that he was spontaneous
immediacy of email: he might have written a letter to Veronica enough to simply send the email, but it’s not at all clear that this
and then have second thoughts before posting it in the was a good idea—indeed, it seems even more troubling for Tony to
morning, but instead he writes an email asking only if she thinks ask such a question having received the letter from Veronica.
he was in love with her back then. He presses send before Margaret is well aware of this level of thoughtlessness, even cruelty,
thinking too much. In the morning, she replies that if he has to as she extricates herself from further participation.
ask, the answer is no. Tony calls Margaret to tell her about this
exchange: after a silence, she quietly says that he’s on his own
now.

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Tony thinks about how Jack’s contempt is still biting to him, Returning to the thought of Jack’s emails, which were after all not
forty years on. He wonders if his own cruel letter was trying to obviously contemptuous, Tony realizes that fear of others’ contempt
get back at Veronica for what Tony imagined was her contempt and scorn has been a motivating factor for him for a long time—and
for him. He’s been profoundly, intimately shocked by the now one that he projects onto Veronica too.
aggression in the letter, and imagines that Veronica might have
carried resentment for it over many years: this would perhaps
justify her destruction of Adrian’s diary.

Tony wonders if there might be a cure for the pain of remorse By using the term “flow backwards,” Tony seems to implicitly be
after all—if it can be made to “flow backwards” and be forgiven: referring to the Severn Bore and the alluring possibility of returning
that is, if he might prove that he wasn’t such a bad guy to to the past, here so that he can fix things. Tony is portrayed as
Veronica after all. He has the tendency to call Susie before a intensely occupied with what other people think of him, but the
five-day holiday, just so that her last memory of him is a novel also suggests that this desire is all too ordinary.
pleasant one. Now, toward the end of his life, he feels a similar
desire for people to think fondly of him, to tell others, after his
death, that he wasn’t a bad guy.

Tony looks back at the Trafalgar Square photo and wonders if Though still eager for other kinds of corroboration that he wasn’t a
he should track down Alex and Colin, asking them for their horrible person, Tony is realizing that, as he’s now getting older,
memories and evidence. But he knows their memories won’t be there are few such people left. This means that he can largely write
any better than his, and imagines the painful things about him, his own account of the past, but here he wants something
Adrian, and Veronica they might say. Mrs. Ford is dead, and truer—something that will convince himself, not just others.
Jack abroad: Veronica is the only one remaining.

Tony notes that he doesn’t want to blame Margaret, but that The remark about not wanting to blame Margaret comes across as
she’d left him with no one else to turn to. He writes another tongue-in-cheek, but it’s quite possible that Tony relies so much on
email to Veronica, asking about her parents and saying he has her good sense that he now feels unmoored without her. Both she
good memories of them. To his surprise and relief, she responds and Veronica seem simultaneously drawn to and incredibly
almost as if pleased to be asked. Veronica’s father has been frustrated by Tony. His flippancy and casual manner, for instance,
dead for decades, she says, as a result of heavy drinking and probably did prove hurtful to Veronica with respect to her father’s
eventually esophageal cancer. Tony pauses, remembering his sickness and death. This is one of the first times that Tony is able to
flippant remarks about alcoholics on the Wobbly Bridge. After let go of his assumption that Veronica is manipulating or making fun
his death, Sarah Ford moved to London. About a year ago her of him, and simply have compassion for her.
memory had begun to fail, and the last month had particularly
been a struggle: her death was a mercy. Tony rereads the email
looking for traps or hidden insults, but it’s just an ordinary, sad
story.

There are various ways to deal with the regular failings of Here one more of the images with which The Sense of an Ending
memory that come with age, Tony thinks. Once in a while, began is repeated: sperm circling a basin and being flushed down
though, his brain surprises him. Suddenly, long-buried details the length of a home. Tony had emphasized how Veronica seemed
from the weekend with the Fords begin to resurface: the view to distance herself from him that weekend, but this new memory
from his attic room to a wood; Jack referring to Mrs. Ford as seems to undercut that view. The St. Michael’s church question,
“the Mother”; Veronica’s sultry good-night kiss to him, after meanwhile, could be a similar instance of mis-remembering.
which he masturbated into the little washbin. He googles
Chislehurst and discovers that there was never a St. Michael’s
church there (it must have been Veronica’s father’s private joke
or else another way he was belittling Tony).

