Discussion 4/05: The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

happy april, OCBC members!! discuss away

et maintenant, sans davantage fanfare, votre ami et le mien, undertow le francophile.

[QUOTE=moe.ron] -- Any thoughts on how the opening quote by Mary Jo Salter ties in with the story?[/QUOTE]
(Spoilers. Sort of.) The quote at the end really wraos the whole thing up in a way. I guess if you really thought about it you could figure out the ending just by reading the quote carefully. It'a all about the created mysteries in life versus the actual ones.

[QUOTE=moe.ron]-- What did you think of Chabon's description of Bruno's actions and emotions towards the end of the book? Did it seem awkward or was it interesting to have Chabon treat a parrot like the rest of his human characters?[/QUOTE]
I really enjoyed this chapter. I thought it was well done and honestly didn't find it distracting at all. I think the animal did seem to be a little intelligent for an animal, (especially birds. Hate birds so much!) but I think he used little animal cues to remind us that we were hearing the story from an animal. Bruno hearing things way before Kalb, for example.

[QUOTE=moe.ron]-- Considering the book is a short read, did Chabon's sometimes-flowery language seem to juxtapose the idea of tight, concise writing that a short novel would hopefully have, or did it seem to fit right in?[/QUOTE]
This is a really interesting question. I just read [U]The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier[/U] and Clay by Chabon, and it was excellent, but it was 600-some pages long. After reading that book I picked up this one and was concerned because the writing style Chabon uses is great, but I wasn't so sure how well it would work in such a short story. That said, I think he did a nice job with this story. I'm not much of a mystery reader, and I think the problem that many people have with books like [U]Da Vinci Code[/U] and other mystery/suspense novels is that they encourage the reader to only flip ahead and find out what happens. Ultimately, the characters and minor events in the story don't really matter except for the fact that they lead up to something. And if I find myself wanting to flip ahead and just see how something turns out I feel like the author has failed in that he/she hasn't made the reading worthwhile. Chabon turns the whole genre on its head in this sense. Reading about the characters is what is important in the book. The end is really a non-ending and if you flipped to the end you would get nothing out of the book whatsoever. So, I felt like the language was part of the appeal because the novel was less about tight storytelling and more about these people.

[QUOTE=tomstrong83](Spoilers. Sort of.) The quote at the end really wraos the whole thing up in a way. I guess if you really thought about it you could figure out the ending just by reading the quote carefully. It'a all about the created mysteries in life versus the actual ones.[/QUOTE]

Bingo. Now, do you think the whole plot was a created mystery, or an actual one? Why?

[QUOTE]This is a really interesting question. I just read [U]The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier[/U] and Clay by Chabon, and it was excellent, but it was 600-some pages long. After reading that book I picked up this one and was concerned because the writing style Chabon uses is great, but I wasn't so sure how well it would work in such a short story. That said, I think he did a nice job with this story. I'm not much of a mystery reader, and I think the problem that many people have with books like [U]Da Vinci Code[/U] and other mystery/suspense novels is that they encourage the reader to only flip ahead and find out what happens. Ultimately, the characters and minor events in the story don't really matter except for the fact that they lead up to something. And if I find myself wanting to flip ahead and just see how something turns out I feel like the author has failed in that he/she hasn't made the reading worthwhile. Chabon turns the whole genre on its head in this sense. Reading about the characters is what is important in the book. The end is really a non-ending and if you flipped to the end you would get nothing out of the book whatsoever. So, I felt like the language was part of the appeal because the novel was less about tight storytelling and more about these people.[/QUOTE]

This was my first Chabon book I read. Was the language in Clay about the same as Final Solution? I thought the language was distracting, especially for a short read.

[QUOTE=Undertow]Bingo. Now, do you think the whole plot was a created mystery, or an actual one? Why?[/QUOTE]
Created. I felt like the mystery was either something that was not a mystery at all and just random, or it was a mystery that couldn't possibly be solved with the info given in the book. If there really was an answer it wasn't meant to be found in the text. I guess whether or not the mystery was real or not is sort of irrevelant since there is no answer. Does a mystery require a solution? Is that what makes a mystery a mystery, that it's solvable on some level?

[QUOTE=Undertow]This was my first Chabon book I read. Was the language in Clay about the same as Final Solution? I thought the language was distracting, especially for a short read.[/QUOTE]
I think the language in Clay was easier to follow. Even though I had just read the other book I found myself lost in a lot of the sentences in this book, sentences where digressions set off in commas broke up the sentences and seemed to go on to the point that you often lost the original intent of the sentence. Clay reads smoother. Adn on the whole I think that there were sentences like that in Clay, but they were more rewarding to read somehow. Understanding them was worth it. Maybe it's the nature of this story as well that causes the reader to want to be able to get through it faster while Clay was not a book that you found yourself dashing through.

