Endings

I'm not actually there yet, but I'm not looking forward to the last segment of Huck Finn. It's possibly the worst ending of any great novel in any language, not that I can claim to have read all the novels generally regarded as great, even just in English, but it's difficult to think of anyone screwing up quite as badly as Twain does in his last twelve chapters. There are, of course, interesting reasons why he screws up, but they cannot excuse the tedium of Tom Sawyer's endlessly daft plans. In the his Penguin audiobook reading Garrison Keillor simply drops the whole lot and changes the ending. Well done that man! (Oh, and a brilliant reading as well.)

And that sets me to thinking of great endings in literature. Here's a suggestion: the greatest writer of endings of novels & short stories in English is that wiliest of Irishmen James Joyce. Think of it: Finnegans Wake doesn't actually end but (rightly) goes round in a circle, thus avoiding the problem completely, though what's on the final page is a particular joy to read aloud; Ulysses has two great endings, one for Bloom, one for Molly; and Portrait of the Artist is one of the few novels of artistic growth to end in perfect, convincing poise between past and future, flying and falling - Icarus / Dedalus aloft, just.

Meanwhile Dubliners is a compendium of how to finish a story in a way that both puzzles and illuminates, to feel right even when you're not quite sure why or how. I remember once teaching The Dead to an 'A' level class (or, rather, learning about it with them) and not being able to resist going through the last paragraphs on a line-by-line basis. The snow that had been general over Ireland invaded my classroom in Singapore and I understood, for the first time in human terms, felt along the vein, how one can be jealous of the dead.