Post-postmodern now, what will happen to the novel? One area of interest will be the ending; what kind of closure might we find in the 21st Century novel? Not that it constitutes a pattern, but some writers (whom I commend for actually giving their novels closure) don't seem to be able even to IMAGINE happy or tragic endings without twisting their narratives out of shape, almost as if driven to take characters in certain directions.

Cases in point: two novels, praised by those who are supposed to know, but also catching on big-time among female readers of popular fiction and book groups. These groups don't care for works without closure, but each of these, it seems to me, closes strangely, almost as if endings have been "forced". I'd welcome feedback, if you agree or disagree:

The Dive from Clausen's Pier: a first novel and a good one. A young woman who has already realized she doesn't want to marry her fiance, torn with guilt after he becomes paralzed from a diving accident. Her way of dealing with the guilt is to cut herself off from all of her "old" relationships, yet her response is understandable because others are asking more than she can give. Eventually, she must come home and set things right. But does such reconciliation require that she give up a promising designing career, independence, and man she loves in New York in order to live with her mother, work as a seamstrees, and be a helpful friend to her former fiance? She and the novel seem to think so. I don't get it. The decision does no one any good. Her fiance only finds hopes rekindled and reminders of what he will never have in his life. If this novel had been written in the 19th Century, we'd be discussing the ending as one of the "dutiful" retreats of giving up their own lives that we lament for some many Victorian heroines.

Bel Canto (Ann Patchett); This is a marvelous novel, one of the best I've read in quite a few years. There can be no "happy ending" to the scenario the novel poses, nor should there be. But Patchett seems to want or need to contrive a partial one. I've taught this novel and discussed it with many people. When we analyze it, we can "find" some ways that the epilogue ties together themes of the novel. But I know of no one who understands it. If meant to comfort, it doesn't work that way for most readers. It's the darkest part of the novel, and perhaps that is the answer, since Patchett has taken such a risk in writing a Romantic work at the turn of the century. One interesting observations: many readers forget that there is an epilogue because the novel has clearly "ended" already. The tragedy that I admire has its own affirmation built in; the outcome in some ways symbolic. The "heroes" have chosen paths true to themselves; as a result, for however brief the time, they have lived so fully and admirably that we do not measure their lives in days, though we mourn them.
In my opinon, this is such a novel.

posted by Sandy at 8:31 PM