[QUOTE=Undertow]Bingo. Now, do you think the whole plot was a created mystery, or an actual one? Why?[/QUOTE]

The old man in the story is Sherlock Holmes. I didn't get that when I first read the story almost two years ago.

'How did I read it two years ago?' I hear you ask.
I'm behind on it these days, but I subscribe to the [URL=http://www.theparisreview.com/][i]Paris Review.[/i][/URL] Actually, I'm so behind I think I let the subscription lapse.
[i]Paris Review.[/i] is where I first discovered Hempel, for that matter, and looking at my book shelf I see it was the same issue, #166, Summer 2003 that had the Hempel interview and the Chabon novella. I assume it was complete, as it was not listed as an excerpt. It took up 80 pages of [i]Paris Review,[/i] which is printed as a trade-paperback. I assume the 131 pages Amazon shows reflects more generous margins, typeface, leading, etc. for the hardback.

It wasn't until I heard an interview with Chabon on NPR a few weeks ago that I found out it was Holmes. I laughed my fool head off for missing it, though I've never read the Doyle stories. You'd think I'd pick up enough by osmosis to identify it, but maybe I'm not the only one that missed that detail.

I didn't miss the mystery angle, though it doesn't conform strictly to the genre as I think of it. Then again neither does Raymond Chandler, who seems to get filed under 'Mystery.' For some reason the hard-boiled California private dick thing as always seemed a whole different universe from, I don't know, Agatha Christie.

[QUOTE=Undertow]This was my first Chabon book I read. Was the language in Clay about the same as Final Solution? I thought the language was distracting, especially for a short read.[/QUOTE]

He doesn't take as much acclimation as Faulkner, but like a lot of writers who've developed a unique style, you definitely need to get into his world a bit. I would have suggested this as a jumping off story for someone new to Chabon, but you saying that makes me wonder.

[QUOTE=tomstrong83]Does a mystery require a solution?[/QUOTE]

I felt it was resolved adequately. The old man (Holmes) had his priorities and allegiances and they didn't start out with unquestioning obedience to the Crown. I like it as a parable for today's 'War on Terror' or the Cold War (same thing, just transpose the words Communist and Terrorist and you get the same speeches).

By choosing the parrot and its relationship to the boy (and an African gray is not that adaptable, so if it was attached to the boy, taking it away would be inhumane to the parrot), Holmes was saying, in effect, that victory by any means is a hollow victory. If he could serve the Crown while obeying his conscience, he'd do so, but he was retired and his relationship to his bees was more important.

For that matter, the beekeeping details are remarkably accurate (I've done it and read extensively in the technical literature), but they serve a literary purpose beyond making the old man a tough buzzard. I first supposed he was keeping them because bee venom helps some people with arthritis. Some use six or eight stings at a swipe. But the requeening, that's significant, because as the queen ages, her pheromone production drops and the bees will swarm. They make a new queen, and the majority of the colony flees with the new one to form a new colony. It's natural bee reproduction. And contrary to popular myth, swarming bees are utterly harmless. When you see those pictures of the guy with bees all over him, he's coated his arm with queen pheromone to make them think of his arm as 'home.' So a beekeeper like the retired Holmes needs to kill the queen of each colony every couple of years and replace her with one reared in what is referred to in the story as the 'old hive.'

The reality of beekeeping mirrors the 'regime change' that's necessary even in 'free' societies. The old man's observations on the inevitable death of the individual bees and their contribution to the whole are also significant, because it mirrors his view of the larger picture of humanity, not just England versus Germany.

I did think it was a little cutesy to include a constable 'Queen' in the story.

[QUOTE=tomstrong83]
I think the language in Clay was easier to follow.[/QUOTE]

'Kavalier & Clay' was the first Chabon for me, a friend loaned me a copy and I loved it. Epics can be dull, but Chabon did a masterful job of that one, and his expansion and compression of time was perfect. I also love how he addressed societal issues we think of as being new in the context they were dealt with in a pre-1960s context. The futility of war and the abuse of power and the limits of what one can do in the face of injustice are also beautifully handled.

Plus, it was a laugh-riot.

