What I recently found out was that little had I read about contemporary literature apart from sci-fis that intend to thrill. As a result, half a dozen books were ordered and delivered to my home. The first I picked up was The Sense of an Ending , by Julian Barnes.
That is not to say this is a dull story. On the contrary, it is a page-turner, as well as a piece of serious literature that evoke reflection and reconsideration of our past doings and our own view of them, or--memories.
‘Time’ is the theme encrypted into the book’s title. How is it like as the ending of life approaches? The author and the character, Tony Webster, both pondered the question. It is a natural act to recall the anecdotes and decisive incidents of the past. And the past life seems serene in retrospect, possibly dotted with minor mischiefs that must have been soothed by time and the growing of people, nothing to regret. Yet one couldn’t be more mislead by oneself, as age has deprived one of the ability to perceive aggressiveness, and adjusted one’s memory of one’s own past aggressiveness. This is how history is, isn’t it? The lies of the victors, as well as the self-delusions of the defeated.
The burst of conflict in a plot would be caused by an emergence of some corroboration, and so writes the author. But there might as well be no such revelation, as the book reads
‘...as the witness to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been.’
If God made some fortuitous arrangements, one would get away with it, leaving some disreputable deeds in a dusted unnoticeable corner of recollection. People became accustomed with your nice guy persona, as the ones who knew different fade away with time, and you yourself became persuaded too later on, till some sudden revelation or never. The novel is plotted to have the revelation, and thus naturally triggers the question that what would happen if things headed the other way, as most people's lives do. To put it more explicitly, is it better to allow the memory of some past bad deed fade out, or to settle the unsettled affairs and get even? Or is there a threshold below which things are allowed to yield to time? Where should this threshold be positioned?
Lamentably, literature have not the obligation to answer.