Booking Through Thursday: In the beginning and in the end...

[fajrdrako]

for April 15, 2010: In general, do you prefer the beginnings of stories? Or the ends?

My main test as to whether to read a book is to read the first paragraph, sometimes the first page. I never, never look at the end till I get there: I hate spoilers. I've also learned to avoid reading the blurb on the back cover, because they often reveal too much. Beginnings are perfect: they show you setting, character, and writing style. All the most important things.

This makes beginnings very significant to me. Masters of good beginnings: Guy Gavriel Kay, Charles Dickens, Dorothy Dunnett, Dick Francis,

But there's nothing I love more than a good ending to a book. Feel-good endings, twisty endings, satisfying endings, endings which thematically refer back to the beginning of the book, surprise endings, strong endings, endings that make me smile or cry.

Generally speaking, the beginning of a book tells me whether I want to read that book. The ending of a book tells me whether I want to remember the book, and how to value it.

I think my favourite ending of all time is the last few paragraphs of The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett. They made the world to hang in the air. But Dorothy Dunnett is, on the whole, the master of wonderful endings.

Other favourite endings, with no spoilers:

1. The very famous ending to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Not the words: the events.
   
2. The end of Thud! by Terry Pratchett. ("More important than this?" said the Dwarf King.)
   
3. The very end of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevky, before the epilogue. That ending haunts me.
   
4. The ending of Madselin by Norah Lofts. Possibly the most romantic ending to a novel I've ever read, all the more becuase it doesn't even mention the love story that is the book's theme.
   
5. The ending of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
   
6. Aral Vorkosigan's speech to Cordelia about honour which ends Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold.
   
7. The end of Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney. It isn't really an end. Half a sentence leading us right back to the beginning.
   
8. The end of Torchwood: Almost Perfect by James Goss, when the alien addresses Captain Jack with a certain familiar voice, and Jack's actions in reply. ("What do you want?")
   
9. The ending of The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox: "I put myself between you and gravity."
   
10. The vitriolic ending to Troilus and Cressida by Shakespeare:
    
    
    Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,
    And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.

A few links for first sentences: fatz, Library Thing, SF on io9.

Comments

[ceruleancat]

I wanted to reply to this, but it got too long. So I'm posting it on my brand new dw.

[fajrdrako]

Yay! And congratutaions on the shiny new dw.

I want to post about the topic again, because I keep thinking of other great book-beginnings that ought to be mentioned.