the best LAST page you have ever read (POSSIBLE SPOILERS!)
my favorite has to be the end of Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction. to paraphrase (after Sean has left campus and has picked up a hitchhiker):
She started telling me her life story, which wasn't very interesting, and when Rockpile came on singing "Heart" I had to turn it up, drowning out her voice, but still I turned to her, my eyes interested, a serious smile, nodding, my hand squeezing her knee, and she
and it just ends right there in mid-sentence, just like how the book began. some people may feel cheated and get frustrated when they are denied closure but I couldnt think of any other way to end the book. In fact, if I ever write a novel I may just end it on a similar note, if the story calls for it.
what are your favorite endings/last pages?
also, can anybody think of any other stories that just end mid-sentence, besides Finnigan's Wake?
Dude, the ending is the beginning...
I liked The Rules of Attraction though, a lot.
And Lead Us Not Into Penn Station- Amy Hempel
"I don't know what to say about this. I am as cut off from meaning and completion as all of these crippled people. These are the things that go on around here. After a while these things add up to enough weight to wear a person down. I am wearing down."
i was very happy when i got to the end of the da vinci code and didn't have to read anymore of that crap. so that might be the best last page i've ever read.
i was very happy when i got to the end of the da vinci code and didn't have to read anymore of that crap. so that might be the best last page i've ever read.
Agreed. And pardon my ignorance but who's the crazy hair in your ava?
I really can't remember many last pages. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books... I DO remember that the last page, or whole book, of "Catcher in the Rye" frustrated me with disappointment. I guess the best last page I can remember, and excuse me for not quoting, my copy of the book is at home, is from either "Remainder" by Tom McCarthy or "The Contortionist's Handbook" by Craig Clevenger. Could be because I just finished those two recently.
Also, to bearchaser, if you haven't read "The Contortionist's Handbook" I would say that it ends mid sentence to a point. Hard to describe without ruining it so I'll leave it at that. :-) It's also a marvelous book either way.
it's Master Ninja!
i really liked how THE STRANGER by camus ended.
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."
my year in words
my year abroad