End logic

Of all the books you have read, what are your favorite endings?

I’ve been thinking about endings ever since Tam wrote about it (scroll down to June 29, but along the way, don’t miss yesterday’s post on method, or the July 1st post on discipline). Tam’s bottom line:

Main storyline’s finished? Major support threads dealt with? Fine, you bastard, you’re OVER!!

Leave it to Tam to end her books with a bloody ax 😉 Anyway, I began wondering whether I could find any common themes among books I consider well-written. In the examples which follow, I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but I ain’t making any promises. I’m hoping you’ll think of your favorite endings and share some ideas with me in the comments. I’m especially interested in you mass devourers of romance. When all of the novels end in an HEA, what constitutes a good ending versus a bad ending?

On to the examples.

1. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness uses closure by return to great effect. Conrad begins and ends with an image of the Thames. Although the opening is mostly descriptive (mostly, but not entirely; I see foreshadowing in the sentence, “The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth”), the ending is far more resonant than descriptive. We’re back where we started, but now the darkness carries a heavy symbolic load.

2. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

As much as I love Gatsby (or once loved it — I haven’t reread it in over ten years), the ending is not its strong suit. Fitzgerald became heavy-handed and chose to drum home his death-of-the-dream theme. What was it Shakespeare said about repeating it three times for the groundlings?

3. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Trust me, I’m not a Faulkner fanboy, but the ending to As I Lay Dying rocks. This is the ultimate road trip from hell, the original voyage of the damned. The Bundren family schleps across Mississippi to put their dead matriarch, Addie, into the ground. (Let’s just say she was very particular where she wanted to be lain to rest.) As I Lay Dying is told from the points of view of each of the Bundrens, which generates a number of plot questions. In the ending, Faulkner puts Addie into the ground and wraps up each and every plot question in ways which vary from tragic to darkly comic. There’s no blather, as at the end of Gatsby. Faulkner makes his point in pure-show/no-tell fashion and gets the hell out of the way. I’m sure Tam would be pleased with this one.

4. The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain

If you’ve seen the movie, you know how this one ends. The book ends on a potent bittersweet note. Frank holds on to his love for Cora until the bitter end. This is the dark side of romance’s HEA:

(spoiler)

Here they come. Father McConnell says prayers help. If you’ve got this far, send up one for me, and Cora, and make it that we’re together, wherever it is.

*sniff*

5. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

Chandler’s novels aren’t about the mystery; they’re about Philip Marlowe. The major story arc concerns the gradual decimation of Marlowe’s knightly code of honor. He never entirely loses that sense of honor, but as we progress from one book to the next, we see how hopeless and antiquated it is to cling to such a code in a dishonorable world.

Back to The Big Sleep. It’s all about Marlowe, and how he has changed:

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of that nastiness now.

There’s more, but you get the idea. I think this is one of the most effective ways of ending a novel: by underscoring the changes wrought in the protagonist. You wonder if he’ll ever be the same and you know in your heart that the answer is no.

We’ll close with one contemporary masterpiece.

6. Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

Gorky Park turns 25 this year, and some of that age shows. The Soviet Union no longer exists, but no matter — the Soviet Union of Gorky Park never existed. You don’t read Gorky Park to learn contemporary Russian social history, though. You read it for Arkady Renko.

Like Philip Marlowe, Renko is a man with a code of honor. The ending of Gorky Park provides an interesting counterpoint to The Big Sleep, because it closes on such a hopeful image of freedom. Has Renko changed? By the novel’s end, he certainly understands himself better, is less frigid and more human. For a hardboiled thriller, this is about as close as you’ll ever get to an HEA.

Your turn.  That question again: what makes a good ending good?
D.