The Importance of Endings

I read almost the whole of Tale of two Cities without liking it as much as the other Dickens novels I'd read. The characters especially, with the exception of the Defarges, were supremely uninteresting. Then I came to the last pages and I already knew the plot, so was waiting with resignation for Sydney Carton's supreme sacrifice - and then he started his speech, and I was blown away! I felt I'd never read anything so moving in my life.

A similar thing happened with Tess of the Durbervilles. I found the characters and the idiotic things they did so annoying that I was ready to say I hated the book, but the end was wonderful. It seemed to elevate and beautify the whole book.

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Originally Posted by MystyrMystyry

^The one more chapter situation!

Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange had a movie version published which dropped the last chapter (though it included a glossary of the language)

But I found a copy of the original, and although it was sloppy, it tied up the loose ends

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I think them dropping the last chapter for the American version totally killed the point they were trying to make, wouldn't you agree? The American version simply seems to glorify violence and anarchy (which the author wasn't too happy about after the book became popular) and readers often seem to miss the point that the book addresses that you cannot mechanically force an individual to change, but they must undergo this change on their own. Without the ending, most people I know think it's just about defying "the man," which just makes me facepalm in frustration.

An ending to a story is essential as was said. It can make an average book good, a good book average or in the case of 1984 a great book even better. I read that thinking the whole time, "wow this is good, very clever." Then came the final 100 pages and I will never forget that ending.

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Originally Posted by DanteAlexander

I think them dropping the last chapter for the American version totally killed the point they were trying to make, wouldn't you agree? The American version simply seems to glorify violence and anarchy (which the author wasn't too happy about after the book became popular) and readers often seem to miss the point that the book addresses that you cannot mechanically force an individual to change, but they must undergo this change on their own. Without the ending, most people I know think it's just about defying "the man," which just makes me facepalm in frustration.

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I must agree completely. To be quite honest that was the only part of the book that I enjoyed, the rest of it was hellish with the slang and the rest of the events seemed somewhat pointless without it.

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Originally Posted by Big Dante

An ending to a story is essential as was said. It can make an average book good, a good book average or in the case of 1984 a great book even better. I read that thinking the whole time, "wow this is good, very clever." Then came the final 100 pages and I will never forget that ending.

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That was my first 'intellectual' novel and it was remarkable in the way that it just kept you going until the last word. You just don't see it coming, even after you've finished the novel your mind is still trying cope with the fact that you were wrong all along and there is no hope.

Hands down best ending goes to Steinbeck for Grapes of Wrath. Poignant, elegant and relavent. Worst goes to Ian McEwan for atonement. We all saw it coming, found the whole book frustrating and groaned at the cliched briony wrote it wooooooooo. Very unimpressed.

'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho has an enigmatic ending ever.

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Originally Posted by mona amon

A similar thing happened with Tess of the Durbervilles. I found the characters and the idiotic things they did so annoying that I was ready to say I hated the book, but the end was wonderful. It seemed to elevate and beautify the whole book.

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My experience was different. I liked most of the story but loathed the ending.

I was annoyed with the end of Captain Correlli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres. The way I saw it, the story was essentially over with the end of the war. He could have given it a happy ending with Correlli coming back and marrying his sweetheart, but that would have been weak, and pat and boring. He could have given it a sad ending with Correlli not having survived the war, or perhaps falling in love with another woman, but that would have been unbearably sad. So he gave it a semi-sad ending in which, because of some misunderstanding, neither of the lovers marry and only meet up decades later when they're both old. He should have just given it the weak, but happy ending IMO.

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Originally Posted by JamesRhodes

G K Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday ends with the protagonist waking up to find it has all been a dream (or that God did it, depending on your interpretation). It wouldn't have been so bad if the rest of the novel wasn't so completely brilliant.

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James I admire for being able to read the book. Too councily and anrachist for me. it very much reminds me of George Orwell type of books.
I guess the name Sunday in there just did my head in.
I find unsettling when proper names become people's namez . When someone call themselves Paris or Jordan or even the Sun when they are primarily proper names. It just takes away that incentive to what to read anymore.

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Originally Posted by kev67

My experience was different. I liked most of the story but loathed the ending.

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It wasn't the actual events that happened in the end that did it for me. It was the way it was written. There were other parts, for instance Angel carrying Tess in his sleep, which were really beautiful, but I just couldn't get around the fact that he was behaving like a jerk. But the end was written so well, and I didn't fault Tess for what she did, and Angel was no longer a jerk, and it all became beautiful and tragic and sublime. :)

SPOILER***

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Originally Posted by mona amon

But the end was written so well, and I didn't fault Tess for what she did, and Angel was no longer a jerk, and it all became beautiful and tragic and sublime. :)

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I'm afraid I did blame Tess. The previous book I read was Great Expectations, in which Pip behaved badly through most of the book, but when his world crumbled behaved as well as anyone could be expected to. When Tess's world crumbled, she behaved very badly, for a person she must have known was not worth it. It was not just that. Tess had given up her simple Christian faith for Angel, so the implication was that she did not just die, but that her ultimate fate was either damnation or oblivion. I thought that was rather sick.

I read that Thomas Hardy said that had Tess lived, Angel would have started to blame her in time, as Tess seemed to think. So, it may not be true Angel was no longer a jerk.