Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

 Here are my views on the novel Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

1-    What is the meaning of phrase ‘Blood Money’ in Veronica’s reply email?

Sarah Ford sends Tony a letter and 500 pounds. When Tony tells this to Veronica, she says it was blood money. But Tony is not able to understand what she said. This novel talks about lack of love and faith, God, Karmic philosophy etc. We can say that blood money here means the money earned by killing the innocent people. Here killing doesn’t mean physical killing of murder but the killing of feelings and emotions. When Tony and Veronica were in a relationship, her father had offered him huge amount of money but after that, they broke up. Then Adrian sent a letter to Tony asking for his permission to date Veronica. Tony, in response to that letter told him to meet her mother. Due to this, she lost her everything. From Veronica’s point of view there can be two reasons. One is that she may think that her mother was responsible for Adrian’s suicide as he might have felt guilty after making relation with Sarah. Another reason can be that she thinks that Tony is responsible for Adrian’s suicide. If Tony won’t have written in reply to that letter, Adrian wouldn’t have met Sarah and all this wouldn’t have happened. So we can say that Veronica thinks that Sarah and Tony both are responsible for Adrian’s suicide, and so she calls that money as blood money.

2-    Adrian’s Diary is willed to Tony by Sarah Ford. How come Sarah Ford owned it? Why was it in the possession of Veronica?

In the story we read that Sarah had written in the letter that Adrian was happy in his last days. This means that Adrian was with Sarah in last few days before his suicide. So it is obvious his diary would have been with her. Till she was alive, she possessed the diary and after her death, She wrote in her will to pass that diary to Tony but Veronica however was able to possess it.

3-    How was Veronica related to Adrian, the one suffering in care-in-the-community?

Veronica and Junior Adrian can be called siblings as Sarah and Adrian were the parents. We can also say that Adrian, who was Tony’s friend, was suffering from mental trauma and had gone mad as he can be called the step father of Veronica.

4-    Do you see any missing block-some dot which is not getting connected with the whole or dot missing to get full sense of the novel- in the plot of this psychological thriller?

There are so many things that are not clear as the whole novel is depended on possibilities. We are not told how Veronica and Adrian met, what were the reasons for ending relationship between Adrian and Veronica, why Sarah kept herself busy in search of other man etc. We are not told much about any character and their history so we can assume whatever we want to.

5-    In the light of new revelations, how do you read character of Veronica? Instinctive, manipulative, calculating, stubborn, haughty, sacrificial, trustworthy, Good Samaritan?

When the whole story unfolds, we can read her character as sacrificial and trustworthy. Earlier we found her calculative when she broke up with Tony. In the next part Veronica shows Tony a group of mentally retarded people but he doesn’t understand what she tried to convey. She can be called calculative because Tony was never able to understand her and she thought that if she continues her relation with Tony, they will never be happy. In the end we can see that Veronica is taking care of junior Adrian so we can call her as sacrificial and emotional too.

6-    What do you mean by unreliable character? Is Tony Webster classifiable as unreliable narrator?

Unreliable narrator is the one whose narration cannot be taken as reliable or whose narration is not faithful to reality. Tony can also be called an unreliable narrator because he starts his narration by saying that “I remember, in no particular order”. We can say that whatever the narrator is going to tell is the outcome of his broken memory as he joins the missing dots with his own perspective and imagination. The first part of the novel is all about imperfections of memory and the second part is all about inadequacies of documentation.

Thank You