I finished reading a
wonderful novel recently. I'm not going to name it because this blog post will
be a spoiler in itself. The novel gripped me from the start. The two viewpoint
characters were convincing and engaging, and although neither were perfect, I
soon began to find one of them more sympathetic than the other. Both voices
were strong and the writing was vivid and compelling. In fact, it was one of
those books that creeps into your consciousness even when you're doing other
things. I'd find myself looking forward to the moment I could pick the book up
again, thinking about the characters and wanting to get back to them to see how
they were getting on.
As the novel
progressed, the tension increased and the fortunes of the characters swung from
'okay' to 'bad' to 'awful' and back again several times with only the very
occasional move towards 'good'. I turned the pages eagerly, waiting for the
heroine to finally achieve her goal (my God, she deserved it by now) and for
the other character to get her richly deserved comeuppance.
A few pages before
the end, it looked like a terrible catastrophe was about to befall the
heroine and I held my breath. Just in
the nick of time, phew! She got out of it. Surely all would be well now? But
before very long, this poor character was yet again faced with a horrible,
miserable end. I turned the page to see how her last-minute reprieve might come
about, only to find the author's acknowledgements.
I was upset. It
shouldn't have been this way. The 'goodie' should have had a happy ending and
the 'baddie' should have come to grief, surely?
Well, that's what I wanted
anyway. A friend said recently that she always felt cheated If she didn't get a
happy ending; I'm not sure I felt cheated, but I did feel a little unsatisfied, and this led me to thinking about whether we as readers have the right to
demand a happy ending. It also led to a slightly bigger question: is
an author's first duty to the novel's readers or to its characters?
As I said at the
start, the novel in question was beautifully written, the story was well-told
and the characters felt real. And if I'm honest, the author was, I felt, very
truthful in her ending. Realistically, what happened in the story is probably
what would have happened if those people and their situation had been real.
Was she ever tempted
to give us readers the happy ending (or at least, one bearing a glimmer of
hope) so many of us crave? In terms of the integrity of her story, I think she
took the more courageous route and told us the truth, but despite the fact that
I absolutely loved this novel, I still can't help feeling just slightly
disappointed that things didn't turn out as I'd have liked them to.
What do you think?
Should there always be a happy ending? Is an ending with the merest suggestion
of hope ok? Or should the author stay true to her story, even if it means
readers might not like it?
The ending has to work for the book - I remember reading A Suitable Boy and almost praying for a different ending, but I was coming from a Western cultural perspective and however much I wanted the young couple to defy their families and walk into the sunset it was never going to work in the context of the book.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and sometimes, you just know from about halfway through the book that it's not going to be a happy ending, and you know that that's the only way it could go.
DeleteI do feel cheated if I don't at least get a hopeful ending! I've read a couple of books recently that left me quite upset that the ending was so bleak! I think that's the point of fiction in a way; that what would undoubtedly happen in real life can be given a positive twist :o)
ReplyDeleteYes, good point – it is fiction, after all! But yes, I think I'd settle for a hopeful ending.
DeleteI'd prioritise a truthful did over a happy one, although, as if the novel you describe, I'm more likely to require a thread of hope if the characters have gone through a really hard time.
ReplyDeleteYes, and I think it only has to be a tiny thread of hope – we don't necessarily need to know that it's all going to be all right in the end, we just want to think that there's a chance it might be.
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