Throughout
the book, Julian Barnes gives lots of remarkable insights into the patterns of
life, aging and memory. I was halfway through the book before I realized I
needed to be underlining those passages so they could be found more easily.
I do wonder a little about what she means when she refers to
“blood money.” There only interpretation I can see that makes sense is that
Sarah pays Tony to compensate him for the loss of Adrian. (This definition of
blood money is payment by the murderer to the victim’s kin.) There is so little
to tell us about Sarah and Adrian’s relationship, but clearly there was more to
it than sex. She says Adrian spoke highly of Tony. She says Adrian’s last
months were happy (can this possibly be true or is this Sarah’s own version of
events?). Perhaps she sees this payment as a way to wipe away her guilt and
Tony as the only party remaining she can plausibly make it to.
My interpretation of blood money is as
follows:
1) Adrian
never showed Tony’s vile
letter to Veronica, but keeps it in his diary
2)
Veronica, on her mother’s death, comes into possession of the diary and the
letter and works out that Adrian and her mother had an affair, resulting in
young Adrian. She refers to Mary’s £500 bequest to Tony as ‘Blood Money’ as his
letter had pushed Adrian into the arms of Mary
3) I
cannot work out Mary’s gesture on Tony’s
departure from Veronica’s Chiselworth home.
Two thoughts come to mind.
a) it is
a gesture of w@nking – Mary
overheard Tony’s second
night’s jerking off into the bedroom sink
b) It is a gesture of a ‘wipe out’ or ‘wash out’. Mary had
expected to seduce Adrian – something Veronica, the Father and Jack were used
to – and had failed: hence the gesture of defeat.
The equation Means b =baby or young Adrian, s = Sarah, V=
Veronica, a= Adrian. b = s – v
x/+ a1 means, Young Adrian, b is a result of Sarah's relationship with Adrian
(x/+) with breaking relationship with Veronica(-).
a2 + v +
a1 X s = b? a2 means Anthony ( Adrian used to address Tony as Anthony) It says
relationship of Tony with Veronica, and her relationship with Adrian. And
Adrian and Sarah's relationship multiplies b means gave birth to baby or young
Adrian.
In short,Adrian’s strange
formulas now suddenly make sense. b = s – vx + a1 or
a2 + v + a1 x s = b. The first formula doesn’t involve Tony, and seems to imply
little more than Sarah and Adrian together in Veronica’s absence. The second
does bring Tony into the equation, which is certainly the more important of the
two.
It is clear in his last
days Adrian was more close to Sarah, as she herself says that “Adrian was happy
in his last days “it shows that Adrian was happy with Sarah, and she was with
Adrian in those days. As Adrian and Sarah were in relation than it’s obvious
that Sarah should have Adrian’s Diary. So until her Death Diary was in her
possession and in her will she passed that Diary to Tony but Veronica was
reluctant to hand it over to Tony.
Now, I think perhaps the reason
why people are confused is because this doesn’t seem like much of a revelation.
Perhaps you think you must have missed something, that a Booker-prize-winning
novel must have something deeper to it than that. No, that’s it. At least, I’m
pretty sure it is, unless I’m like Tony and just don’t get it at all...
Essentially, this novel
is about remembering and the truth. There is no definitive answer as the truth
changes dependent on the listener and the context. Tony believes that Adrian is
Veronica’s son until he is told differently. When your read the letter, the
part which tells Adrian to look to Veronica’s mother offers an explanation as
to why Adrian is Sarah’s son. If you read the part which says he hopes Veronica
and Adrian have a child that destroys them, it explains why Adrian committed
suicide. It’s up to you which one you believe.
End of life with suicide here define that well
sense. EM Forster tackles “muddle” and false memory extremely well in “A
Passage to India” – to try to make sense of memories and the past can be
profitable or delusional. As Forster famously said in “Howard’s End”, “Only
connect.” The end of Barnes’ book shows us Tony trying to make sense of
Adrian’s end, but also his own life as it nears its unsatisfactory ending. As a
title, it seems to have so many appropriate connotations – possibly,
contentiously, that Adrian’s decision to end his life makes sense.
If we consider Adrian who is suffering from
mental trauma as Sara and Adrian’s son than veronica and Adrian are siblings
.And we consider that Adrian, Toney’s friend who is suffering from mental
trauma and has gone made than He can considered as step-father of Veronica.
In Last, This is book that
can support multiple interpretations!
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