Ending it all...

In between shamefully hoovering up the contents of weekly gossip magazines with the furtiveness that only a mother of young daughters can acquire, I read more worthwhile literature spasmodically for a monthly Book Club. My particular Book Club is made of around eight wonderful ladies who are hugely patient with the fact that nine times out of ten I haven’t finished reading the book. But I’m not always alone in that, thankfully.

Anyway, I have excelled myself in recent months and managed to finish two books. Smuggery is abound. And it was these two books – namely The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford – that have led to this blog. These two books, both excellent but so very different in genre, setting, period and protagonist have one thing in common: the swift ending.

What leads authors to write and give us so much carefully crafted joy only to exit at the last minute, like a spoon about to dip into the last bite of a savoured pudding only to have your plate suddenly snatched away by a nimble-fingered waiter? In Donna Tartt’s case it was a 6-course meal that led up to it. But in Nancy Mitford’s, it was a light, nouvelle cuisine meal of excellent proportions to be savoured up until the moment that the Usain Bolt of waiters sprints past, flicking your plate up like a baton on the way past.

Mitford’s book ends so very sadly, with the demise of both Linda and Fabrice, and it almost seems to be added as an aside within the last two pages. Perhaps this adds dramatic effect – I was pretty shocked at this tragic outcome that I hadn’t anticipated (perhaps a bit dimly, in hindsight, as the hints were there). But then the indignance set in. The book had turned into a bit of a romp and a lark into a full-blown tragedy. Just like that.

Perhaps Nancy’s agent had called and told her to hurry the blithering hell up and finish. Perhaps Nancy had many small mites ensconced in her own airing cupboard and couldn’t spare the time it would take to expand on the ending. Or perhaps she felt that writing about the tragedy in more detail would polish the shine off it. Or that she would save our sensibilities for fear of us bursting into tears like Fanny does so readily. It’s a bit like the end of a fairytale that a parent skirts over… “And the mermaid bade her friend Emily farewell as she dived back into the sea, never to be seen again. Anyway, dear, lights out, night night, sleep well.”

 Still, I’ve come to the conclusion that a swift ending is preferable to a dragged out one, particularly one that’s sad. And perhaps it’s more affecting for readers if we can make our own conclusions about a character’s feelings and experiences than have them described to us. And that, in my opinion, is what makes Mitford’s novel so great – that it is as much about what she doesn’t say as what she does say. Nuance: that’s the word.

And that’s the end.

Really.