It's hard to get someone to 'start' with an author by handing them the author's longest book. 'Mysteries of Pittsburgh' was good, but pales in comparison to Chabon's more recent work. 'Summerland' is fun, even if you're an adult and ought to be too old for it. I was a little pissed that Chabon recorded my personal experience of baseball so accurately. I can never fictionalize my own miserable season, because anything I do would be a sad imitation of the opening of 'Summerland.'

[QUOTE=Chixulub]The old man in the story is Sherlock Holmes. I didn't get that when I first read the story almost two years ago.

'How did I read it two years ago?' I hear you ask.
I'm behind on it these days, but I subscribe to the [URL=http://www.theparisreview.com/][i]Paris Review.[/i][/URL] Actually, I'm so behind I think I let the subscription lapse.
[i]Paris Review.[/i] is where I first discovered Hempel, for that matter, and looking at my book shelf I see it was the same issue, #166, Summer 2003 that had the Hempel interview and the Chabon novella. I assume it was complete, as it was not listed as an excerpt. It took up 80 pages of [i]Paris Review,[/i] which is printed as a trade-paperback. I assume the 131 pages Amazon shows reflects more generous margins, typeface, leading, etc. for the hardback.

It wasn't until I heard an interview with Chabon on NPR a few weeks ago that I found out it was Holmes. I laughed my fool head off for missing it, though I've never read the Doyle stories. You'd think I'd pick up enough by osmosis to identify it, but maybe I'm not the only one that missed that detail.[/QUOTE]

Wow. Just...wow. That didn't even cross my mind while reading it, although doesn't the first picture show the old man smoking a pipe just like Holmes'? Put one point under "duh" for me.

[QUOTE]I didn't miss the mystery angle, though it doesn't conform strictly to the genre as I think of it. Then again neither does Raymond Chandler, who seems to get filed under 'Mystery.' For some reason the hard-boiled California private dick thing as always seemed a whole different universe from, I don't know, Agatha Christie.[/QUOTE]

To also answer tomstrong's question, the lack of an answer is what makes a mystery a mystery. I liked the somewhat-ambiguous ending, although I do think everyone was running around over a bunch of made up numbers. Something about seeing or reading about people fretting over something that's made up or isn't as big as they make it out to be just makes me laugh.

[QUOTE]He doesn't take as much acclimation as Faulkner, but like a lot of writers who've developed a unique style, you definitely need to get into his world a bit. I would have suggested this as a jumping off story for someone new to Chabon, but you saying that makes me wonder.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure I'm just getting used to his style, but still, he goes off rambling about whatever, which sort of reminded me of King's writing style at times, just with more advanced vernacular, and the book's 131 pages? That's a bare-bones book as is, but I'd read the lengthy passages and would start wandering off, thinking, "Wow, how short would this be if he ditched all this verbose jibber-jabber?" Then again, seeing your mentioning of it being an 80-page novella two years ago probably answers my question.

[QUOTE]I felt it was resolved adequately. The old man (Holmes) had his priorities and allegiances and they didn't start out with unquestioning obedience to the Crown. I like it as a parable for today's 'War on Terror' or the Cold War (same thing, just transpose the words Communist and Terrorist and you get the same speeches).

By choosing the parrot and its relationship to the boy (and an African gray is not that adaptable, so if it was attached to the boy, taking it away would be inhumane to the parrot), Holmes was saying, in effect, that victory by any means is a hollow victory. If he could serve the Crown while obeying his conscience, he'd do so, but he was retired and his relationship to his bees was more important.

For that matter, the beekeeping details are remarkably accurate (I've done it and read extensively in the technical literature), but they serve a literary purpose beyond making the old man a tough buzzard. I first supposed he was keeping them because bee venom helps some people with arthritis. Some use six or eight stings at a swipe. But the requeening, that's significant, because as the queen ages, her pheromone production drops and the bees will swarm. They make a new queen, and the majority of the colony flees with the new one to form a new colony. It's natural bee reproduction. And contrary to popular myth, swarming bees are utterly harmless. When you see those pictures of the guy with bees all over him, he's coated his arm with queen pheromone to make them think of his arm as 'home.' So a beekeeper like the retired Holmes needs to kill the queen of each colony every couple of years and replace her with one reared in what is referred to in the story as the 'old hive.'

The reality of beekeeping mirrors the 'regime change' that's necessary even in 'free' societies. The old man's observations on the inevitable death of the individual bees and their contribution to the whole are also significant, because it mirrors his view of the larger picture of humanity, not just England versus Germany.

