Does the last act crown the play, srsly?

[oursin]

Was thinking, riffing off a post on my rlist about a book with an unsatisfactory ending, which reminded me of a book by the same author that I read recently that came to a stop at a very odd point in the narrative (unless setting up for a sequel, and even then, possibly just a leeetle more closure would have been desirable), how much the actual end matters.

Because, thinking about it, what are the ends we remember?

And I remember too many that left me thinking 'Oh, no, you didn't!' or 'WTF!' or 'That is not an ending, that is you stopping writing at some arbitary length of wordage' or 'Everything is miserable, everyone is miserable, kthxbai, is not Deep, it's a cop-out'.

Also re-reading mysteries and the Revelation of WhoDunnit being not the most central thing. In fact, in general if knowing the outcome means it's not re-readable, there's surely something wrong.

Okay, will concede that there are endings I remember, but ones I do remember, straight off the top of my head, are the ones that (to me) convey a significant sense of 'The Story Does Not Actually End Here But It Is Going On Outside This Particular Book' (which is, I would argue, entirely different from stopping dead in medias res):

A little boy and his bear are always dancing.

He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who has won salvation for himself and his beloved.

[F]or the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

What are the things we remember from stories? Are these not more likely to be bits from the beginning and middle of the narrative? (E M Forster indeed makes an argument in Aspects of a Novel deploring the effects on the vitality of the novel of having to wind the plot up.)

Do we not, sometimes, rather hate the ending (whatever it is) because that is when the story stops? (This depends on the book and how much we are enjoying it.)

Endings: an unfortunate necessity? (Discuss among yourselves.)

Comments

[ankaret]

I came across an epic example of 'That is not an ending, that is you stopping writing at some arbitary length of wordage' recently in Barbara Erskine's Whispers In The Sand, which had a somewhat defensive-sounding author's note at the end saying 'real life doesn't lend itself to neat endings'. Which would have been all very well, if the book had actually been about real life, rather than being all about an epic cross-centuries battle between reincarnated Egyptian priests, with diversions into glass-blowing and something not a million miles from RPF about what would have happened if Margaret Fountaine met Aleister Crowley.

That said, I think you're right that endings sometimes get flak because the author is packing the toys away.

[sheenaghpugh]

I've always regarded "the ending" as "the jumping-off point for MY version"....

I think endings do tend to stay in my mind. Ones I recall particularly:

"and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth ..." [Chorus of: "That's all you know, you fool!"]

The ending of Watership Down - anguished wail of "Bring the bunny back to life!"

[legionseagle]

Speaking of "Jumping off points for MY version" I'd definitely give points to "And the Old Magic was free for ever, and the Moon was new." Take THAT, Wilmslow!

[dichroic]

I love that line - but (after Googling) is that book as creepy as most of Alan Garner's? I have trouble reading his stuff because the magic in it is so often evil, or at least very unpleasant. (I'm good with magic like Susan Cooper's where it can be good, bad, or just wild.)

[legionseagle]

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath are better in general on that than later stuff, but the magic in The Moon of Gomrath is pretty definitely Celtic stuff with some very bloody and creepy overtones. Moon of Gomrath is my favourite but it's worth mentioning that the most sympathetic magical character in it is an aspect of the triple moon goddess, as is the least sympathetic.

[intertext]

Yes, I love that, too. Also the end of The Owl Service with the flower petals drifting.

[gillo]

John Wyndham was notoriously crap at endings - Triffids, Kraken, Chrysalids all just stop. In the last case quite literally in mid-air. Only The Midwich Cuckoos ends properly, of the long novels, mainly because they iz all blowed up. You get an almost palpable feeling in some of his stories that he wants to stop now because It's All Getting Far Too Silly.

[intertext]

Actually I like the ending of The Chrysalids, with them flying into a new happier life in New Zealand or where-ever-it-is. Also Chocky, one of his little known but one of my faves, ends rather satisfactorily.

[gillo]

Chocky does end well, I agree, though it's more of a novella than a novel, arguably. I have a lot of problems with The Chrysalids (which I have taught many times for GCSE and actually studied myself for O Level.) Too many important aspects of the plot are simply dropped - especially how the other telepaths are going to cross the whole of post-Apocalypse America and the Pacific to reach New Zealand. And I have very serious problems with the speech of the Sealand woman about the need to recognise that non-telepaths are a different race and therefore it doesn't matter if they are all killed off by magic!elastic chewing gum. Considering that most of the book is about the need for tolerance in the face of fanaticism, it's more than a bit of a shock to find out that it's simply a new kind of racism at work.

[sheenaghpugh]

Yes, but I think Wyndham does make it clear that he disapproves of that. David can already see the new norms despising the un-norms, and you can see he'll have trouble in Sealand...

[jonquil]

The worst man at endings I ever read was Neil Stephenson. "It's eleventy-million words, pull this sheet out of the typewriter and mail it off!" (Except that he writes in longhand; I saw one of the stacks at the science fiction museum in Seattle.)

[gillo]

Oh dear. Longhand =/= revision. *g*

[legionseagle]

The ending of Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana is probably the most, "Stap my vitals, where did that come from?" endings I can think of.

