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We were going to read James Salter’s The Hunters on the plane but decided that a novel about a fighter pilot shooting down enemy planes during the Korean War might not be ideal in-flight entertainment. So we took Snowdrops by A.D. Miller, a melancholy tale about an Englishman in the Wild, Wild East who is befriended by two hot Russian women on the metro.

Before long they’ve enlisted him in a scheme involving an old woman they claim is their aunt, and he knows the deal isn’t kosher but he goes along with it because he’s in love and it’s Moscow during the black gold rush.

The writing swings between sharply evocative and undistinguished (Comparisons with Graham Greene are exaggerated), but A.D. Miller, former Moscow correspondent of The Economist, is a terrific guide to that city. He walks us through a place both terrifying and fascinating (or fascinating because terrifying), a place so cold that during the winter if you take off your thick gloves in the open to answer your phone it freezes to your palm, where women under 40 are required to dress like prostitutes, and you can’t tell the gangsters from the government because they are the same guys.

We learn of the informal taxi system (You stand on the street, flag passing cars and haggle over the price), the contract-killing market (Hire a bum to do the crime cheaply, then hire a pro to dispose of the bum for 10,000 USD), apartment swaps, and snowdrops—the corpses of murder victims and suicides that emerge when the snow thaws.

Makes us want to go to Russia even more.

Snow Drops is available at National Bookstores. Paperback, Php 399.

We’re not great believers in prizes—we do not accept “multi-awarded” as a proper word and we demand that anyone who describes himself thus be clubbed unconscious with his trophies. However we were delighted when Julian Barnes was awarded this year’s Booker Prize for his novel, The Sense of an Ending. It was a very satisfying outcome not just because it was Barnes’s fourth time on the shortlist but because of the flap over Booker chair Stella Rimington’s statement that she was looking for “readable” books.* Julian Barnes writes elegant, subtle, inventive fiction that also happens to be readable.

We have been fans of Barnes since the 90s when we read Talking It Over, a love triangle narrated by its protagonists. (That novel has had a big influence on our use of pronouns—”…put their head round the door”). Afterwards we read A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, whose narrator is most…unusual. The Sense of an Ending features Barnes’s most interesting narrator: a man who doesn’t get it.

Welcome to The Sense of an Ending Reading Group. We’ve prepared a few guide questions which you should feel free to ignore; the aim is to have an open discussion about the novel. Anyone who’s read TSOAE may join the discussion—post your thoughts in Comments. If your copy of TSOAE came from us, we expect scintillating insights haha.

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Warning: If you have not read The Sense of an Ending, this discussion contains spoilers.

1. Characters. What do you think of Tony Webster? Is your impression at odds with what Tony Webster thinks of Tony Webster? Do you know anyone who’s like him? Does he remind you of you?

What about Veronica, Adrian, Margaret and Sarah? (Sarah as in Old Testament Sarah who gave birth in her old age?) Do you agree with Tony’s assessment of them? This is a narrator who has edited his life so he can live with himself. What has he left out? Clearly his feelings about Veronica were more complex than he’s let on. What do you think their relationship was really like?

2. Images. The novel opens with them. We can’t get wrists out of our minds: the watch worn facing inwards, Veronica wanking, Adrian’s suicide. And then semen sluicing down the drain, contrasting with the upstream tidal wave. The Thames and the bloody bathwater. What image or scene in the novel has stayed with you?

Did Tony forget or did he fail to mention something that happened while they were watching the Severn Bore?

3. Style. Tony Webster is your classic unreliable narrator: his memory is faulty, his credibility wonky. (Julian Barnes has cited the unreliable narrator classic, The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. Read it, it’s harrowing. So what IS a reliable narrator? Isn’t anything first-person dubious?) When did it occur to you that Tony is not a trustworthy witness to his own life? That you may know more about him than he does? How does Barnes achieve this effect?

What do you think of Barnes’s style? “Readable” or requiring more effort than usual?

4. What does the title mean to you? No points for mentioning Frank Kermode.

5. If you have not read the book, stop reading this post right now.  Almost the minute we finished reading this novel we started reading it again. What did we miss? What were we looking for, and how could we find it in these pages when Tony doesn’t remember or has chosen to forget it?

What do you think happened? Why the will? Tell us the story of Tony, Adrian, Veronica and Sarah in chronological order.

6. Anything you’d like to add?

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We’re doing an Ambeth and bringing in the chismis. The Sense of an Ending turns on the nasty letter that Tony writes to his clever friend Adrian and ex-girlfriend Veronica after they announce that they are dating. We could not help thinking of the nasty letter that Julian Barnes reportedly wrote his clever friend Martin Amis. They also fell out over a woman—Barnes’s wife Pat Kavanagh, who had been Amis’s literary agent until he dumped her for a famous New York shark. According to Amis that letter ended with two words, seven letters, three of them f’s.

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*Incidentally the 2012 Booker jury will be chaired by Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, acclaimed diarist and classicist. Not only does next year’s chair have impeccable literary credentials but he knows that JessicaRulestheUniverse exists and he has cited us in his TLS blog. Clearly the president of the Classical Association was joking when he mentioned our comment about Phaeton, but we liked the “web-friend” reference.

The trip to Jakarta should’ve taken three hours but the direct flight was cancelled so we had to take the long way via Hong Kong. We were in the airport at 4.30 in the morning. It was already packed. For the record we don’t think the Manila airport is the ugliest on earth, but it’s not equipped to serve the vast masses of people who use it every day. The real problem is not the lack of luxury shopping options or even the lavatories (which can be fixed) but the fact that there’s only one runway and no room to build others. There’s a plane taking off almost every minute and that’s not safe.

We left Manila at 6.30 am and landed in Jakarta 7 hours later. Alex V noted that their airport looks like Nayong Pilipino. With the Manila-style traffic it took another hour to get to the Ritz-Carlton Mega Kuningan (funny if you speak bakla).

Our plan was to drop off our bag and proceed to the big Kinokuniya to get a copy of The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst plus whatever P.G. Wodehouse books they have. We took one look at the room and decided to stay in.

And the bathtub with a view.

Which suddenly turned to this.

Stayed in, kept shoes dry. We don’t watch TV at home but we keep it on when we’re traveling. Al-Jazeera’s coverage is superior to CNN’s.

Possibly the finest film adaptation of King Lear: Ran by Akira Kurosawa. You don’t need subtitles.

On a few occasions we’ve heard the Ramgen Revilla murder case described as “Shakespearean” in scope. “Shakespearean” is the default adjective when one wishes to describe something that is complicated and full of stunning revelations about human nature, while feigning a knowledge of Shakespeare’s work. We know this because we do it all the time, for instance, “The Wire is so Shakespearean.” It is convenient because unless we say it in the presence of literature majors there is little likelihood that someone will call our bluff; everyone will be busy nodding in agreement, lest their ignorance be exposed. (As in “Hahahaha! Di ko gets.”)

Read our column in interaksyon.com.

Possibly the finest film adaptation of Macbeth: Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa.

We’re taking a quick trip to Jakarta on Monday. Not for the SEA Games but a tech launch. We have some free time Monday—any suggestions as to places we must see? (Not enough time to visit Borobudur or Bali.)

On these trips a soundtrack is essential. We’ve decided on the complete works of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music.