I did think it was a little cutesy to include a constable 'Queen' in the story.
[/QUOTE]

I don't know if Chabon had all this in mind while writing the book, but these are definitely good ideas to think about. Thank you.

[QUOTE=Undertow]
I'm sure I'm just getting used to his style, but still, he goes off rambling about whatever, which sort of reminded me of King's writing style at times, just with more advanced vernacular, and the book's 131 pages? That's a bare-bones book as is, but I'd read the lengthy passages and would start wandering off, thinking, "Wow, how short would this be if he ditched all this verbose jibber-jabber?" Then again, seeing your mentioning of it being an 80-page novella two years ago probably answers my question. :)[/QUOTE]

What I was getting at is I think its the exact same story, but the format of PR made it take up 80 pages. The book probably has wider margins, leading, larger type. Lit mags, even top ones, have to be conscious of costs.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]What I was getting at is I think its the exact same story, but the format of PR made it take up 80 pages. The book probably has wider margins, leading, larger type. Lit mags, even top ones, have to be conscious of costs.[/QUOTE]

I know, I was just making a joke that failed. I was thinking the story probably would be 80 pages in the hardcover's format, margins and everything, if you took out all the ramblings and made it more concise.

Anyways, what did you guys think of the illustrations? Were they necessary? Did they help the story out at all for you, or do you think they just gave you something to look at and took up a page to boot?

first off, i did not like this book at all. it seemed rather inane and blandish to me. and i don't understand what possessed chabon to do a sherlock holmes riff in the first place. i'm just thankful it was only 130 pages written in crayon.

[QUOTE=moe.ron]-- What did you think of Chabon's description of Bruno's actions and emotions towards the end of the book? Did it seem awkward or was it interesting to have Chabon treat a parrot like the rest of his human characters?[/QUOTE]

i saw it as a gimmicky narrative trick and easy way for him to end this pointless mess. totally out of the blue and utterly ridiculous.

[QUOTE=Balthazar]
i saw it as a gimmicky narrative trick and easy way for him to end this pointless mess. totally out of the blue and utterly ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

When I read the chapter, I couldn't remember the last time that bird was called Bruno, and I had to stop and flip back in the book to recall who the hell Bruno was. Then again, I had a lot of other things going on in my mind besides reading the book. Did anyone else experience this?

[QUOTE]i never been the biggest fan of his writing style, and here is no different. it almost feels like he would rather show off his vocabulary than connect with his readers. i mean how many fucking synonyms for "big nose" could YOU find?[/QUOTE]

High five.

[QUOTE=]-- Any thoughts on how the opening quote by Mary Jo Salter ties in with the story?[/quote]
i.e. some "mysteries" don't need to be solved as they're not really mysteries at all, but some of life's more mundane happenings. the numbers the parrot was spewing were not a defined combination to anything... just a recall of a particular group of numbered trains.
[QUOTE]-- What did you think of Chabon's description of Bruno's actions and emotions towards the end of the book? Did it seem awkward or was it interesting to have Chabon treat a parrot like the rest of his human characters?[/QUOTE] i hated this chapter, i really did. anthropomorphism for the sake of a neat tie-up of plot feels like a dumbing-down. yaaaaaaaay...the birdie will be okay after being tossed in the closet!! ugh.
[QUOTE]-- Do you think the German number sequences were made up by the boy? Ideally, read pages 130-131 and consider the opening quote before discussing this.[/QUOTE] no. the german number sequences was just the boy reading the numbers off the trains as they passed. the train cars are numbered and then attached as they are used, not arranged in any numerical order.
[QUOTE]-- For those who know German, was the end surprising at all, or was it predictable?[/QUOTE] it wasn't predictable, but it wasn't surprising, really. i don't know german, by the way.
[QUOTE]-- Considering the book is a short read, did Chabon's sometimes-flowery language seem to juxtapose the idea of tight, concise writing that a short novel would hopefully have, or did it seem to fit right in?[/QUOTE] well, since this book was supposed to be a homage or tribute to sherlock holmes stories, i don't see a language juxtaposition. don't forget, sir ACD was british and therefore spoke the queen's english, which is often precise and overly formal. this was the strong point of this book, chabon's adhearance to the tradition of english literature created in the late 1800's, early 1900's.

overall, i wasn't impressed with the final solution. it seemed like a weird follow-up to the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay, which i thought was amazing and wonderful and perfect and everything i've ever looked for in a book. i think the final solution should have been left for an anthology... harper collins basically stole $16.95 from me.

p.s. i was wondering if anyone would pick up on the sherlock holmes thing... leave it to chix

*looks at PGoutis' direction to see what he has to say*

[QUOTE=Undertow]*looks at PGoutis' direction to see what he has to say*[/QUOTE]
So yer callin me out are ya. :eek:

I've been meaning to post in this thread, but it's hard to when you don't have much good to say. I hate to have to rip two books in one month. Well, at least there's next month - Amy Hempel and Flannery O'Conner!

