the unhappy endings
when i was younger, i used to believe in unhappy endings. the stories that i wrote then always ended in mysery and when my friends protested, i simply said that it was indeed the ending that made the story beautiful. my theory: when it leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth, you tend to remember it better and then it will become a classic. that's just how this world works. romeo and juliet won't be quite what it is now if in the end shakespeare decides to marry them both and let them live happily ever after. it will slip into the category of another cheesy fairy tale. but, of course, one shakespeare can never do such a mistake. so, i wrote tragedies in his footsteps and punished my characters mercilessly. but then something happened in my life, i had always had a secret dream that i kept locked in my heart. it was an impossible one so that i didn't even have the courage to hope it might come true one day. but, unexpectedly, it did. in the most miraculous way that i could never figured out how until today. and then i started to change. i started to think differently. i started to believe maybe not all endings had to be unhappy ones.
still the fascination lingers. i read books, see movies, and find how some unhappy endings make the stories beautiful, perfect, sublime even. i collected these in my mind, ranked them, and these are the best three i ever encounter:
1. the english patient by michael oondatje. when i read this novel, i knew i was in an extra sentimental mood. perhaps that affected my impression of this book. i was in love with someone but we had agreed that what we had then was nothing but "a sandbox" moment. i knew the playtime would soon be over soon and then we had to get out of our sandbox and get back to real life. it was our agreement since the beginning. he kept it, i didn't. i read the english patient sometime after we made the deal. a task from the uni. i was supposed to analyse the issue of nationalism in the novel but i got more absorbed with the sad love story, perhaps because i thought it mirrored mine somehow. but it was the ending that really broke my heart. after the war, the man had to separate with the woman he loved (i can't remember their names now) but until years later, he could always see her. he saw flitting images of her - like he suddenly had a sixth sense. He saw her hair getting longer, saw her laugh, saw her grow , saw her with her children, with her friends. he couldn't hear her though, only images. and i knew exactly what he felt because, i thought, that 's how i would also feel soon - to miss someone so much, to be able to see that person from time to time but knowing that our chance had passed and would never come again. that kind of pain ... and then i cried. i cried until i couldn't breathe and i phoned him in his office and told him that i had just finished my book and how the ending made me feel terrible. i didn't remember what he said but i remembered calling him, i remembered telling him that, and i remembered feeling much better after talking to him. despite it cruelly foreshadowing my own (inevitable and obvious and stupid) unhappy ending, it remains one of the most beautiful endings i have ever read.
2. brand new friend by mike gayle
this one is more recent. i read it perhaps last month. it's a light easy-reading novel. a man moved from london to manchester to live with his girlfriend. he had a real (exagerated, i should say) hard time making new friends there. it seemed that no guy in manchester suited him. finally he met jo, a girl who's crazy about dirty dancing film. they immediately got on well together and decided to be friends. they hung out together in the pub, went to the movie, talked about music and films, until they fell in love with each other. somehow this guy was still very much attached to his gorgeous girlfriend and loved her to death. he couldn't understand his feeling to jo, thinking it must be a feeling that was not covered in english language. in the end, they decided not to meet each other again and separated. jo moved to london and became a writer. the last chapter of the book is about jo who, 2 years later, had published her first novel based on her own love-friendship story and answering questions in a book launch and talk. the last question came from a man who sat at the back, who, of course, turned out to be her ex lover-friend. he said his wife bought the novel for him as a father's day gift on behalf of his baby daughter. and he asked: "you create a happy ending for the two friends who fell in love in your novel. isn't sad ending more realistic for them?" and jo answered: "at first i planned to do so but then i thought this was my novel and my characters. i could do whatever i want with them and i think no one deserves to have a happy ending more than them." when the talk was over, jo tried to find him but he's already gone - apparently not wanting to meet personally. no, i didn't cry this time even though this obviously disturbed me and made my mood gloomy for days. it was really bitter. no one deserves a happy ending more than them - how much more ironic this life could be. I begin to think that some writers are totally cruel to their characters (forgetting that i used to be one of them, perhaps still am)
3. pirates of the caribbean - at world's end
talking about writers' cruelty, this is the latest in my collection and immediately boosts up to the top three. having experienced the adventures, fights, misunderstanding, etc, etc, elizabeth swan and will turner finally got married in the middle of the pirates' war only to be separated several minutes later because will is stabbed and cursed to be the captain of a ghost ship. so, he should roam the ocean for ten years (i was not clear why but my friend told me that he inherited the task of the previous captain, which was to help the souls of the dead make their journey to heaven or something) and then he could come to the land for one day. it's unbelievable!!! what's their fault that they are doomed to wait for ten years and then are only given a day to be together? it's totally unfair. how much crueler a writer can be? what's more disturbing is that, of all the people i watched the film with, none finds it as disturbing as I do. they are more fascinated by jack the monkey, the pirates, and the visual effect while i went home and had bad feelings for the next 48 hours. i wonder if sentimentality is perhaps out-of-date now.
