The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending is a 2011 novel written by British author Julian Barnes. The book is Barnes's eleventh novel written under his own name (he has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh) and was released on 4 August 2011 in the United Kingdom. The Sense of an Ending is narrated by a retired man named Tony Webster, who recalls how he and his clique met Adrian Finn at school and vowed to remain friends for life. When the past catches up with Tony, he reflects on the paths he and his friends have taken. In October 2011, The Sense of an Ending was awarded the Booker Prize. The following month it was nominated in the novels category at the Costa Book Awards. Publication and marketing The Sense of an Ending is Barnes's eleventh novel and was released in hardback on 4 August 2011. The Sense of an Ending is published by Random House (as a Jonathan Cape publication) in the United Kingdom. The book was released in October 2011 in the United States, after its previously scheduled publication date for the United States was brought forward by three months by Random House's Knopf publishing group to capitalise on the shortlisting of the book as a candidate for the Booker prize. Suzanne Dean designed the cover for The Sense of an Ending. The cover shows floating dandelion seeds, with its edge and the edges of all the pages blackened. Title The title is shared by a book of the same name by Frank Kermode first published in 1967, subtitled Studies in the Theory of Fiction, the stated aim of which is "making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives". Kermode's book is a well-received piece of literary criticism. Critic Colin Burrow called it one of "the three most inspiring works of literary criticism written in the twentieth century", comparing Kermode's work with Erich Auerbach's Mimesis and E. R. Curtius's European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Barnes has stated his choice of title was coincidental with that of Kermode, of whose book he had not previously heard, and which he has never read. He came up with the title before one of his friends pointed out that it had been used already, but decided "there's no copyright in titles". Notwithstanding which, several reviewers described the novel as being "in conversation" with Kermode. For example, the critic Boyd Tonkin adds the additional interpretation that Barnes's "show-off" characters could be typical readers of Kermode's work.