[ankaret]

Was that the one with the completely random mermaid, or am I mixing it up with A Song For Arbonne or something?

[fitzcamel]

Nope, that's the one. A Song for Arbonne had a decent ending.

[intertext]

The ending of Tigana gave me a WTF the first time, but on re-reading and reflection, I'm more comfortable with it. Kay has written himself that it's intended to give the sense that - yes - there are happy endings but that no happy ending is an ending and that people will die after it. I guess it's kind of like all Joss Whedon's horrible deaths of beloved characters that we nevertheless somehow accept as part of the "life" of the story.

[naryrising]

That reminds me of the final book of Stephen King's Dark Tower series - about halfway through, there is a beautiful, triumphant scene of fellowship and joy, and the narrator basically tells us that, if we like, we can stop there and always remember the characters that way - or we can go on, but if we do, there will inevitably be deaths and disappointments. And then goes on to give them to us.

[legionseagle]

She's a random Russian water spirit so what she's doing in an Italianate landscape is never precisely explained, but yes; in principle.

[jonquil]

"Completely random mermaid" would also be a good name for a band.

[legionseagle]

I shall suggest it to the stepson.

[intertext]

If my copy of The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter were not packed away I would quote what I think is one of the most haunting and perfect endings of a novel, completely inexplicable if you have not read the book but entirely satisfactory given what has come before.

And is it not Somewhere a boy and his bear will always be playing? I wouldn't quibble, but it's one of _my_ all-time favourite book endings and nearly always makes me cry.

[oursin]

I think that's right - I was conflating the actual sentence with the Shepard illustration immediately after which shows them hand in hand dancing (if I remember correctly).

[intertext]

Yes - that's exactly it.

[vito_excalibur]

Do we not, sometimes, rather hate the ending (whatever it is) because that is when the story stops?

YES. >:(

[legionseagle]

It's not my favourite Potter by a long chalk, but it's got the most satisfactory ending: "They came to the river, they came to the bridge--they crossed it hand in hand--then over the hills and far away she danced with Pigling Bland!"

[jonquil]

I'm very fond of, and often quote, "and rather better pasturage for their cows" -- and I googled it, and it's not the last line of the book! The true last line is far more didactic.

Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate; and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

[gillo]

And in a similar vein, I very much like: She gloried in being a sailor's wife,
but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession
which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues
than in its national importance.

Austen is good at satisfying endings with a twist of wry humour. But, then, she's good at writing, full stop.

[jonquil]

Yes. All those little asides that stab to the heart, like the comment in Persuasion about the Captain's wife's occasionally nudging the reins being a good metaphor for their marriage.

[jonquil]

I loved the coda of the movie Barry Lyndon, which ran something like "Rich or poor, good or bad, they are all equal now." The ending of the book is beautifully rounded, if exceedingly romantic about conditions in Ireland:

The trees in Hackton Park are all about forty years old, and the Irish property is rented in exceedingly small farms to the peasantry; who still entertain the stranger with stories of the daring and the devilry, and the wickedness and the fall of Barry Lyndon.

[trouble]

Now that you mention, no, I can't remember the last ending of a novel I really liked. They need proper conclusions that tell me what I was supposed to learn.

[oursin]

Too many novels fall down sadly in that respect. I think they should have scorecards indicating how the Good and the Bad came out at the end. Though according to Oscar Wilde, why it is called fiction is because the good characters end up happily and the bad unhappily. I fear some authors did not get the memo on that.

[intertext]

Of course, there's always "Well, I'm back." Which does rather sum it up.

[pameladean]

There's a whole class of books for which I CANNOT remember the ending. It's typified by John Crowley's Little, Big. I do remember the ending now, but for the first ten or twelve rereads, I would understand it perfectly well while reading and then promptly forget it.

P.

[naryrising]

OH, the ending to Little, Big is my favourite part! I was so disappointed when I finally got my former F/SF book group to read it, and then when we got to the discussion no one (but me) had actually made it through to the ending :(

[wordweaverlynn]

The last scene and last line of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove are just brilliant in context.

"That whore. They say he missed that whore."

Incidentally, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's beautiful anyway, and it says essential things about America.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I'm still grappling with that bit near the end in The Secret Scripture. I was nearly shouting at the page, "You bastard, Sebastian!"

[green_knight]

A good ending ties up the story questions that were asked in the beginning - the naive character has acquired lifeskills, the person shunned by their birth family has found a new family, that sort of thing - not necessarily the plot. A good ending gives closure - I don't mind bittersweet (though I'm not keen on everybody dies).

If a story is 'spoilt' once you know what happens (I still prefer to discover it myself first time round) then it's a story that relies heavily on a gimmick, and I won't like it anyway. A re-read of a whodunnit means that I'm paying more attention to clues, spot whether I could have worked it out etc, and in other genres, watching the story unfold is much of the pleasure for me.

Memorable moments tend to be elsewhere in the stories - often that realisation that something is not what it seemed, that it has changed, that the problem is more complex than expected.