The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

I have been a loyal fan of the Man Booker prize, and I have read at least a handful of the long-listed books for several years. The prize has traditionally valued exceptional writing over plot line. It is not at all uncommon for a short-listed book to meander aimlessly but beautifully to a less-than-satisfying ending, all the while dazzling the reader with the quality of the prose employed. This year the judges were criticized for valuing plot--but I would defend that choice, because the nominees that I have read to date have been excellently written.
So I have a quarrel with the winner, 'The Sense of an Ending'. Maybe it is just about finally awarding Julian Barnes with the prize--this is his fourth nomination, and maybe they just felt it was time. In my humble opinion, this fell into the bottom 50% of the short-listed books.
Why? Maybe it is because I found the protagonist, Tony Webster, entirely unlikable. Maybe it is because I am dangerously close to the point that he is in life and I don't want to think that I might be so pitiful in 10 years. But I was happy the book was so short, because I didn't want to spend any more time with him. the book is at once an idealized depiction of sexual performance and ones command of ones life, and a pathetic lack of insight, even in hindsight, of what one did that led one on a particular life path.
Maybe I missed the point--maybe when you make poor choices as a young adult, you look back on that time as the point at which you took the wrong fork. But in reality, life has many forks, and there are quite a few points where you can turn around. It requires being able to say you were wrong, but often you can get a second chance. But Tony is not a guy to reassess his choices and try to reconcile what would bring happiness and turn his bitterness around. Which is why felt so little sympathy for him at the end, when he finds out the true ending of his first love story.