Here We Go

      So here we go again with another novel…this work, however, is a whole lot easier to understand than any of our previous readings. The Sense of an Ending makes Atlas Shrugged and Notes from the Underground seem as if they were written in a different language and it even makes The Stranger look like a moderately difficult read. This idea brings me to my next point which is: how “worthy” will this reading be for us? As we just finished our last blog posts on Dostoyevsky and his novel, we were asked if it was “worth” reading to us. I answered that it certainly was because as Melanie put, “everything is worth reading”, and personally, I think a novel like Notes from the Underground is even more worth reading. Moreover, I feel that simpler novels like The Kite Runner and On the Road are a better source of entertainment than of philosophical development. For that exact reason, I have a strong feeling that The Sense of an Ending will follow the same path as these novels in that it will be an enjoyable, yet inexpedient, read.

   Since the beginning of the novel I was excited to see how the work would take shape because of its intriguing setup. The idea of basing a story of the relationships between four high school friends is one that is captivating and enthralling to many readers, specifically adolescents that are still in school. As I was about thirty pages through the novel (and did not even notice how fast I was moving), I stopped because I kept thinking of a movie that had a similar plot structure. After a few minutes of trying to think of the name, I finally remembered; it was Last Vegas, a movie that takes four middle-aged friends that have known each other for decades to a bachelor party in Las Vegas. Similarly, however, the friends have encountered a few “bumps in the road” and things are not really the same anymore. Before looking at the other posts I was going to write about comparisons to other novels from this year but I am not really looking towards being repetitive so instead I will discuss my overall opinion on the work thus far. Although I am only about a quarter into the novel, the first few plot developments have made me excited for what is to come. I find the character’s to all be very interesting and I believe that the rest of the novel will undoubtedly be somewhat entertaining.