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A few nights later, Tony calls Veronica and suggests they meet Even as Tony has been forced to face the reality of how cruel he
again, promising he doesn’t want to talk about her mother’s acted toward Veronica and Adrian, the letter has also unleashed a
will. She asks if this is about closing the circle: he says he swath of long-buried memories—many of them positive—such that
doesn’t know but can’t imagine it will do any harm. She suggests he does seem to think he can make Veronica choose to believe in a
the restaurant on the third floor of John Lewis (a clothing more generous version of himself, one that he’d like to present to her.
store) on Oxford Street. On the train, as Tony looks at a girl Meanwhile, after decades of choosing to view Veronica as
sitting across from him listening to music with headphones, manipulative, deceptive, and “damaged,” Tony begins to recall
eyes closed, a memory comes to Tony of Veronica dancing. She another version of her younger self, one both more playful and more
didn’t dance, and yet one night she mischievously pulled out his complicated than he remembers.
pop records and said she wanted to see him dance. He
complied: after a bit he opened his eyes to see her leaping
around elegantly. He moved closer and caught her, saying she
must have realized it’s not that difficult: she never thought it
was, she said.

Tony arrives to find Veronica there already, reading a Stefan Stefan Zweig is an Austrian novelist who was extremely popular
Zweig novel: he cracks a joke about her making it to the end of before World War II but then largely forgotten. Tony’s joking manner
the alphabet. He’s suddenly nervous, as he’s never read Stefan is, after all these years, a way of covering for inferiority (here, for
Zweig. He shares the memory he just had of her dancing, and Veronica’s sophisticated intellectual tastes).
she wonders why he remembered that: with this
“corroboration,” he feels somewhat more confident.

Tony asks how her last forty years have gone, but Veronica tells The way the “date” unfolds and the way Tony interprets it are rather
him to go first. He relates the account that he tells himself: at odds: one could easily see Veronica’s decision to leave as a sign of
Margaret and Susie and his grandchildren, his work and failure rather than success. Tony’s self-delusions here only underline
retirement and winter breaks. As he’s describing his the fact that he’s not exactly a reliable narrator even for events that
grandchildren, she looks up, downs her coffee, puts money on are currently unfolding, much less ones that he’s remembering from
the table, and stands up. He protests that it’s her turn, but she many decades before. However, this meeting also allows him to
leaves before he can do anything. She’s managed to spend a full continue to come to terms with the fact that what he’s long
hour in his company with divulging anything about herself, yet considered to be calculating sexual withholding on Veronica’s part
he feels like he’s been on a moderately successful first date, was not quite that—that in fact sex was frightening and complicated
though with someone who’s suddenly prompting long- for him too.
forgotten details about their shared sex life together, 40 years
before. He remembers how part of him hadn’t minded not
going all the way with Veronica. Some of that, though, had to do
with his fears: of pregnancy, of an overwhelming closeness he
might not be able to handle.

The next week is a quiet one. Tony knows Margaret won’t call if The comparison underlines what seems to be clear despite Tony’s
he doesn’t. He’s been feeling somewhat bad about her. He (willful or unconscious) blindness: that in some ways he’s been
remembers a work party from early in their marriage: stringing Margaret along all the while he’s been trying, if not to get
Margaret didn’t want to go, and he flirted—he modifies this to a Veronica back, then at least to get her to revise her opinion of him.
“bit more” than flirting—with a girl, though he quickly cut it off.
Now he feels similarly guilty as then, though he struggles to
imagine why.

