Tuesday, October 18, 2011

2011 Booker Prize awarded to Julian Barnes for "The Sense of an Ending"

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes is this year's winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.   Read the official press release.

In a Booker Prize season fraught with controversy, Barnes had emerged as a favorite.  Claire Armistead writes in The Guardian:
At just 150 pages, in two elegantly counterpointed sections, it is one of the shortest-ever winners of a major prize for the novel.

But what it lacks in length it makes up for in depth of philosophical inquiry about memory and the shakiness of the personal identity formed by it. The main character, Tony Webster, will go down as one of literature's great unreliable narrators: a man whose belief in his own guilelessness can only be challenged by direct confrontation with his past, and then only partially, and for fleeting moments.
The book was also favorably reviewed on this blog by Tony Messenger, here and Alex, here, and 3M's 2011 shortlist post links to yet another review (thanks to all of you!).  Has anyone else read this book?  Keep those reviews coming!

2 comments:

  1. I read some of its reviews here. And now six more books have been added to your challenge though some of the members have read and reviewed them already.

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  2. I was really rooting for Pigeon English...

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