The Hidden Ending of Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending is a strange text that provokes interpretive challenges. The discoveries the protagonist makes later in life fail to fully explain the unusual events that overtook him in his sixties. His resolution of these mysteries is unconvincing and therefore invites readers to construct an alternative explanation. Following out clues in the novel, this essay offers a reinterpretation of the key events and central relationships, including the likely parentage of young Adrian, which is more comprehensive and thematically resonant than those offered in the novel or elsewhere.