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Tony doesn’t want to press Veronica, but he hopes for a polite Here Tony returns to a memory that he’s described and mentioned a
message saying it was nice to see him. Even if part of him rolls number of times—indeed, it appears to be such a clear and
his eyes at stories of love late in life, another part of him is significant memory to him that it seems remarkable that, until now,
always touched. He suddenly remembers going to see the he’s entirely erased Veronica from it. This perhaps has to do with the
Severn Bore with Veronica alongside him—he’d forgotten that particular way he’s tried to remember Veronica, and the fact that
she’d been there. They’d shared hot chocolate from a flask, and their thoughtful, speculative conversation didn’t fit into the version
the two of them had spoken about how impossible things of her that he came to adopt.
sometimes happened, which you’d only believe if you saw them.
In a court of law today, of course, he’s not sure this memory
could stand up to cross-examination. Perhaps he’s revising such
memories now for new purposes.

Tony’s new theory, though, is that memory survives on the Tony once again shows his penchant for “theories” that would
same loops, drawing on the same facts and emotions, for years: reassuringly explain events of his life and those around him. Still, it
but if something new happens at a late stage—such that does seem like the letter—as shocking and unpleasant as it was—has
emotions regarding those long-ago facts change—old unleashed such a set of new memories.
memories might resurface. He’s not sure if this is how the brain
works, but this is what seems to be happening to him.

Tony emails Veronica again, apologizing for monopolizing the Tony’s stubbornness and refusal to back down are in full evidence
conversation and asking to meet again. After a few days, she here. He also continues to compare and contrast Veronica and
replies, asking him to meet her at a Tube station he doesn’t Margaret, the two women in his life, without fully coming to terms
know in north London. He thinks this is thrilling, contrasting it with the way he’s failing to respect them by considering them both
to Margaret’s penchant for plans and dislike of surprises. He as “options.” As the scene also shows, Tony is attempting to come to
tries to reactivate other old memories of Veronica, and terms with his own “self-delusions,” but much about his own
reexamines his old self: he recognizes that he’d been “crass and character, past and present, remains hidden to him.
naïve,” but also that he needed to maintain his own version of
his relationship with Veronica. He thinks back to Old Joe
Hunt’s addition to his own definition of history: the “self-
delusions of the defeated.”

There is objective time, but also subjective—the kind worn on Tony implicitly refers to the Severn Bore as well as to the watches he
the inside of your wrist—Tony thinks, and the latter is and his friends wore on the inside of their wrists: both of these
measured with regard to memory. With the appearance of images emblematic of the desire to reverse time and history.
these new memories, it’s as if time is placed in reversed, as if
the river runs upstream.

When Tony reaches the Tube station, he sees a familiar Veronica’s thoughts and actions were, even many years ago, often
posture: Veronica turns and walks off, leaving him to follow her confusing and opaque to Tony, and here things seem to continue in
to her car. He tries to make small talk, including sharing his such a vein. He attempts to regain a level of closeness to Veronica
memory about the Severn Bore, but she says, “Driving.” So he by sharing the Severn Bore memory—her “corroboration” of his
looks out the window: first they pass a normal London street, memory of her dancing had felt like a kind of vindication for
packed with all kinds of people, but then reach a nicer him—but she refuses to play along, clearly preoccupied with
(“posher”) neighborhood. Tony has no idea what’s going on, so something else.
he cheerily asks how Jack is doing. She responds that Jack is
Jack, and when he launches into another memory, she
interrupts him to say, “Waiting.” Suddenly Tony realizes that
Veronica is nervous, though clearly not about him.

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Finally, Veronica asks him to look along the pavement, where The group of men is described exactly how Tony sees them, which
five people are coming towards them. In the front is a man accounts for the defamiliarized (that is, purposely confusing and
wearing various layers of tweed despite the heat: his jacket is unfamiliar) way they’re depicted. Veronica clearly wants Tony to pay
covered with metal badges, and he wears a jolly expression, like close attention to the group and to understand how they’re related
someone at a circus. One man with a black moustache, and to her, to Tony, and to their past.
another smaller, malformed man follow behind them: they all
speak in loud voices and seem timid and somehow ageless.
They’re accompanied by a young man in a uniform.

