100 Books Like The Sense of an Ending

I was blown away by the genius of telling a story ostensibly about the end of an era and an empire while the real story, a love story, runs just below the surface. I confess that I am not otherwise much of an Ishiguro fan, but this book is perfection.

I am old enough to have known members of a generation who valued loyalty and propriety above personal desires, and this novel made me both nostalgic for a time when self-sacrifice and self-control were so respected and sad about the happiness forfeited because of these social standards.

Michael Ondaatje’s novel is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It is not a study or analysis of Herodotus’ history, and yet Herodotus’ spirit infuses virtually every page. Taking place during World War II, it explores the intertwined lives of four characters, including the unnamed English patient, who has survived the shooting-down of his plane, although he is severely burned.

He has nothing with him but his annotated copy of Herodotus’ Histories. I loved Anthony Minghella’s 1996 film adaptation of the novel, and it is no criticism of the film to say that it treats only one of the many strands one finds in the book. Meditating on space, time, identity, and truth, The English Patient is a book that I think Herodotus would have loved.

The novel tells the story of a group of friends who have taken it upon themselves to carry out the “last orders” of their drinking partner, Jack Dodds, to deliver his ashes to the grey seas of Margate. As they drive to the coast, their errand becomes a poignant journey into their collective pasts.

Swift described it as an homage to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and it follows a similar narrative structure, with chapters titled with the names of the seven key characters, with a shifting narrative perspective to follow the story from each of their eyes.

As a reader, you naturally find your favourite narrative viewpoint. For me, it was Ray, “Lucky Ray,” the obsessive gambler, which for me was the real centre of the novel.

John Banville's 2005 novel, tells the story of a widower who returns to the seaside town of his childhood family holidays and where he fell in love for the first time.

Banville artfully weaves together the strands of the different times in Max Morden's life to create a tapestry of love and loss. He paints a haunting portrait of the beachside community and its characters.

I found the language spellbindingly descriptive and evocative of a distinctive place and time. At times, it borders on poetry. There is humour and pathos aplenty. It is a beautiful but beautifully sad novel, filled with sad people. Ultimately, this symphony of sadness crescendos to a heart-wrenching ending. 

This starts with such a great premise: Douglas Petersen, a devoted but socially awkward biochemist, is blindsided when his wife announces she might leave him, but first, they’ll go on a "Grand Tour of Europe" with their 17-year-old son.

Douglas hopes this is his chance to fix the marriage, connect with his son, and rediscover the man he was supposed to be. But as the trip goes on, we start to realise that so often our vision of how life should be is based on fear of change and habit.

In a similar vein to the previous book, this novel focuses on a man whose life is spiralling out of control. His professional life begins to crumble, he nearly gets run over by a car and his two teenage children get themselves into angst-causing strife. What I love the most about this book is that it’s narrated in the second person by the main character Michael who’s essentially having a mid-life crisis breakdown. This can be hard to pull off, but it works here as it’s like Michael’s providing commentary on himself and his life as if observing someone else. It makes for some hilarious writing, despite the serious theme. The author shows that sometimes to really appreciate the highs of life, you need to hit rock bottom first. 

I like a good satire and I love Ian McEwan. Set in academia, Professor Beard, with his Nobel prize in physics clutched to his chest, is offended by the idea that art might be as good a tool for curing a sick planet as his analytical facts. For all his scientific knowledge, he fails to understand that art has power. His younger colleague tries his best, explaining how images created by art bypass the modern cerebral cortex and go straight to our ancient limbic brain which controls memory and emotion, the part of the brain where we process value judgments, judgments that exert a strong influence on our behavior. This book makes the case for climate change as an important subject in literature, art, and music, because we need to touch hearts before we can create change. And it’s pretty funny on top of it.

I will always find an excuse to read a classic literary tome about an unreliable narrator by the British seashore, partly because I know I’m in for a gut-punch of a landscape description. Even better when it’s garnished with a few—not too many, just enough—of those ultra-evocative lines that stop you in your tracks and make you go, “That’s exactly what that’s like!” But that’s not even the best part of this five-course meal of a book.

The story becomes increasingly surreal and disturbing. At each stage, Murdoch’s descriptions of the ocean landscape shift and change with the narrative, so the water increasingly looms in the background like a living character, apparently impersonal and even more deliciously horrible for it. 

Shiva Naipaul is a truly major Caribbean writer. He captures the volatile essence of that extremely unstable society. One added bonus is his inter-racial perspective, to which his Indian origins contributes decisively. This work ‘views a colonial world sharply with postcolonial perspectives.’ Any reader of West Indies fiction should combine a sense of history with some grasp of contemporary conditions. Although the novel was written in the 1960s, it still has a sense of contemporary relevance. Obviously, readers must keep their eyes open for younger writers in this mode. Naipaul’s works have rightly been integrated into the Educational System.      

McEwan has always numbered among my favorite fiction writers, not only because he knows how to spin a tale, but I enjoy his immaculate prose. I was amazed by the way McEwan creates an exciting and brilliant story all in a one-day narrative. Unusual happenings occur in a famous neurosurgeon’s free Saturday following an exhausting week of intricate surgery. His mundane routine explodes into an unusual, complex situation when a minor car accident leads to a scene of violence and confrontation with a gang of youths. I was so drawn in to this story that I found myself almost being there and sweating in a state of anxiety.