which story has according to you the best ending ever?
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which story has according to you the best ending ever?
With out a doubt The Aluminum Man by G. C Edmondson
I am not into science fiction but what makes you think this has the best ending ever?Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Science fiction has nothing to do with it; it is idealistic utopian literature. The ending was about the best that could have been possible. What better ending is possible without you being in that ending?Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
utopian as in perfection and perfection is not without its price tag there is nothing more utopian then a human being itself but that is another subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
the point of science is that it veers away from the norms and seeks out perfections from another realm/planet but one must not forget that a human is the basis of any utopian ideas and without it there is no ideals and that is the bottom line.
what better ending? well an ending that draws me in because it tells me something about me I did not know before is what I call perfect ending because it managed to see something in me I did not. a book that reads me well is in my views a good book.
there is nothing more concerning then telling someone what you make of them and why. we know how self centred humans are tell them something about them they did not know or like and they are yours for the taking. the truth is an ending that does not involve me in any way shape of form has forgotten me and therefore is not all that interesting to me. :)
however what did grab you in this book's ending? has it achieved what it sets out to achieve? is utopia without a true human?
I have a few nominations (although I can't pick one). When I was a child, I thought "The Jungle Books" had the saddest ending (particularly the last line) of any book. Here's how Kipling gets it done:
In "Fathers and Sons" Turgenev sums up the book in one paragraph, filled with autumnal longing and springtime hopefulness:Quote:
"It is hard to cast the skin," said Kaa as Mowgli sobbed and
sobbed, with his head on the blind bear's side and his arms
round his neck, while Baloo tried feebly to lick his feet.
"The stars are thin," said Gray Brother, snuffing at the dawn
wind. "Where shall we lair to-day? for from now, we follow
new trails."
......
And this is the last of the Mowgli stories.
I'll nominate Joyce twice: once for the justly famous ending of "The Dead", and again for "Ulysses", the last sentence of which is too long to quote here.Quote:
There is a small village graveyard in one of the remote corners of Russia. Like almost all our graveyards, it has a melancholy look; the ditches surrounding it have long been overgrown; grey wooden crosses have fallen askew and rotted under their once painted gables; the gravestones are all out of position, just as if someone had pushed them from below; two or three bare trees hardly provide some meager shade; the sheep wander unchecked among the tombs . . .
But among them is one grave untouched by human beings and not trampled on by any animal; only the birds perch on it and sing at daybreak. An iron railing surrounds it and two young fir trees have been planted there, one at each end; Evgeny Bazarov is buried in this tomb. Often from the near-by village two frail old people come to visit it--a husband and wife. Supporting one another, they walk with heavy steps; they go up to the iron railing, fall on their knees and weep long and bitterly, and gaze intently at the silent stone under which their son lies buried; they exchange a few words, wipe away the dust from the stone or tidy up some branches of a fir tree, then start to pray again and cannot tear themselves away from that place where they seem to be nearer to their son, to their memories of him . . .
Can it be that their prayers and their tears are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred devoted love, is not all powerful? Oh, no! However passionate, sinful or rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes; they tell us not only of eternal peace, of that great peace of "indifferent" nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.
Quote:
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Some more personal favorites:Quote:
....and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
The end of "Middlemarch" -- excluding, of course, the "Finale", which is more of an epilogue. I'm talking about the scene where Mr. Garth tells Mary that Fred will run his Aunt's property, so that the couple can get married. Who cares about silly Dorothea, as long as Fred and Mary are happy?!
The end of "The Worm Ouroboros" by E.R. Edison. OK. It's genre fiction. Great ending anyway.
Here's the end of "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (and ending that was eschewed in the horrendous Disney movie):
I'm sure I'll think of some more.Quote:
As for the mysterious disappearance of Quasimodo, this is all that we have been able to discover.
About eighteen months or two years after the events which terminate this story, when search was made in that cavern for the body of Olivier le Daim, who had been hanged two days previously, and to whom Charles VIII. had granted the favor of being buried in Saint Laurent, in better company, they found among all those hideous carcasses two skeletons, one of which held the other in its embrace. One of these skeletons, which was that of a woman, still had a few strips of a garment which had once been white, and around her neck was to be seen a string of adrézarach beads with a little silk bag ornamented with green glass, which was open and empty. These objects were of so little value that the executioner had probably not cared for them. The other, which held this one in a close embrace, was the skeleton of a man. It was noticed that his spinal column was crooked, his head seated on his shoulder blades, and that one leg was shorter than the other. Moreover, there was no fracture of the vertebrae at the nape of the neck, and it was evident that he had not been hanged. Hence, the man to whom it had belonged had come thither and had died there. When they tried to detach the skeleton which he held in his embrace, he fell to dust.
