Comments on: James Wood and Why the Endings of Great Novels Disappoint

By: Nigel Beale

Nigel Beale — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 04:23:03 +0000

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said disappointing…abrupt would be a better word, especially in C&P. I didn’t object to the Christian proselytizing, just to the way the reader is hustled and shoved out the door. Similar problem with The Red and the Black. Both searing great novels, with honkin great flaws at the end.

By: AndrewK

AndrewK — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 02:57:49 +0000

Though as far as fiction mirroring, or indeed being a parallel universe to our life, apart from death, when could we possibly say our life ever really reached an ending. I don’t think it possible to have ended Brothers Karamazov in a way that could be considered satisfactory, apart from going on for a few thousand more pages. Its very scale means any closure is impossible- scale in its philosophical sense as well as simply scale of characters and events.
I also disagree somewhat with Crime & Punishment’s disappointing ending, though it is common to consider it should have ended with Raskolnikov’s confession. I find it an impressive, & such differently toned, unveiling of the life that Raskolnikov had potentialised for himself, through his opening the crack towards submission to truth. And this of the essence of Dostoevsky vision of life, and in no sense offering a fake silver lining.
Perhaps the problem is in ourselves if we are trying to get the novel to do too much; Nietzsche said something like "I am a railing over the stream, I am not however your crutch."

By: Nigel Beale

Nigel Beale — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:56:07 +0000

And in Amis’s Time’s Arrow time runs backwards…and then there are those serialized Victorian novels that are filled with mini-endings throughout: the to-be-continued cliff hangers.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:39:17 +0000

I recall reading somewhere that Russell Banks starts with the ending in mind, maybe that’s not a bad approach. ("Continental Drift" is a particular example where everything in the novel builds towards the ending).

By: Nigel Beale

Nigel Beale — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:13:59 +0000

Some books with ’satisfactory’ endings do come to mind, Don Quixote for example, Pride and Prejudice perhaps. I found the ending to J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace quite elegant. Forster’s death and marriage are most often used to satisfy Frank Kermode’s human desire to impose order…create a sense of an ending. Readers and writers most often accept that these form driven endings will have to do. But they’re pat. Boring. Predictable. Alternatively we’re left hanging with open ended conclusions…equally dissatisfying. I think it’s natural not to want a book that you’re engaged with to end. As you say, the only consolation is that there are in most cases more books by the same author that you can jump back into.

By: Jim Murdoch

Jim Murdoch — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:19:04 +0000

Maybe I’m reading the right books because the only way endings disappoint me is that they let me know there’s going to be more. Sometimes they can be a blessing for the selfsame reason.I really hate sweeping statements like that. I’m not saying that endings are the easiest things to write (I mean, when is a good stopping point?) but let’s not generalise, eh?