After a long silence, Tony asks Veronica what’s wrong with “Care in the community” refers to a British policy, begun in the
them, and then asks if they’re care-in-the-community. Veronica 1980s, of caring for physically and mentally disabled people, often
suddenly lets out the clutch of her car, and, terrifying Tony, she outside of institutions. Tony refers to them in a casual,
swerves around the block—he thinks about how Margaret was uncompassionate way; hence Veronica’s reaction.
always a nice, safe driver. Veronica tells him that he never got it,
and never will.

Veronica’s maneuvers have allowed them to get ahead of the Veronica obviously knows this group of people, which is one of the
group again. The presumed care worker is telling one of them, only things Tony is able to grasp from their conversation. Referring
Ken, that Friday is pub night, not tonight, and he’s protesting. to one of the men as “lopsided” further underlines Tony’s lack of
The man in tweed suddenly notices Veronica, and the care compassion with respect to disability. Finally, the reference to
worker smiles and holds out his hand. All four ambush her, and “Mary” recalls one of the first things Tony ever mentioned about
she smiles for the first time that day. Tony can’t hear what’s Veronica—her middle names.
being said, until she says, “Soon,” which they all repeat. The
“lopsided” man waves goodbye to her, calling her “Mary.”

Back in the car, Tony says that they all seemed very pleased to Tony’s questions show that he’s obviously curious and wants to
see Veronica. He continues to ask questions, to which he’s met know more about the group, but he continues to display a striking
with silence. After trying out a number of conversation topics, callousness by calling people who Veronica seemingly knows and
he asks why the “goofy chap” called her Mary. Veronica slams loves “lopsided” or “goofy.”
on the brakes, then tells him, “out.” Tony complies, though he
says she’ll ruin her tires if she keeps driving that way.

Tony feels foolish and humiliated, especially after the Although Tony wants to change Veronica’s opinion of him and “turn
hopefulness he’s recently felt, especially about the possibility of back time,” he hasn’t exactly acted in a way that might invite such
overcoming Veronica’s contempt. He’d really thought he could reevaluation—indeed, he’s been just as jokey, casual, and unserious
turn back time: he’d taken what she’d said about closing the as he was as a young man. It’s not surprising, therefore, that
circle as an invitation, not as biting irony. In fact, her attitude Veronica has acted this way toward him (even though her attitude
toward him has been consistent over the past few months as also raises the question of why she continues to feel invested in him
well as so long ago. He’d wanted to prove to her that she was in the first place).
wrong to judge him, or rather that her initial liking of him had
been right. He’d left common sense behind in imagining he
could rewrite the past.

Tony’s next week is one of the loneliest in his life: he replays to Tony knows on some level that Margaret loves him and would
himself Margaret’s statement that he’s on his own now, and happily get back together with him, even if he won’t admit it to
Veronica’s that he just doesn’t get it. Knowing that Margaret himself. Rather than thinking of her, though, he focuses on his own
wouldn’t yell at him if he called, and would happily agree to loneliness.
another lunch date, makes him feel even lonelier.

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However, Tony repeats that he has an instinct for self- Tony’s “instinct for self-preservation” has previously not seemed like
preservation. He rallies, deciding to return to his desire to put such a good thing—indeed, Tony has reflected already that such an
his affairs in order—which requires getting his hands on that instinct has led him to avoid feeling too deeply or taking major
diary. He writes to Jack, saying Veronica has been just as chances. Still, he’s also reflected that it might be impossible to
mystifying to him as she’s always been. He asks for any other change one’s character later in life. Tony’s decision to call Veronica
advice, and for any way he might illuminate why Veronica “unstable” in order to get what he wants seems, indeed, chillingly
wanted to show him care-in-the-community people on the similar to how he called her “damaged” in his letter to her and
Northern line. Tony writes to Mr. Gunnell, saying that his Adrian.
recent dealings with Miss Ford suggest a certain instability in
her, and he now thinks it best that a professional like Mr.
Gunnell settle the affairs with Mrs. Marriott. Gunnell responds,
but Jack never replies.

