No doubt I am missing some of the points we covered so I invite the other attendees to add comments to this rather quickly-drafted list. Additionally, it was a very thought-provoking novel and therefore we’d love to hear other people’s comments.
- Captured well the era and the culture, including some of the humor. (e.g., the episode with the lime tree and the insurance company)
- Great writing style – no superfluous words. Characters well-developed and many of their actions believable. The mean-spirited letter was very realistic.
- Tony’s life seemed quite unremarkable but it wasn’t necessarily a problem for him. He did not seem to have many regrets.
- Veronica was unjustifiably nasty and no character seemed really very normal/nice except the ex-wife Margaret. Well, Tony was nice but a bit too passive.
- We could not understand why Veronica called herself by two different names? Was she only known as Mary to her brother? It seemed an unnecessary device.
- The way that memory works and the nature of conflicting memories between two people and even two moments in time in the mind of the same person were of course discussed. The example of the incident on the banks of the river – was Veronica really there ? – was a great example. Not to mention all the great debates in the history class early on in the story.
- The closing sentence of the book about accumulation and responsibility and unrest was a nice sum-up of the novel.
- Nearly unanimous agreement that Tony had zero reason to feel guilty, BUT on the other hand Mark lost all respect/sympathy for Tony after the letter was revealed. Is that a difference in the male/female perspective ? (Philippe – your take on that?) Having mostly agreed that Tony should have no guilt, it seems unlikely that Adrian was driven to suicide because of the letter.
- Tony did not love Veronica by our conventional definitions of love but considering his age, she was his first real passion / obsession. We were not sure why his relationship with her was so important that he could not tell his wife about her until two years after they were married. We also could not be sure whether he held some burning feelings for her all his life or whether he had put her out of his mind until he received the letter from the mother’s solicitor.
- We assumed the diary contained information about the mother’s pregnancy, Adrian’s reflections on several things, likely Veronica herself. We’re not entirely convinced she really burned it – she is just the kind of manipulative person who would lie about that just not to share it with Tony.
- Some of us could totally understand Adrian’s decision to commit suicide from a philosophical point of view: if one doesn’t believe in an afterlife, one could argue there’s more negative than positive over time so what’s the point. However, the reader never really knows whether he killed himself because the mother was pregnant, or if he ever knew she was, or if he was alive after the child was born, etc.
- What was the meaning of the title ? Did the word “sense” mean the “feeling” of an ending, as in bringing about closure, or did it mean the “logic” of an ending, as in the rationale for Adrian and Robeson to bring their lives to an end ? It could have meant both.
Cynthia
