You Ended That Wrong! (Will undoubtedly contain spoilers, so you've been warned)

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Okay. So last week I read Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey by Dan Rhodes. I was immediately entranced by his writing and quickly fell into the first half of the book, which could stand alone as a novella, easily. And that ended on somewhat of a downer, but there was also a hope in that although Timoleon has been abandoned, there is a man on the horizon who appears friendly and might offer the dog a new home. Then, the second half, with all of the vignettes (did I butcher that spelling?!) of the lives and the return of the true love being paralleled by Timoleon venturing closer. And than that horrile, violent, and completely indefensible ending. GRRR. I actually felt ill when I realized what the author had chosen to have happen and was unable to read that last page or two.

I know that the basic theory of story-telling is that it's all in the timing - for a comedy there are near-misses, but it all comes together and in tragedy there are misses upon misses that build toward the horror. I can buy that. And I can even understand why some authors might want to end their stories on a down note (Romeo and Juliet springs to mind as being a perfect example of timing misses that result in tragedy and why the playwrite chose to go with that story-line).

But I, for the life of me, cannot figure-out why Rhodes ended the book with such horror. I know that there'd been an overwhelming feeling of impending doom and the building storm and that violence was inevitable. But to direct it in that way? And after he'd come that far as a simple creature who only knew that he needed to be home? I could almost see the Bosnian harming/murdering the old man, and that would have been upsetting but not inappropriate. The violent murder of Timoleon Vieta was completely unacceptable to me, though. It seemed, well, out-of place.

So I am missing something here? Am I just too much of a sucker for critters? Is the author just a jerk? Was that ending inevitable and I just didn't want to see it?

And just how does one reconcile feelings about a text when everything is grand up to the conclusion?

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Saturday, 8 May 2004 08:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Stephen King went on for another hundred pages after "Pet Semetary" should have ended (he does this often, I think) and there was a hundred pages of gratutious blood and gore that contributed nothing, absolutely nothing, more to the story. For those of you familiar with the book, I think it should have ended with the guy sitting on the kitchen floor after having gone to the cemetery to dig up his son. While he sits there in his state of fear and agitation and sweat and dirt, the boy Gage returns, puts his hand on the guys shoulder, and says, "Daddy." The End.

You already KNOW what is coming from the previous dead cat, dead soldier, etc. All the rest is just blood and gore and words. It's hard to know when it's The End.

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 8 May 2004 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

The old testament.

After the couple leaves the garden of Eden, everything else is just replays of the nightly news. :o)

― Pat Sheehan (Pat Sheehan), Sunday, 9 May 2004 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

*laughing* Okay, okay.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 10 May 2004 05:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Kind of like my response to Cold Mountain. I liked the book until the last chapter or two. Ruby and whatsherface should have been lesbian lovers. Then suddenly Ruby's got a guy. And the whole making love as he slowly dies, impregnating whatshername so she'll always have something to remember him by... Jesus Christ. It was like some hack took over the writing.

― Jessa (Jessa), Monday, 10 May 2004 13:24 (twenty-one years ago)

*laughing* I agree whole-heartedly, Jessa. That ending was completely absurd (and the women should have been lovers!).

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 13 May 2004 04:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I could've done without the last chapters of "The Corrections" ...I wonder if I'm about to get a dressing down. I loved the rest of it.

― aimurchie, Thursday, 13 May 2004 10:31 (twenty-one years ago)

every Ian McEwan book to thread...

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I'd best throw DeLillo's Underworld on this list - I think that the darn epilogue destroyed the basic brilliance of much of the rest of the work.

But now we talk of being "DeLillo'd" when anything ends wrong, from movies to books to meals.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Friday, 14 May 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

So we can all use 'DeLlilo'd"? I'm so excited. "I wanted to read that book, but I got DeLlilo'd on the way."
"How are you today?" "Well, I'm a bit DeLlilo'd, but otherwise I'm fine!"

― aimurchie, Friday, 14 May 2004 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Murakami's endings usually disappoint me. I agree with Ian McEwan too. Aside from Black Dogs. I liked that ending.

Tim Buckley's final few albums disappoint too. Ooops, mixing medias.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:49 (twenty-one years ago)

You will never be DeLlo'ed if you listen to Aerosmith.

― aimurchie, Friday, 14 May 2004 10:22 (twenty-one years ago)

You will never be DeLilo'ed if you listen to Aerosmith.

― aimurchie, Friday, 14 May 2004 10:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't be arsed with any more DeLiloing. many apologies. Arsed is my favorite verb right now.

― aimurchie, Friday, 14 May 2004 10:25 (twenty-one years ago)

You got it, Alison! Perfect use of the phrase - please use it often so it can move into the modern vernacular. (Wow, according to Dictionary.com one can use "vernacular" in the following manner: A vernacular disease.)