Not long afterward, Tony is driving to North London, eventually Some of what the novel has been exploring is how personal changes
finding himself in the street where he and Veronica had parked. in one’s own life map onto broader changes in society—here, the
He watches bands of schoolchildren, many on their phones, a schoolgirls’ outfits would never have been allowed in the 1960s,
few smoking. The girls have very short skirts, and he thinks although Tony seems to want to avoid judgment either way.
neutrally about how much things have changed. He waits for
hours, then gives up; he continues for a few days.

Eventually, Tony remembers overhearing that Friday is pub Tony’s behavior reflects an earnest desire to understand the
night. The following Friday he drives to the pub along the significance of the group of men Veronica had pointed out to him,
second street where he and Veronica had stopped. No one but also an unwillingness to really engage with them as people, as
shows up, so he comes back a second Friday and orders dinner. opposed to figures identifiable through their visual characteristics
The week after that, the “lopsided” man and the man with the alone—characteristics that he refers to in ways that many people
moustache arrive at the bar, and the bartender immediately might find offensive.
brings them what Tony presumes is their regular drink. A black
woman who seems motherly comes in after about twenty
minutes, pays at the bar, and leads the two men away.

Tony becomes a regular at the pub, working his way through As an older retiree, Tony has a certain freedom to spend time where
the menu: he’s patient. One evening, all five of the men show up he chooses: he’s both persistent in trying to figure out the
at the pub, though three of them enter the shop next door connections Veronica has been wanting him to draw, and unhurried
instead. Tony follows them and purchases something before in doing so. It’s significant that the “gangly man” is about forty, the
returning to the bar: the three men enter too. Without a real span of years that makes up the novel’s own time—and that Tony
plan, Tony walks up to the bar to order food, and says good has the opportunity to take in the man’s appearance, glasses off.
evening to the gangly man, who seems about forty. The man
takes off his glasses and looks Tony in the face, and Tony says
quietly that he’s a friend of Mary’s. The man begins to smile,
then panics, whining and shuffling away.

Tony sits at the bar and looks at the menu; the black woman Tony’s epiphany (which is not yet described) takes place at the cost
soon approaches him, and when he says he hopes he didn’t do of upsetting the man, as the care worker warns Tony—another
anything wrong, she replies that it’s not good to startle the example of how Tony often unwittingly hurts those around him.
man, especially now. Tony says that he’s a friend of Mary’s, to
which she replies that, in that case, he’ll understand—and he
does.

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Tony had seen the truth in the man’s face, their eyes, color, and The term “corroboration” significantly recalls Tony’s desire to find
expression, “corroborated” by his height and bone structure. some kind of evidence that would remove him from guilt or
This had to be Adrian’s son. Tony’s first reaction is to think responsibility. Here, though, the corroboration is of a different
about what he wrote in his letter to Veronica and Adrian, about nature, revealing to him the nature of the mystery that Veronica was
whether Veronica could get pregnant before Adrian discovered attempting to explain to him. With this clarity, the same facts of the
she was a “bore.” He had never found her boring; he was just past, his own actions and words, once again look entirely different to
trying to hurt her. Then he remembers the part of the letter him in the harm that they must have done.
about the “innocent fetus.” The very word remorse, Tony
knows, comes from the Latin meeting “to bite again”: the
strength of the bite this time is immense. He doesn’t believe in
curses, and yet feels that there’s something evil and
otherworldly about what he did.

Tony thinks of how he’d so recently been indulging in vague Tony has to come to terms with the ways he’s projected imagined
fantasies about Veronica even while admitting he knew nothing pasts onto other people (Jack as well as Veronica)—but since he only
about her life. Now he has some answers: she had gotten has some of the answers, he can’t help but keep imagining other
pregnant, and perhaps the trauma of Adrian’s suicide had ones, even as he knows that there’s no assurance that his new
affected her unborn child. Her son can’t function independently “theory” will be right. Here, however, Tony’s imagination is engaged
and needs constant support. Tony wonders when the diagnosis not in order to make himself feel better, but in order to really try to
had been made, and to what extent Veronica had sacrificed her put himself in Veronica’s shoes and think about how his own actions
own ambitions and desires for her son—he imagines the guilt have affected and harmed her.
and sense of failure she must have felt when deciding
ultimately to have him taken into care. He reflects how
ungenerous he’d been to think of her as looking unkempt and
shabby on the Wobbly Bridge: he was lucky she’d given him any
time at all, and it makes sense that she’d burn Adrian’s diary.

