Posted by guillermo maynez
on 25/7/2012, 17:31:59, in reply to "Re: Sense of and Ending - Julian Barnes"
189.178.232.47
Who knows what parts we have played in other people's lives? There are people whom we can be pretty sure how and how much our actions have affected. But not even that. Perhaps our brother or sister carry in their hearts forever some cruel action or remark, that have made them feel inferior, and they may carry that feeling even if on the surface they do love us; or maybe some former work acquaintance fondly remembers us for some support we gave them that propelled their self-assuredness etc.
There is an image we have of ourselves, and we tend to like to have it as a good, peaceable one (unless we delight in cruelty and the exercise of power). But there is no way we can ascertain our impact in the lives of every individual whose path in life crosses ours. Of course, we may think that first girlfriend has been deeply impacted by us, when she barely remembers the days...
I think that is one valuable thing about this novel, otherwise not Barnes's best.
--Previous Message--
: Seema,
:
: It is exciting to have a new person contributing to
: our discussions. Again, welcome.
:
: I will try to respond to your comment, although I feel
: a bit rusty on this novel.
:
: Tony's letter is central to the affair between Adrian
: and Sarah because Sarah, Adrian, and Veronica all
: believe it to be. This is made clear by Sarah's
: bequest, Adrian's formulas, and directly from
: Veronica. It may not have been that remarkable a
: letter (that is certainly debatable), but it had
: remarkably massive, if unintended, consequences. It's
: essentially irrelevant whether Sarah and Adrian might
: have got together without Tony's help. Tony was the
: agent (even if unintentionally), of the affair, the
: suicide, the birth of the handicapped child, all the
: tragic sequelae.
:
: Again, this is all debatable, but my comment about
: Tony seeing himself as the a bit player rather than
: the protagonist is based on how he frames his life.
: The story he has been telling himself is that he is a
: benign, harmless fellow, living a life that is
: comfortable and dull. He then discovers that others
: have seen him as a veritable Iago, author of the
: catastrophe that rocked many lives. The whole frame
: of reference shifts. The meaning of his life is
: different from what he has believed. A bit player
: because he only threw the match that exploded the
: lives of so many.
:
: But what are we to take away from this? I don't know.
: I don't think that we are meant to take this as a
: cautionary tale. Perhaps the author means to shake us
: from our own complacency. Most of us, I think, have a
: well-worn sense of our own identity, constructed of a
: familiar narrative that we tell ourselves. Barnes may
: intend to help us realize that our narrative is not
: the only possible narrative associated with our lives.
: There are other narratives, maybe "dark and
: horrible," maybe not, that are equally valid and
: that would illuminate one's life in a completely
: different manner.
:
: PS - Not Adrian and Veronica's son, it's Adrian and
: Sarah's son. Veronica's half-brother.
:
:
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: Hi All,
:
: I am really late and I know you've all moved on from
: this book already. But I just finished it and read
: your (as always) insightful discussion and felt an
: urge to chime in.
:
: Lale, I think I'm mostly with you on this book. I
: didn't hate it but was definitely left ambivalent at
: the end.
:
: Firstly, I am a little stumped by something else
: Sterling mentions in his first response to Lale in
: this thread (something that other reviewers elsewhere
: seem to have alluded to as well). Quoting Sterling:
: "One of the major revelations of the novel is
: that Tony is essentailly a supporting character in the
: largest dramas of his own life. We all see ourselves
: as the protagonist. Imagine dicovering that you're a
: bit part! "
:
: As much as I love that idea, I didn't get that from
: this book at all. Quite the contrary actually. For one
: thing, right from the start, I got the sense that the
: narrator (warts and all) seems to believe that Adrian
: is quite easily the more fascinating character. Tony
: reduces himself and his 2 other friends to the
: sidelines as he paints this remarkable picture of
: Adrian when the boys first get to know and befriend
: him. [Side note: I really love those passages and the
: way Barnes has us buying into that image without
: having to say too much about Adrian. In that sense, I
: completely agree with Sterling that the book has but
: one character ultimately. Adrian is remarkable because
: Tony believes he is.]
:
: But basically to me, the book plays out the other way
: around. Tony considers himself a "peaceable"
: personality, a benign rather mundane human being
: without too much agency. Someone who has a good
: relationship even with the ones he has perhaps hurt
: (his ex-wife and daughter) and seems to view himself
: as not noteworthy in any way.
:
: However, reading the letter he sent Adrian and
: Veronica and seeing Adrian's son forces him to
: reconcile his own role and responsibility in what
: happened to Adrian (and Veronica and Adrian's son).
: Even if the letter was just borne out of the
: foolishness of youth, certainly the book has Tony
: acknowledging that he's perhaps responsible for more
: than he was willing to accept earlier? He does say
: these lines a the end of the book, "There is
: accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond
: these, there is unrest. There is great unrest."
:
: But my response to the book really isn't entirely
: vested in whether Tony's image of his role in the
: events goes from central to peripheral or the other
: way around. Just found it interesting that my reading
: seemed to go against most others.
:
: On a positive note, I do admire Barnes for writing a
: relatively plot-driven book with a central mystery and
: yet leaving the ending fairly ambiguous. Given the
: slippery nature of the narrator and his memory, I
: don't think we can really be certain that we and the
: narrator (and the truth) are aligned by the time we
: get to the line where the narrator claims to have
: finally "got it". I liked that ambiguity
: and that the book allows for us to think about the
: pieces we've gathered and try and fit in our own
: narrative. Nice manifestation of what Barnes points
: out is a central issue with memory especially as we
: get older.
:
: That said, there's other stuff about the book that did
: turn me off (or I didn't understand entirely):
:
: 1. The 500 pounds is essentially a MacGuffin and I'm
: okay with that. But to this date, I don't understand
: Sarah's decision to leave our narrator the money or
: the diary. It does feel like a plot device that's
: necessary to propel the book and in that sense, I find
: it rather unsatisfactory a device.
:
: 2. The parallel between the schoolboy who commits
: suicide supposedly because he impregnated a young girl
: and Adrian's suicide. Foreshadowing, maybe.. but felt
: forced to me.
:
: 3. While I'm okay with the book being more of a musing
: on memory and aging and the past and so on as opposed
: to carefully constructed complex characters, I didn't
: really know what to make of the ending and how that
: comments on these themes.
: I didn't think that Tony's letter (as cruel and
: insensitive as it was) was all that unusual or
: responsible for everything that ensued. Those other
: ppl seemed pretty damaged in their own ways to begin
: with and I feel pretty certain that Adrian and Sarah
: would've found each other with or without Tony's help.
: So if that's the case, then am I to take away that
: even our small mistakes, thoughtless gestures of
: cruelty can have big consequences? Sure, maybe but
: again, I don't see how we can avoid those. Is it then
: just a comment on human nature and how these things
: could accumulate (a word used often in the book) and
: turn into something dark and horrible?
:
: Finally, a few of Tony's musings I particularly liked
: / related to and made a note of:
:
: "In those days, we imagined ourselves as being
: kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be
: released into our lives. And when that moment came,
: our lives - and time itself - would speed up. How were
: we to know that our lives had in any case begun, that
: some advantage had already been gained, some damage
: already inflicted?"
:
: "When you're young - when I was young - you want
: your emotions to be like the ones you read about in
: books. You want them to overturn your life, create and
: define a new reality. Later, I think, you want them to
: do something milder, something more practical: you
: want them to support your life as it is and has
: become. You want them to tell you that things are
: OK."
:
:
: