let's talk about endings

Considering that summer has only been 3 weeks long so far, I’ve finished quite a few books: Pygmalion, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Wives & Daughters, The Great Divorce, and 1984*. And I would just like to ask—Seriously guys, what do you have against nice endings? I’m not counting The Great Divorce because that was written by the Infallible C. S. Lewis (kidding, he’s not actually perfect, just close), but other than that, these books have terrible endings, and I would like to complain.

Pygmalion

Dear Liza learns how to speak and wins over everybody at the Embassy Ball. Aw, yay! …but that happens offstage, halfway through the play. The rest of the time is spent detailing Eliza’s angst and Higgins’ social and emotional incompetence. The very last scene reveals that Eliza is the golden pin holding Higgins’ life together, that Higgins believes with his whole heart that she is coming back, but that Eliza is, as Higgins says, ‘going to marry Freddy! Ha ha! Freddy! Freddy! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!’ as Eliza and Mrs. Higgins sweep out the door on their way to church.

This being an utterly unsatisfying ending, George Bernard Shaw gives us a Sequel… which is even worse. He warns us,

The rest of the story need not be shewn in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ to misfit all stories.

Don’t insult my imagination! I like it just fine, and I don’t think that the fact I want closure is indicative of a decrepit, sickly imagination. But anyway, Eliza marries Freddy, Higgins never learns to appreciate her apart from her usefulness in small household tasks, and basically everything would have exploded except for the fact that Pickering lends the unhappy couple basically-unlimited money. I just don’t like it. I want the girl whose character I’ve been watching develop the whole book to actually have a developed character and make wise choices, darn it! Higgins also falls off of my Role Model list for his inability to ever love his creation beyond her utility.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Spoiler… Mrs. BEF’s lawyer is the kids’ uncle, and so they all get sent home early without a chance to live in any more museums. Lame. Okay, it’s not an awful ending, but I sort of didn’t want there to be an ending.

Wives & Daughters

The author died before she wrote the ending. I am certain it would have been just as saccharine, vicariously pleasing, cathartic, etc. as I secretly wanted if she had lived to write it. But whereas in The Mixed-up Files I didn’t want there to be an ending, in this one I definitely did. As it does end, the protagonist’s love interest has expressed interest to her father (but not ever explicitly to her) and is somewhere in southern Africa doing scientific research (likely to be killed by some wild animal). That’s not annoying at all.

1984

As my dear roommate once said of the ending, ‘One of the greatest acts of self-restraint in my life (and no, this is not an exaggeration) was not screaming and throwing the book across the room.’ I want the triumph of humanity! I want the conquest of the life-full spirit! I want the victory of will! And not the victory recorded here.

It was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

That’s the worst thing I’ve ever read (except maybe Native Son, but we won’t talk about that). I don’t want to hear about how happy you are that you finally succumbed to brainwashing. I have struggled with you all of these 250 pages to beat the brainwashing. When you cut out and go about your own business being indoctrinated without involving me at all, I’m probably not going to be indoctrinated, and I’m going to be quite separate form your end state. Last time I was aware/part of a struggle, it was the struggle for freedom and truth. Unless that’s the struggle you win at the end of the book, while you may win, I feel like I’ve lost. And frankly, I’m not happy about that. I hate losing. It makes me want to scream and throw the book across the room.

What I want in an ending

I want closure… a story line that has concluded to a resolution of the main conflict of the story.

I do not want resolutions to everything… a requirement that the author kill off all of the characters.

I want hope… the expectant chance for life and growth even after the last page.

I do not want ambiguity… the uncertainty or even doubt of whether or not there will be anything good at all after the last page.

I want to use my imagination, but I want it to be more like the stretches my mother does than the stretches contortionists do. It’s got to be reasonable, and reasonably happy.

Or y’all could just keep doing what you do and writing annoying, half-baked, unhappy endings that make me feel like I lost. That’s okay too.

*And, since I wrote this, I have also finished A Tale of Two Cities. But that deserves, like, 3 posts of its own.