Category: endings

  • Two Different Ends to Two Different Series

    I just finished reading Curtain, Poirot’s last case. (I promise I won’t give away the end.) And recently I’d also read Sleeping Murder, which is Marple’s last case. In both cases the books were written years (decades) before they were published. Also in both cases the sleuths are still sharp, still the same old human-observers,…

  • Bringing It All Back Around

    In Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, she pointed out something that I’d never thought about before: The idea that if something is wrong with the end of the piece, then the problem is actually at the beginning. I thought it was a great point–it’s how the resonance gets created, the inevitability.…