Tony has no one to tell this to: as Margaret said, he’s on his own, For many decades, Tony has unquestioningly accepted his own
and now must return to his own past to reevaluate it. He thinks preferred version of Adrian’s character, one in which Adrian was an
of Adrian, his philosopher friend whose intellectual acumen and intellectual genius far more clever and mature than anyone else, and
noble gesture of suicide has reemphasized, as time went on, the one whose mental acumen even, perhaps, justified his own suicide.
comparative littleness of Tony’s own life. Now he sees Adrian as In some ways, Tony’s realization leads him to reevaluate his own
he really was: a young man who got his girlfriend pregnant and past immaturity, particularly regarding the ways he and his friends
couldn’t face the consequences. Tony has to entirely reevaluate paid little attention to imagining the pain of Robson’s
the way he always saw Adrian: in fact, he was just another girlfriend—comparing her to Veronica, Tony now recognizes that
version of Robson. For the first time, Tony realizes he and his there was much more to the story than he accepted. However, it’s
friends never thought about Robson’s girlfriend or their child. striking that Tony is quick to replace the reigning version of Adrian
He imagines the child being adopted, then attempting to trace that he’d always accepted with a new, and newly airtight,
his or her birth mother. He wants to apologize to Robson’s version—merely creating a new “theory” about Adrian.
girlfriend for the way they’d discussed her and for the little
attention they gave to her pain and shame. Adrian, in turn, had
been an actual adult, unlike Robson; yet he couldn’t even face
marrying his girlfriend. Rather than grandly refusing the gift of
existence, Tony concludes, Adrian was just afraid of being
trapped into marriage and family life.

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Tony wonders what he possibly knows of life: he’s lived so This is a slightly different conclusion Tony draws from his
carefully, avoiding being hurt, paying his bills on time, staying on epiphany—one that has to do both with his own desire to avoid hurt
good terms with everyone. He now has a special kind of and being hurt (one that’s nonetheless failed) and with the difficulty
remorse, for hurting someone—Adrian—who thought he knew of ever being certain about the past.
how to avoid being hurt.

Tony writes an email to Veronica with the subject “Apology.” He Tony has previously thought about Susie in rather humdrum terms,
doesn’t expect her to respond or to think better of him, but he not exactly fondly or warmly. By comparing Veronica’s parenting
ends by wishing her and her son the best. He’s not sure if he situation to his own, however, he’s able to be more grateful for his
feels better or worse after sending it. He begins to think more own years of parenthood.
often of Susie, of his luck in simply having a child that can lead
an independent life.

Tony’s life continues. He recommends books to the sick and Despite Tony’s epiphany, little has changed in his own life, at least
dying, volunteering at the hospital. He asks Mr. Gunnell not to outwardly—memory’s deformations, it’s implied, are not always
pursue the diary affair. He thinks of how little has happened to externally evident.
him over the years.

Then, Tony receives an email from Veronica, which is almost the After a painful but illuminating epiphany, with all the realizations
same as an earlier one: it says he still doesn’t get it, and never that it unleashed, Tony now has to come to terms with the fact that
will, and tells him to stop trying. He imagines an epitaph reading this may not have been a real epiphany at all—that Veronica’s
“Tony Webster—He Never Got It,” though reflects that this is frustration with him might not be resolved by his attempt to
melodramatic. He returns with some regularity to the pub and apologize and to set things right with her.
shop where he’d become a regular. He’d never felt like he was
wasting his time when he’d waited there—he might as well
spend his time there as anywhere else, at this point in his life.

