Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Julian Barnes is a good writer, and it's not hard to forgive him for the fact that he has either overestimated the detecting abilities of his readers, or he has not made his case thoroughly even if he intends to be a bit mystifying. Can anyone answer these questions? I would be so grateful! (DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK!) 1) By the end of the novel we know that Adrian, in fact, is the father of Veronica's brother, who is mentally disabled in some way, and that his fatherhood may have had something to do with his suicide, or maybe nothing at all to do with it. 2) We know that Veronica's mother betrayed her own daughter, first to Tony, when she advised him not to let Veronica get away with too much, and then presumably with Adrian with whom she conceived a child. 3) We know that Tony believes that Veronica may have been abused by her father or brother as a child, but are we meant to think that, in fact, Veronica has been abused by her mother instead? Are we to believe that Veronica has systematically furnished her mother with young men over the years? Otherwise, why do Veronica and her brother and father go on an early-morning pre-breakfast walk the Saturday morning that Tony is at their house, leaving Tony and Veronica's mother alone? Is the whole family in on it? Does Veronica's mother want to have a child? Nothing untoward happens between them, except that Tony might have seemed rude or discouraging to her purposes when he cuts off a line of questioning about the nature of his and Veronica's relationship. 4) WHY does Veronica's mother leave 500 pounds to Tony? What does it mean when Veronica tells him that it's "blood money." 5) And, really? Everyone thought this was a brilliant book even though it made very little sense? It didn't pan out as a study of the elusive quality of memory; nor did it seriously address the question of what constitutes history--it didn't even broach those questions or conditions very broadly. I thought the novel was interesting, but either it failed at it's purpose through over-subtlety, or I am simply not clever enough to unravel its meaning. Certainly the latter is possible, but it's not interesting enough on its own without a conclusion.