still the fascination lingers. i read books, see movies, and find how some unhappy endings make the stories beautiful, perfect, sublime even. i collected these in my mind, ranked them, and these are the best three i ever encounter:
1. the english patient by michael oondatje. when i read this novel, i knew i was in an extra sentimental mood. perhaps that affected my impression of this book. i was in love with someone but we had agreed that what we had then was nothing but "a sandbox" moment. i knew the playtime would soon be over soon and then we had to get out of our sandbox and get back to real life. it was our agreement since the beginning. he kept it, i didn't. i read the english patient sometime after we made the deal. a task from the uni. i was supposed to analyse the issue of nationalism in the novel but i got more absorbed with the sad love story, perhaps because i thought it mirrored mine somehow. but it was the ending that really broke my heart. after the war, the man had to separate with the woman he loved (i can't remember their names now) but until years later, he could always see her. he saw flitting images of her - like he suddenly had a sixth sense. He saw her hair getting longer, saw her laugh, saw her grow , saw her with her children, with her friends. he couldn't hear her though, only images. and i knew exactly what he felt because, i thought, that 's how i would also feel soon - to miss someone so much, to be able to see that person from time to time but knowing that our chance had passed and would never come again. that kind of pain ... and then i cried. i cried until i couldn't breathe and i phoned him in his office and told him that i had just finished my book and how the ending made me feel terrible. i didn't remember what he said but i remembered calling him, i remembered telling him that, and i remembered feeling much better after talking to him. despite it cruelly foreshadowing my own (inevitable and obvious and stupid) unhappy ending, it remains one of the most beautiful endings i have ever read.
2. brand new friend by mike gayle
this one is more recent. i read it perhaps last month. it's a light easy-reading novel. a man moved from london to manchester to live with his girlfriend. he had a real (exagerated, i should say) hard time making new friends there. it seemed that no guy in manchester suited him. finally he met jo, a girl who's crazy about dirty dancing film. they immediately got on well together and decided to be friends. they hung out together in the pub, went to the movie, talked about music and films, until they fell in love with each other. somehow this guy was still very much attached to his gorgeous girlfriend and loved her to death. he couldn't understand his feeling to jo, thinking it must be a feeling that was not covered in english language. in the end, they decided not to meet each other again and separated. jo moved to london and became a writer. the last chapter of the book is about jo who, 2 years later, had published her first novel based on her own love-friendship story and answering questions in a book launch and talk. the last question came from a man who sat at the back, who, of course, turned out to be her ex lover-friend. he said his wife bought the novel for him as a father's day gift on behalf of his baby daughter. and he asked: "you create a happy ending for the two friends who fell in love in your novel. isn't sad ending more realistic for them?" and jo answered: "at first i planned to do so but then i thought this was my novel and my characters. i could do whatever i want with them and i think no one deserves to have a happy ending more than them." when the talk was over, jo tried to find him but he's already gone - apparently not wanting to meet personally. no, i didn't cry this time even though this obviously disturbed me and made my mood gloomy for days. it was really bitter. no one deserves a happy ending more than them - how much more ironic this life could be. I begin to think that some writers are totally cruel to their characters (forgetting that i used to be one of them, perhaps still am)
3. pirates of the caribbean - at world's end
talking about writers' cruelty, this is the latest in my collection and immediately boosts up to the top three. having experienced the adventures, fights, misunderstanding, etc, etc, elizabeth swan and will turner finally got married in the middle of the pirates' war only to be separated several minutes later because will is stabbed and cursed to be the captain of a ghost ship. so, he should roam the ocean for ten years (i was not clear why but my friend told me that he inherited the task of the previous captain, which was to help the souls of the dead make their journey to heaven or something) and then he could come to the land for one day. it's unbelievable!!! what's their fault that they are doomed to wait for ten years and then are only given a day to be together? it's totally unfair. how much crueler a writer can be? what's more disturbing is that, of all the people i watched the film with, none finds it as disturbing as I do. they are more fascinated by jack the monkey, the pirates, and the visual effect while i went home and had bad feelings for the next 48 hours. i wonder if sentimentality is perhaps out-of-date now.
posted by miss_rain at 5:50 AM
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