Utopian in the original sense, from the Ancient Greek for "No Place", which is why I referred to it as "idealistic.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
You should read it. If that's what you expect from a novel, then you won't be disappointed.Quote:
what better ending? well an ending that draws me in because it tells me something about me I did not know before is what I call perfect ending because it managed to see something in me I did not. a book that reads me well is in my views a good book.
there is nothing more concerning then telling someone what you make of them and why. we know how self centred humans are tell them something about them they did not know or like and they are yours for the taking. the truth is an ending that does not involve me in any way shape of form has forgotten me and therefore is not all that interesting to me. :)
however what did grab you in this book's ending? has it achieved what it sets out to achieve? is utopia without a true human?
My favorite is Grapes of Wrath when Rosasharn is breast-feeding that man in the barn.
The ending of Farewell to Arms was very powerful. I was like Cooper's character from Silver Lining's Playbook. That ending hurt my soul.
Here are three instantly recognizable and justly famous novel endings, although, unlike the endings I quoted earlier, they qualify more as great closing lines than as "great endings":
Quote:
I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I
wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.
But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead
of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt
me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there
before.
Quote:
Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!"
Quote:
I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: on middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonised by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
I don't know about ever, but I thought Breakfast at Tiffany's had a good ending. I thought The Jungle Books had a good ending too.
This!Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
I really liked the ending of A Tale of Two Cities, though the very last line is one of the more famous:
Quote:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
Eww! :ack2: For me it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever read in my life. I felt a complete lack of empathy for this guilt-jerking novel from beginning to end, and the only ending that would have pleased me is if they'd all dropped dead. And that whining, rather selfish girl (Rose of Sharon) turning suddenly into a shining example of charity (Roman Charity! :sick:)...Eww all over again.Quote:
Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*
I'd say Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was not just a book reading experience, it was altogether an attitude changing feel. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There are lots of books in literature with good endings. I think Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre have perfect endings. I also liked the way East of Eden and The Great Gatsby end they are very tragic though.
Although it's a long time since I read East of Eden, I found it a very tedious read and don't remember the ending. The last lines of The Great Gatsby are, in my view, among the greatest ever written.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowqueen
Great endings to novels stay in the mind and among those I can't forget are the final paragraphs to Maupassant's 'Bel Ami' and 'Une Vie'. The ending to Émile Zola's 'La Bête Humaine' is quite simply the epitome of great writing. Two men, the driver and the stoker of a steam train, who are bitter enemies, are taking a troop train to the front in the Franco Prussian war of 1870. The stoker keeps piling coal into the train's furnace in the face of the driver's objections that the train is going much to fast, which in turn leads to a death struggle as the two men fight and fall from the train, leaving it to its own volition as it speeds through signals and stations causing death and destruction on its wayward journey.
I translate the final lines as:
'So what if the machine crushed its victims en route! Wasn't it heading for a future careless of the blood expended? Without a driver, in the darkness, like a blind and insensible beast that has been unleashed amidst death, it rolled and rolled, full of that cannon fodder, of those soldiers, already stupefied with fatigue, drunk and singing.'
Well I think she kind of had an excuse for being "whiny," during the Great Depression, as a pregnant teenage girl who was recently abandoned by the father of her baby. It's not supposed to make you feel guilty, it's supposed to make you aware of empathy-prompted social responsibility and the strength and value of human interconnection. If it makes some people feel guilty, then that really does more to highlight what kind of people they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
I'm not complaining about her whining. What I didn't get was the way she suddenly turned into this saint of charity right out of the blue. Anyway, I didn't mean to offend people who did feel the empathy that I just could not feel. That was only my personal, highly subjective response to that particular scene, and the book as a whole.
I really think that it was the death of her child that made her realize her own insignificance. She whined because she didn't like her life, and when the child died, she realized that in the grand scheme of things, her life really didn't count for much. When she encountered that man in the barn, she demonstrated that she had outgrown that selfishness and that she recognized that other people have it worse off, and that she can play a role in making their lives better. That's my simplified interpretation anyway :) I found the scene devastating. I had the opportunity to see a live performance of a stage adaptation last year. I have never heard a whole theatre so silent.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
I'm not offended, I think I just tend to sound like I am.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
It was a rapid character change, but I think it can be explained by her stillbirth. The characters who were most altruistic were those who were hit hardest by the Depression, and those were callous were the ones who had lost the least (the Californians, shop owners, ect.). I think the point of the book is that the more you've lost and suffered, the more you're willing to give. Rose of Sharron had just lost her child. As a symbolic act it really tied the book together perfectly I think, the ultimate loss followed by an image of absolute altruism.
Henry James' Washington Square with Catherine, her father dead, having her embroidery, for life. Ibsen's Hedda Gabler with something of a nativity juxtaposed with an outrageous, if beautiful, suicide. Dostoevsky's The Gambler with an astonishing gamble in "love".
"Rose" by Martin Cruz Smith