It’s a shame The Sense of an Ending won the Booker. Not because the prize wasn’t deserved — based on that shortlist, I’m sure the judges made the right decision — but because I don’t think it shows its author in his best light.
In time, probably around now, people will forget the hoo-ha over the 2011 Man Booker Prize. No one will remember that X said her five-year-old could have come up with a better shortlist, or that Y told X to stop being such an elitist snob. And I worry that readers coming to Barnes afresh, assuming The Sense of an Ending to be his best book, will be disappointed.
Which would be sad because he’s a brilliant writer, the first modern grown-up novelist I really fell in love with. I couldn’t get enough of his cleverness, his sense of humour, his smooth, unshowy prose.
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