I really didn't know what to say about this book because it was kind of a disappointment. I really wanted to like it. As I was reading it, I was thinking, "I can't wait. I know this book is going to pick up now." I really thought that it was building up to something, but fuck if I was wrong.

The Bruno Chapter was amusing. But at the same time, it seemed like a trick to get something done that he couldn't figure out any other way to do. But, hey, it was at least entertaining. More so than most of the book.

The end was predictable. The clues pointed to the numbers being pointless dribble. At least that's what I got from it - please tell me I'm wrong.

After Chix said that stuff about Holmes, it became so obvious. It made me like the book slightly.

I don't know German, so I really didn't even go back and look at the quote. I never paid attention to it. Did anybody translate it yet?

Did I miss anything?

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]
I really didn't know what to say about this book because it was kind of a disappointment. I really wanted to like it. As I was reading it, I was thinking, "I can't wait. I know this book is going to pick up now." I really thought that it was building up to something, but fuck if I was wrong.
[/QUOTE]

The whole time I was reading the book I kept asking myself if the difference between The Final Solution and any book by, say, King or Grisham is just the vernacular, that and being about 300-400 pages shorter.

Yeah, at some parts it just seemed like he was writing just to fill the page. If he edited this down, he could have a pretty tight short story. I think it is better suited for that. But that's just my humble opinion.

Does anybody know about Chabon's writing process? Does he do a lot of drafts? The reason I ask is - it seemed like the book was maybe only a second draft or something...

[QUOTE=moe.ron] i was wondering if anyone would pick up on the sherlock holmes thing... leave it to chix :)[/QUOTE]

Hah! That was a bit of luck when I caught a Chabon interview on the way to work on NPR. I did not pick it up on my first reading of the story, I clued in on a bunch of other stuff. We all bring our own baggage to this, deconstruct it so to speak...

The thing I love about the parrot as a German device is that language is harder than code to crack. The U.S. and Britain had Hitler's toughest code cracked years before the war is over. As far as I know, none of the Japanese in the Pacific theater ever figured out how to decode our Navajos. They weren't even coding, they were just translating, and with no context clues, it was impossible. Even a graphic langauge like the Egyptians left behind is tricky.

The drawback to a Parrot is they talk but they don't have a clue to what they're saying. Anthropomorphizing bees is easier to understand in a way, because they can come off as 'angry' or whatever when they're just bugs. I think Chabon did a nice job of dancing around that aspect, and of course the Third Reich wouldn't necessarily know such things, and their British adversaries might not either. For all I know, Bruno was used as an attempt at language-code that failed, and the Brits who wanted to get hold of him were chasing a red herring.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]For all I know, Bruno was used as an attempt at language-code that failed, and the Brits who wanted to get hold of him were chasing a red herring.[/QUOTE]

Failed because there was no code after all, at least not anything from the vocabulary the bird was retaining. I still get a chuckle about the end, like one of those "It's funny but sort of pisses me off because it makes the whole thing moot" laughs.

[QUOTE=Undertow]Failed because there was no code after all, at least not anything from the vocabulary the bird was retaining. I still get a chuckle about the end, like one of those "It's funny but sort of pisses me off because it makes the whole thing moot" laughs.[/QUOTE]

I can see why you'd feel that way. I didn't, but it's not an ending that would scratch the itch that Elmore Leonard of Chuck Palahniuk scratch.

My thought at the time I read it, was, 'Plimpton just can't get enough of WWII.' I was fairly new to the [I]Paris Review [/I] at th the time and WWII and the holocaust seemed to be an idee fix of the magazine. Almost a fetish.

Actually one of the nice things about that magazine is that while you'll find streaks like that from time to time, you don't know what's going to show up. Pulitzer winners end up right beside performance artists who've never published a word of fiction.

ok, so all after all this plot discussion and analysis, a question: do you think chabon's purpose, to write a sherlock holmes homage, was met?

[QUOTE=moe.ron]ok, so all after all this plot discussion and analysis, a question: do you think chabon's purpose, to write a sherlock holmes homage, was met?[/QUOTE]

I guess that depends on whether the reader could tell the old man was Holmes or not. Since I didn't, I'd have to say no, and even after finding out the old man was Holmes, I'd still say no. An homage to old detective stories, yes, but not Holmes in particular.

