The Ending

[John McFetridge]

A recent article in McLeans Magazine (kind of Time or Newsweek for Canada) was called, Dead: happily-ever-after endings and included:

“Romance is not seen as high literature right now,” says Russell Brown, professor emeritus of English at the University of Toronto. The Jane Austen ending, in which the couple wanders off into the figurative or literal sunset after much hardship, has apparently become passé in the age of cynicism and conceit. “Modernists didn’t trust closure, and contemporary authors have opted for an even looser definition of an ending. It’s not as much happily-ever-after as it is nothing-ever-after,” Brown says.

The whole article can be read here.

Now, I guess happy endings for couples in crime fiction are quite rare, but there is usually some kind of closure in that the crime gets solved.

So, is there too much closure in crime fiction?

[D.R. MacMaster]

I suspect too much snobbishness among literature professors.

When it comes to crime stories, I did see a TV movie in the 90s that deliberately didn't solve the murder. I can't remember the title, but in it the detective was a fugitive Nazi with a new identity who is literally haunted by the ghost of a Jew he killed during the war.

In the film he's investigating the murders of rich people in embarrassing sexual situations, but that case is never solved. The point being that you, the viewer, were more interested in a couple of lurid tabloid style deaths, while viewing the deaths of 6 million as a historical footnote. Because that was the real point of the film, you don't feel cheated over the crimes never being solved.

[Eric Christopherson]

A novel can't do without some closure, it seems to me. The form of a novel is to start out at point A and to somehow end up at another point, B, C, D, etc.

In regard to crime fiction I think the best writers today leave plenty of room for lifelike ambiguity. I just finished Richard Price's Lush Life, and by the novel's end it's not real clear what's going to happen to most of the characters in the future, and it's not even clear that some of the key players changed inwardly. The solving of the crime brought a sense of closure, but then the reader knew the identity of the perp from the start, so that aspect too was muted closure-wise.

[I. J. Parker]

I was mildly disappointed by that novel myself. I suppose that sort of ending is more realistic, but my biggest problem was really that I didn't care all that much one way or another.

[John McFetridge]

In the past week two people have told me that they didn't bother to finish Lush Life. Since I finished reading it I've been thinking about it quite a bit, wondering about the characters and what they'll do from this point forward.

Clearly it's not a style of book that's for everyone.

[I. J. Parker]

I have had big problems with the predictability of the ending in genre novels. The romance formula is so bad that it has pretty much made impossible a happy ending involving two characters in an otherwise serious novel. In the mystery genre, we were tied hand and foot to the elaborate solution scene a la Christie or Nero Wolfe. In my opinion, these are totally outmoded by now and very awkward and unrealistic. But we must still bring the search for justice to an end, and since "mystery" implies that something mystifying has happened, we have to de-mystify it by the end. Our readers are a mixed batch. Many still require the whole game with red herrings and real clues -- all of which must be explained -- while others are quite happy with just closing the case and identifying the perpetrator. As a reader, I want the second kind.

[Dana King]

Is there too much closure in crime fiction? For what? Or, more to the point, for who? (Whom? I'm never sure about that.) For the self-appointed guardians of "serious" literature?

Any story needs enough closure to bring it to a satisfying end. We've all read books where the author has decided he's gone on long enough and just stopped. Unfortunately, the reader has usually decided the book has gone on long enough a hundred pages ago. I don't care for stupidly happy endings myself, but something needs to be closed off to provide a feeling of finality. Threads can be left open. Whole plot lines can be left open, if the main one is tied off.

"Serious" writers are are in danger of placing themselves into the same box as "serious" composers, in that they are evolving into writing only for each other. There is a happy medium in all art between appealing to the lowest common denominator and appealing only to those enlightened enough to see the emperor's new clothes. Going for the LCD leads to either superficiality or trash. Moving too far the other way eventually results in artistic masturbation.

[John Dishon]

Why not have all three? I think literature is big enough for self-indulgence and superficiality and everything in between.

[I. J. Parker]

Now let's not go so far as to dump all serious books (or books with a serious purpose) into the trash as being self-indulgent crap written for each other. Similarly, artistic creativity that ignores LCD is not artistic masturbation. It may denote that the author cares more for the book than the buck.
(On that issue: Janet Evanovich is enjoying a critical re-evaluation at the moment. See reviews by Sarah Weinman and David Montgomery. I take it that her publisher is doing a media blitz for her latest).

[Dana King]

I'm not dumping on all serious books, just those whose authors and advocates are too quick dismiss any criticism as a lack of understanding. I have no problem with books that ignore the LCD, nor with books that may ignore some of the loftier pretenses of literature. It's the books and authors on either end who choose to ignore or denigrate the large area between the two that I don't have much time for.

[Grant McKenzie]

Mickey Spillane always said the beginning of one's book sells it to the reader, while the ending sells the next one. If the reader feels unsatisfied with the ending, they're less likely to look forward to picking up one's next book. Unless you're writing a continuing series, I believe readers like to feel they haven't wasted their time on a book and lack of closure can certainly lead to this.

[I. J. Parker]

Actually, if you're writing a continuing series it's far, far more important to leave the reader happy with a book. Else where ould you get sales for the rest? With a standalone that fizzles, you can always try again.

[Grant McKenzie]

Very true, I.J. I meant that with a continuing series, it can often be beneficial to leave a few dangling threads to be continued in the next book. Romance/Mystery maven Janet Evanovich certainly does this well with her love-triangle subplot.