Another sharp novel of social observation by Julian Barnes. He sketches a set of characters and then develops a moment of serious drama in their interaction. The real heart of the novel, though, is the main character's slow attempt to understand the true nature of this drama that plays out between them. As the main character narrates the story, it is really a novel about personal history and recollection, and how memory distorts, edits and rewrites the past - and always from a single, personal point of view.
In the first half of the book, the main character creates a fairly comfortable picture of his past and his fellow characters. In the second half of the book, his whole story explodes and crumbles as others' points of view, and even his own forgotten personal actions, resurface and confront him.
His points can be expanded to the study of history in general, and there are comments related to this in sections where some of the main characters are in history class early on.
Interestingly, there seems to be a suspension of judgement upon the main characters, especially the two main ones. You want to judge them, especially the main female character, but the author just doesn't go there. Even the details of the main drama remain sketchy and not quite clear, I think to keep the main focus of the book on this theme of personal history and our edited stories of self.
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