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Friday, 14 May 2004 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Penelope Fitzgerald's "The Bookshop" was going along so beautifully until the ending dropped me into a pit. I haven't read any more of her books, though I guess I should give her another chance.

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Friday, 14 May 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Oscar and Lucinda. Why oh why? There was no reason on earth why it couldn't have had a happy ever after ending. Would it have been so hard? Really?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 16 May 2004 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Carol, I just finished The Bookshop and was gonna post that here!!!! So sad and depressing. I mean, I don't always need a happy ending, but jeez!!!! Part of me wanted the hollywood ending where the old rich shut-in who drops dead on the sidewalk ends up giving her all his money so that she could go travel the world and get away from all those people who wanted her to fail. Oh brother, it still bothers me. I also really liked the book up until the end. Especially with her leaving the town with her head down in shame. Oy.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 16 May 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

"(Wow, according to Dictionary.com one can use "vernacular" in the following manner: A vernacular disease.) "

*scratch scratch*

You alright?

Yeah, I think I've picked up a vernacular disease from ILB.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 17 May 2004 07:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Thought "The Quincunx" was shaping up as a fine Dickens/Collins/Hardy mix, despite a dry portion (the London underground), and was happily expecting a happy ending, a la "The Woman in White" or "Far from the Madding Crowd". Badly disappointed. It's been a while since I read it, but from what I remember, there was insufficient cause for the woman's committal to the asylum. The book was sticking so well to the conventions of its era, the ending struck me as a post-modern downer.

― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Monday, 17 May 2004 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

It seems to me that the kick-in-the-rear of a really bad ending is that one believes the ending will be upbeat--as in "The Bookshop," where there were several ways the plot could have gone. When I read "Jude the Obscure," the ending was depressing, but it wasn't unexpected. So it didn't disappoint me the way "Bookshop" did.

― Carol Robinson (carrobin), Friday, 21 May 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Wolfe seriously doesn't know how to end a novel. The endings of both Bonfire and Man in Full pissed me off so much that I sped through them and so hardly remember them, but in Bonfire there was some epilogue newspaper article that tied together the various plotlines, which felt like the sort of device a middle schooler might use. And in Man in Full, that earthquake! The single stupidest deus ex machina I have ever, ever read. In interviews Wolfe said that he based it on the real San Francisco earthquake, but pulling something from the headlines doesn't by any means guarantee that it will seem plausible in a novel.

― David Elinsky (David Elinsky), Sunday, 23 May 2004 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Does anyone know The Dream Room by Marcel Moring? I read it last night and it's this lovely novella about a boy who loves cooking and his witnessing of his parents deteriorating relationship. The second to last chapter ends with he and his father discovering the mother w/her lover (the boy's cooking influence and father's good friend). And it's this wonderful image. But the next chapter suddenly jumps 20 years later w/the boy telling a fairy tale to a bunch of kids, he's abandoned his passion, but then we're supposed to believe it's ok b/c he's found the love of his life! ARG! I've never been so pissed off. Has anyone noticed this is becoming a cheap sort of ending? The last chapter seems almost unrelated to prior events but the protagonist finds love and it's all...okay. ahh. I felt like that a bit with Middlesex too.....

bye

― PeanutDuck (PeanutDuck), Sunday, 23 May 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

The entire third section of the Poisonwood Bible. It ruined the book. And in fact, it spoiled it retrospectively. It was so terrible you started reflecting on the rest of the book and realising, omg, I've just been sucked into a very bad book.

― Caro, Monday, 24 May 2004 00:58 (twenty-one years ago)

what did you dislike particularly about the third section of the poisonwood bible? i loved the book but found myself thinking at the end that all the characters had become two-dimensional, much unlike their former selves. especially the oldest daughter: when she was a child she had insight despite being such a primadonna but by the end she was all idiocy & all bad. i think it should have ended with the mother whisking the then youngest away from africa (was that in the third section?), all of them still children.

― j c (j c), Monday, 24 May 2004 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Poisonwood Bible. That had a terrible ending. It was so odd that everything got wrapped up in a big bow. It infuriated me when I read it.

― Jessa (Jessa), Monday, 24 May 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Year of Wonders. I have been to Edam, that little English plague town, and was pretty taken with the story until, duh, main character survives plague and runs off to Morocco to become an educated concubine? Not so much.

― oatbox, Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

The Bone People-Keri Hulme. Fascinating book until she cures herself of cancer and three self-destructive people all walk off together into the New Zealand sunset as a family. My entire class wanted to pretend it never happened.

― Jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 12:50 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.