Granted, I haven't read any Holmes stories in a loooooong time, but I recall there was usually a good build-up to a suspenseful ending, and then a speech/analysis by Holmes detailing the actions of the criminal and how he solved the case. There wasn't any of that in The Final Solution, not in my opinion at least. This story kind of jumped ahead in the story without giving too many details about what happened before, like with Shane (it was Shane, right? I don't have the book with me) being murdered. He's at the family's house the chapter before, and then he's suddenly dead, and I recall that was only revealed somewhat abstractly, or deciphered through Chabon's flowery language. The transitions between scenes and chapters were a bit abrupt, more than what I can tolerate when reading. I mean, I figured out what was going on, but sometimes I'd get several pages into a new chapter sometimes and then go, "Oh, NOW I see what's going on."

[QUOTE=Undertow]I guess that depends on whether the reader could tell the old man was Holmes or not...[/QUOTE]
i'll have to disagree here. you didn't have to know that one of the characters was actually ol' sherlock himself; i mean, the book actually states "the steadfast generosity of sir arthur conan doyle enabled the author to begin this novella..." but there were also many of the classic ACD themes, as pointed out by chix: quite digs at the crown and the nazis, anthropomorphism and coding, a story of murder and deciete in an applealing, easy to digest package. but that's neither here nor there, i suppose... now that i've told you the book is supposed to be a homage or tribute, do you think the purpose was met.

[QUOTE=moe.ron]now that i've told you the book is supposed to be a homage or tribute, do you think the purpose was met.[/QUOTE]

I already answered this based on what little I know. If you're asking me to make a decision based on what you and Chix have provided for answers, then I can't. Not now, at least.

[QUOTE=Undertow]I already answered this based on what little I know. If you're asking me to make a decision based on what you and Chix have provided for answers, then I can't. Not now, at least.[/QUOTE]
uh, i know... i was talking to some of the other people participating in this discussion who haven't already answered my question...

[QUOTE=moe.ron]ok, so all after all this plot discussion and analysis, a question: do you think chabon's purpose, to write a sherlock holmes homage, was met?[/QUOTE]
I don't think it really lived up to what Chabon was trying to do. I don't remember ever reading any Doyle, but I've seen quite a few movies based on his work and I can't see him having such a lack luster ending. But then, like I said - I've never read any Doyle so I wouldn't know. Maybe I need to add something to the wishlist.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]I don't think it really lived up to what Chabon was trying to do. I don't remember ever reading any Doyle, but I've seen quite a few movies based on his work and I can't see him having such a lack luster ending. But then, like I said - I've never read any Doyle so I wouldn't know. Maybe I need to add something to the wishlist.[/QUOTE]

The ending is pure Chabon as far as I can tell. I haven't read Doyle either, but I'm not unfamiliar with the lore. There seems to be a line of thinking in contemporary literature that a satisfying ending is the mark of bad literature. All three of WCB's books pissed me off at the close, Kavalier & Clay was only part-resolved, Fortress of Solitude, The Anomalies, etc.

To me it fits better for a write like Pynchon to have bullshit endings because his basic view is that the world doesn't make sense. Likewise for Don DeLillo.

I'm probably guilty of it in my own novel, though I have the characters think they've come to something of a happy ending, hoping the reader knows better.

The danger in my view for a writer like Chabon or Lethem is that the unpredictable ending becomes expected and therefore not unpredictable. One of the things I admire about Elmore Leonard is you really can't tell who's going to make out in the end.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]
To me it fits better for a write like Pynchon to have bullshit endings because his basic view is that the world doesn't make sense. Likewise for Don DeLillo.

The danger in my view for a writer like Chabon or Lethem is that the unpredictable ending becomes expected and therefore not unpredictable. One of the things I admire about Elmore Leonard is you really can't tell who's going to make out in the end.[/QUOTE]

I'm all for endings that are sad or ambiguous or unresolved. Ellis is a great example of that. What I didn't like about The Final Solution, the more I think about it, was the lack of substance in the plot throughout the book. You mentioned Leonard -- L.A. Confidential had plot twists and subplots up the yin-yang, and that was the main reason I picked up the book, after a friend told me the movie's just a sub-plot in the book. Granted, it was a long book, but I enjoyed it. I wish Chabon could've gone a bit longer with Final Solution just to have a bit more depth in the plot.