The End of (Woman on the Edge of) Time
Jan. 25th, 2011 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
devonmeyerI finished the novel on Saturday night... Although a more accurate time would be very early Sunday morning. It was quite a reading sprint, and I cannot say I enjoyed every single minute, but overall the novel was a good read. I would like to take this particular opportunity to rant... I mean to reflect upon the ending.
First of all, when did novelists decide that ambiguous endings were the way to go? I mean, I’m not talking like Harry Potter ambiguous where the rest of the kid’s life isn’t spelled out, but why is it that a writer assumes that we’re on board without some closure just for closure’s sake? I get it: they found out that she did it, and she got sent to a mental institution where she lived for the rest of her life, and died. But would it really have been difficult to insert this little sentence:
“The day after the investigation, Connie was taken to Rockover, where she lived out her days in peace”?
Now that I’ve gotten my frustration out, I’d like to point to one aspect that I brought up in my tutorial today: why did Dr. Morgan and Miss Moynihan live, while the others died? Obviously there is some significance in that six people were intended to be killed, but only four were killed. And I’m betting it has something to do with the manner in which they escaped their death. Dr. Morgan was cutting down on his coffee, and Miss Moynihan was sick in the bathroom. What kind of epic, deep significance does this have? I’ll be damned if I know, but it’d be an interesting topic for an essay.
As far as the overall message of the ending is concerned—i.e. Connie sacrificed herself to do what she could in the war against mind control and all of that—I think it was actually quite well-done. I wouldn’t say that it was the best ending, because Connie is left alive and then the question remains as to whether or not she can still visit Luciente, and if so, then she’s still, in some sense, an active participant in the war. Not to mention that Rockover is likely no more inescapable than her previous two places of incarceration, and thus there’s no reason why she couldn’t hatch a plan to escape there. But I think overall it’s alright, and who am I to tell a storyteller how their story should end?
First of all, when did novelists decide that ambiguous endings were the way to go? I mean, I’m not talking like Harry Potter ambiguous where the rest of the kid’s life isn’t spelled out, but why is it that a writer assumes that we’re on board without some closure just for closure’s sake? I get it: they found out that she did it, and she got sent to a mental institution where she lived for the rest of her life, and died. But would it really have been difficult to insert this little sentence:
“The day after the investigation, Connie was taken to Rockover, where she lived out her days in peace”?
Now that I’ve gotten my frustration out, I’d like to point to one aspect that I brought up in my tutorial today: why did Dr. Morgan and Miss Moynihan live, while the others died? Obviously there is some significance in that six people were intended to be killed, but only four were killed. And I’m betting it has something to do with the manner in which they escaped their death. Dr. Morgan was cutting down on his coffee, and Miss Moynihan was sick in the bathroom. What kind of epic, deep significance does this have? I’ll be damned if I know, but it’d be an interesting topic for an essay.
As far as the overall message of the ending is concerned—i.e. Connie sacrificed herself to do what she could in the war against mind control and all of that—I think it was actually quite well-done. I wouldn’t say that it was the best ending, because Connie is left alive and then the question remains as to whether or not she can still visit Luciente, and if so, then she’s still, in some sense, an active participant in the war. Not to mention that Rockover is likely no more inescapable than her previous two places of incarceration, and thus there’s no reason why she couldn’t hatch a plan to escape there. But I think overall it’s alright, and who am I to tell a storyteller how their story should end?
