This is a short book and I read it pretty much in one go, which was perhaps a mistake as there is much here to savour. I found it absorbing and the writing elegant and poised. The sense of an ending? Well there's a mystery to solve, and the author feeds you little bits and pieces so that the reader puts the puzzle together at the same time as Tony, the main character. The problem is that the eventual truth is rather frustrating and hard to credit. My first thought was that the characters simply weren't good enough to make me believe in it, but this is Julian Barnes and the novel is subtle and complex. The theme of the novel is history, subjectivity & the imperfections of memory in the timeline of a human life. We meet the main character Tony when he is at school, and follow him through his last years of education. There is then a huge leap and we come back to him in old age, reflecting back on his life and trying to make sense of an old relationship that ended badly. So the whole book is underpinned by the idea that we can't quite trust in what we think are facts. And the doubt and confusion that the reader feels at the end of the novel (and I don't think I'm alone in this) is part and parcel of the larger point the author is making. Which is all very clever. And at the same time rather unsatisfying. But the more I look back on it the more I like this book for what the author, in his clever way, is trying to do. So far I reckon it's the one to win. It was quite funny too, in places. I recommend it, if only so we can discuss it after you've read it too.