I feel free to appropriate this title because, although it happens to be the title of Julian Barnes’ celebrated piece of literary fiction, he borrowed it from an older, and much wiser book by Frank Kermode: The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction.
Despite the title, Kermode’s book isn’t really about endings. It’s about how we deal with time in fiction, of how we sequence fictional space, of how stories take on certain spaces because of where we choose to start and finish our fictional tales.
One of the hallmarks of literary fiction is the way time is represented. It eschews definitive endings in favour of realism. Because if you ask someone to tell you the story of an event, you will notice that knowing where to begin and end are very problematic. Existentially, it really starts at the moment of self-consciousness and ends with death.
If I were to tell you a small story involving my altercation with a Laotian immigration officer, do I start in the line-up to get my passport stamped for entry? Or on the flight there? Or do I start by telling you why I decided to go to Laos in the first place? Now I have to ask myself the question: is this really just a story about an altercation at immigration, or is it something broader, deeper, wider than that? What did I go to Laos for? Why is it important to get in? Or perhaps this is actually about barriers and how we keep each other out of our respective ‘countries’?
It’s ironic that no critic every complained of too abrupt a beginning. It’s the endings we seem to feel more keenly. Perhaps this is because they are the last words we read and they stay with us. That happens in that last chapter seems to frame the entire story, tint it. Once read, it can never be unread.
Genre fiction has different conventions when it comes to endings. Some, like the Romance genre, have quite overtly proscribed endings. But in detective fiction, the reader can usually expect to have the murder or crime solved. In thrillers, one can be pretty confident that the bad guys will be stopped and brought to justice (or killed).
Hollywood and television drama have played a tremendous role in the kind of endings we define as a ‘good ending’. Over the years, our tastes have been recorded through ‘test audience’ surveys and focus groups. Then those tastes are reflected back to us over and over. It has resulted in an interesting progression in taste training. Recursive and diminishing returns until only one possible ending will ever be acceptable to a majority of viewers. The happy one. The one where everything turns out beautiful. The fairy-tale ending.
No one today would end Gone With The Wind the way it was ended. No one would end The Graduate the way it was ended.
And I’ll put money on it. If they remade the Titanic (I’m sure they will), Leo will live.
You think I’m exaggerating? Okay, let’s play a game.
I’m a market researcher helping to start a new food product.
What’s your very favorite food?
Excellent. We’re going to make that! Do you want it grilled, fried or poached?
The grilled and fried votes are kind of split down the middle.
Fine, we’re going to make both. You’ll get a choice!
Until it becomes clear that a slightly higher percentage of people like it grilled. Then we’ll discontinue the fried type.
Now, you’re going to eat grilled * everyday, because that’s what you said your favorite was.
Remember: food companies aren’t in the business of making food, they’re in the business of making money. Hollywood is spending $159 Million on a film, they aren’t going to take a change on an ending the majority of people don’t say is their favorite ending. They’re going to go for the one every one likes.
Always.
Forever.
Because they’re not in the business of entertaining you. They’re in the business of making money. And so are publishers. And, I’m sad to say, a lot of authors.
You’re going to get exactly what you want, exactly the way you like it… FOREVER.
And you deserve exactly what you get because
YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!!!!
The only other possibility is that you don’t really get an ending at all, because that way they can sell you a sequel.
God, we’ve turned the world to shit.
First thing I thought of when I finished reading… the changed ending for the 2007 version of “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith.
Theatrical release “happy ending”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQfzvVeEkGI
Original ending, and from what I understand much closer to the novel itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOWeyGX5Bgk
So we get a film where the bad guys all get killed, the hero becomes martyr, the survivors bring “the cure” to the rest of the world for an HEA ending…
Your Titanic example didn’t seem an exaggeration at all.
Rant alert!
The worst of it is how we have come to expect those same outcomes in our lives.
We’ve become completely unrealistic with our expectations simply because we’ve been bombarded with HEA from the moment we were plunked in front of the idiot box.
As an audience we have been reduced to subjects of market research.
Whats worse is we’ve become impatient too.
Remember simpler times, when we’d listen to the radio for hours , waiting for a favourite song to be played? Remember request lines? The anticipation and the absolute joy that would come as a result of waiting patiently and being rewarded!
Now when we want something ,it HAS to be instantaneous or we are frustrated and disappointed.
We’ve been conditioned to expect our happy endings and everything else , on cue… on demand.
Our juices flow when we don’t know the outcome, when it isn’t always what we have come to expect.
We have turned the world to shit, and most of don’t even realize it.
end of rant.
Good rant.
Very good rant indeed. I’d have written something equally rant-like, had I not been nearing 27 hours awake!
We’ve turned the world to shit, and the reason most of us don’t realize it has a lot to do with the “comfort” of our Skinner Boxes. What wonderfully well-conditioned operants we are!
I’m not a film buff, but aren’t there “art films” where the director does his (her) own thing, without reference to what the audience expects?
And as for tailoring your responses to what the audience wants, surely politicians are the most egregious with their “focus groups”? Their formulated, philosophically corrected concepts are in fact no more than a response to what the people want. The ultimate in sophism, a modern version of “bread and circuses”?
And is the pandering to market research when writing a novel what separates “literature” from “brain candy”? There’s nothing wrong with brain candy, we all need a respite at times, and “literature” can be simply just too much like hard work. Is one characteristic of literature that it gives us an ending that is “unexpected”, something that we have to work towards? I don’t know, it’s just a thought.
Now I feel extra stupid for the email where I said I wanted “all the endings” and recalled the youth adventure novels that let you choose the hero’s next steps. Does it help that I quite love European movies? Most of those don’t have tidy wrapped up endings. I find that stories that aren’t wrapped up stay with me much longer. My brain munches on them as I go about my daily business like its trying to work out a problem. It’s the difference between healthy food that sustains you and junk food that only momentarily satisfies. I may want every ending but I’m not shallow enough to think that what I want is what’s good for me.
Beautifully and reasonably ranted out there.
Going back to the thing about beginnings and endings, this is something I’ve been thinking about recently. Earlier in the year, I had a couple of lectures on Beginnings, Middles and Endings, and I think we were particularly looking at Wordsworth’s The Prelude, and it came up in discussion that sometimes works of fiction start long after the beginning of the story, or finish before the end of the story. And then there are words where the continuity isn’t chronological, where you’re purposefully set into the middle of the story, or the end, and sometimes brought back to the beginning – sometimes not.
I find the idea really fascinating. I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m always on the look out for fiction that plays around with its chronology. I’m also highly aware that most of my fiction happens in the middle, and neglects both the beginning and the end; but that is on purpose. Either way, I’m fairly certain you can play around with your readers’ perception and experience by being aware of the distinctions. Just… how?
I love your thought about this. I agree that sometimes the pat ending being happy is not always the greatest. I myself go through a lot of unhappy endings in a day (I work in the medical field), and the last thing I wanna do at the end of the day is read about more unhappy endings. When I am recharged (which isn’t often these days), I prefer the thoughtful ending. The ones that may or may not be “happy” but leave me in thought for days, sometimes months. Sometimes ever after. “Bladerunner”‘s Director’s Cut, for example. (I saw the original happy-ending one first.) “GATTACA”‘s slightly-off ending, could be an example. Wasn’t completely happy, but wasn’t completely sad either. Was totally thrilled with “S1Mon3” even though eventually it veered into the happy ending.