One evening, after a conversation with the barman where Tony The conversation between Tony and Terry underlines the fact that
tries and fails to order thinner “hand-cut chips” (which turn out Tony has come to accept the problems he’s always had with being
not to be hand-cut at all), he returns to his table to see the five ironic and unserious—and the ways those character tendencies
men from the care home return, together with the young care have harmed other people. Even in his attempt to be serious now,
worker Tony had initially seen with them. The care worker goes realizing that he is upsetting Adrian by his mere presence, Tony still
over to Tony and, introducing himself as Terry, says that comes across as ironic.
“Adrian” (Jr.) is upset by Tony’s presence. Tony apologizes,
saying he doesn’t want to upset anyone ever again. Terry looks
at him as if he’s being ironic, but Tony says he’ll just finish his
food and leave.

Terry asks if Tony minds him asking who he is: Tony replies that Tony’s attempt at explanation rests on the epiphany he’d had the
he was a friend of Adrian (Jr.)’s father many years ago, and used last time he had seen Adrian Jr.—and yet, as Veronica had implied,
to know Adrian’s mother Veronica quite well too: in fact they’ve this realization itself only showed how he still didn’t “get it.”
seen each other recently, in the last weeks and months, though
probably won’t be seeing each other again.

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Terry replies that what Tony is saying doesn’t make sense. First, “Six months ago” corresponds, of course, to the date that Sarah Ford
Tony clarifies: he knows Adrian’s mother as Veronica, but Mary died, leaving the documents and 500 pounds in her will to Tony and
is her second name, which is what Adrian calls her by. But Terry prompting the events of the novel, as well as the memories that
says that Tony must not understand: Mary is Adrian’s sister, not those events unleashed. Tony’s response underlines the shock of this
his mother: his mother died six months ago, and he took it quite new revelation with his immediate inability to react with anything
badly. Tony automatically eats one chip, then another, thinking other than stupefaction. Still, Tony can bid farewell to Terry and
about how thin chips are so much more satisfying than these leave the situation behind—in ways that Veronica, for instance,
fatter ones. He offers Terry his hand and says that Adrian (Jr.) cannot.
seems to get very good care. Terry stands up and says they try,
though budget cuts happen almost every year. Tony wishes
them all good luck.

Later, at home, Tony “gets it all”: why Mrs. Ford had Adrian’s Only at the very end of the novel do all the various strands come
diary, why she said his last months were happy, what Veronica together. The fragment of Adrian’s diary had been an attempt to
meant by blood money, and what Adrian’s strange formulae in assign responsibility for the child—and, ultimately, for his own
his diary meant. One a was Adrian, the other was himself, planned suicide. The novel doesn’t suggest that Tony (or Adrian)
Anthony, or what Adrian called him when trying to be serious. bears absolute blame or responsibility for this, but at the very least
The b was a baby born to a mother dangerously late, damaged he’s forced to grapple with not knowing just how responsible he
as a result. Tony thinks of the chain of responsibility: he’d urged should feel.
Adrian to talk to Veronica’s mother about her daughter being
“damaged.” Tony knows he can’t change or solve anything now.

Toward the end of life, Tony realizes, one gets the chance to ask The novel ends as it began, with strong images that reflect both the
what else one might have done wrong. He thinks of everything power and the deceptiveness of memory. Sarah Ford remains
he could never know or understand. He thinks of Adrian’s perhaps the most enigmatic character in the novel, her actions
definition of history, of a carefree woman frying eggs, (from this gesture up to and including her relationship with Adrian)
unconcerned when one breaks, then later making a secret, tragically difficult to understand. Tony ends by reflecting on the
horizontal gesture beneath the wisteria while waving farewell. ultimate inability ever to know what really happened in the past, to
He thinks of the Severn Bore, rushing past upstream, pursued understand other people, and to reach any kind of relief from such
by students. He ends by saying that, beyond accumulation and unrest.
responsibility, there remains great unrest.

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To cite any of the quotes from The Sense of an Ending covered in the
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O CITE Quotes section of this LitChart:
To cite this LitChart: MLA
MLA Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Vintage. 2012.
Baena, Victoria. "The Sense of an Ending." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, CHICA
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GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
15 Jun 2018. Web. 21 Apr 2020.
Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. New York: Vintage. 2012.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
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Baena, Victoria. "The Sense of an Ending." LitCharts LLC, June 15,
2018. Retrieved April 21, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-
sense-of-an-ending.

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