11 - Man Booker prize finalist in 2011, a quiet gem of a book.
It starts telling the story of the characters when they are teenage boys at school, they are daring, pretentious and intellectually ambitious, dropping sentences like "phillosophycally self evident", and it reads as a restrained story of coming out of age in the 60's, nicely spread with culture and eager to get intimate with the oppossite sex. Then comes the relationship with the conflictive Veronica, which leaves a mark on the character, specially when she later starts going out with his best friend. Two suicides on the first part of the book.
Then, in one of the smoothest transitions I've read, Barnes pushes fast forward seamlessly 40 years, when the character is retired, divorced, a grandfather. He receives a letter from Veronica's mother. And this is where this book becomes brillient, by looking back at the story he just told, from a completely different angle, leading you to the plot twists with a gentle voice till the very end.
Really enjoyable read.
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