Groucho reading.
Thanks to Kaye Barley for the Sisterhood Award. Because I can't bear to choose, (and in effect-not choose), I will thank all of the bloggers on the left column. I check out each and every blog there almost every day. So brothers or sisters, I value your voice.
Sweet Endings
How important are endings to you? My husband will fidget his way through a book or movie and then declare it great if the ending pleased him. I am more forgiving of a less than stellar ending if the characters and atmosphere win me over.
Often the ending is telegraphed inadvertently and I can't get too upset about that either. I guess endings are more important in genre writing than in literary stories. The puzzle ironic lack of justice that makes it work.
But since I find endings very hard to execute (much like the landing from a balance beam), I'm happy to forgive less than perfect ones. If the book or movie is going to lose me, it happens way before then.
28 comments:
On endings: for me, an ending is just a part of the book. It can't save a book I was slogging through and it can't ruin a book I've been loving.
When I'm lost in a book I often dread the ending because I know it's back to reality then.
Endings are hard... they can ruin a story or at least lessen the impact... there is always the danger that the ending isn't going to pay off and the reader (or watcher in the case of film and TV) are going to feel like they invested their time and energy for something that doesn't work.... the last story that I submitted for a website was rejected in part because the editor felt the ending fell flat. I couldn't disagree and haven't figured out how to make it work yet.
I'm not sure endings are more important in one kind of fiction than another...though they are more important the more the work in question is narrative-driven. But as Chairman Algis used to tell his writing students, the manuscript is not the story...even in narrative-driven "genre" fiction, it's what you suggest.
For an example of a film, at least, where the ending rescued it from being pretty loathesome to me, I nominate PONETTE. (It seemed like it invited us to laugh at the mockery of a recently-orphaned child up till that time.)
Mickey Spillane used to write his final chapter first. "That way, I always know where the story is going," Spillane explained. If I were writing a novel, that's what I would do, too.
I agree with Barrie when it comes to books. An ending can really only make me love/hate a story a little less but won't change my overall opinion.
Now an ending to a movie is the complete opposite. I can love the first 2/3rds of a movie, but a bad ending can absolutely ruin it for me.
Wow, the end first. I'd like to try that. Maybe I wouldn't worry about it so.
I do dread the endings in books I like. Afraid to let go of it and afraid it will ruin it.
Flat endings are a real problem in a crime short story. Or horror, I imagine. You have to have a final punch which sometimes feels like O'Henry. I've never seen Ponette. Put that on my netflix list.
Jacob-But can a good ending save it?
Even in horror, the ending is not all. Brilliant examples: CONJURE WIFE by Fritz Leiber, "Running Wolf" by Algernon Blackwood. They knock the wind out of you toward the middle, then let you decompress.
Spillane also said, and i paraphrase: The first chapter sells the current book and the last chapter sells the next one. So, Spillane clearly recognized the need for starting strong and finishing strong. In my reading taste, i think i can divide books (and short stories) into two categories, those stories about the journey, and those about the destination. And yes, some have both. I recently read Irene Nemirovsky's wonderful book, Fire in the Blood. The ending was a bit of a fade, but the story and what it said was mesmerizing.
On the classic 1-5 scale, I'd say the ending can change my evaluation of a book or movie by one, either way, unless it's really bad, or a cheat. It can take the edge off of a good book or movie, but it won't ruin it.
Short stories are different. The endings are much more important to me, probably because I haven't had a chance to spend a lot of time in the world created by the writer. I'm more aware I'm reading a story, not transported elsewhere, so if the ending is a disappointment, so is the story. On the other hand, if the ending is a pleasant surprise, then the story probably is, too.
I don't mind flat endings with books, if the prose or the story overall was worth it. I will not stand for it in a movie. That doesn't mean for me that a film should end in an orgy of explosions, one topping the next. It just means that I want an ending that makes sense and that has a decent payoff.
For me its mixed. Some books are meant just for the journey and can be enjoyed as such, but I think for a book to be truly memorable it needs a strong ending. A formulaic forced twist ending, though, and can really leave a bad taste in my mouth--like having the hero suspect the person he should second least suspect, then confiding his suspicions to the person he should least suspect--only to have that person turn out to be the demented killer--something like that will put me off on the author forever (brownie points to the person who can guess the bestseller that used the above example).
Pattie--when are you going to have a picture of Geroge W. reading??
Patti, about whether the ending can save a book, yeah, I think it can as long as you can reach the end.I read a noir book a few years back where the book was almost paint-by-the-numbers noir, really mediocre, but the ending was brilliant, and that saved the book for me--but usually I would've tossed that book long before I reached the ending.
If it's mediocre I don't get to the end. I feel no compunction to finish a book. Not sure if I did in my 20s and 30s or not.
The ending saved SHUTTER ISLAND for me. I wouldn't have finished it if someone hadn't said it was brilliant. I would go with a strong middle being pretty important. Of course, books can be set aside at any point. Even on page one if the subject matter seems dull-for instance set in the financial or medical world. Both scare me. How many pages do you give a book if you have no idea about its quality or interest for you personally?
Dave-Do you mean George W Bush? I think I had one with him reading to schoolkids-I'll find another if one exists. You know what's hard--to find pictures of musicians reading.
I don't give a book any set number of pages. At some point I'm either hooked, or I run out of steam.
I found the ending to Shutter Island incredibly contrived. There's no way a hospital would jump through the hoops that this one did for a dangerous patient. I'm not a fan, never finished any of his PI books that I tried picking up, although this one kept me somewhat engaged, (even with that stupid, cutesy code) but a quarter of the way through I was afraid it would end the way it did. I think what kept me reading more than anything else was a reviewer favorably comparing Fast Lane to it.
I guess I was primed to like it. It's the pages before it I found boring. I like a short book. Under 250 pages and I probably will stick it out. Over 350 and I won't even pick it up--unless my book group picks it-Reading the Book Thief at 700 pages and a kid's book at that. Sigh.
I agree with you Patti on page count. For my taste, too many contemporary mystery and crime writers think they're writing the great American literary novel, and their output weighs in at a blotted page count. There is something (many actually) to be said for the books of the 40s - 60s that came in under 200 pages and told a story straight forward like a rifle shot. No side issues, no relatives in and out the door, no side bars. Just a single story told well.
A degree or three off topic [again]--I enjoyed the movie No Country For Old Men,even though the ending wasn't particularly satisfying I didn't feel cheated.
John McAuley
Yes, it was an odd ending, wasn't it, but the movie was good enough almost no ending could hurt it (IMHO).
It all comes down to expectations for me. If I'm expecting happy and get sad then it's a bad book. If I've been reading a thriller then I need a thrilling ending.
My latest experience was reading THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY for the first time last week. The book had been so clever that I expected a clever ending and was disappointed when it ended rather abruptly in a mundane manner. This at first left me embittered toward Oscar Wilde, but a week has passed and my feelings toward the book have since softened (somewhat).
I've never read Dorian. Seen the movie but I don't remember the ending. I'll check it out.
For me I like the wrap up to be the last pitch from left field, the unexpected result of what has occurred previously.
And now I've just finished an example of what I was talking about, "Lemons Never Lie" by Donald E. Westlake (penned as Richard Stark) and the ending went flat as souffle' cooked at a bowling alley. I still, enjoyed the prose, the care Donald put into the logistics of the crime and the noir elements.
Or the other problem, when the ending might have worked had the author not telegraphed it. Sorry for the letdown.
An ending should have a nice feel that the reader has completed a successful journey.
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