When I read the ending I was shocked. But not in the good way. Until Norma comes in, all was good. But then, she came in. I expected much more from the author on this.
Mr. Mitchell mentioned in class that you guys are blaming the author for this and you aren’t into the story. T he thing is, I was into the story until this happened. When I read that somebody called out “Smithy” I got worried: “Oh my god, if it’s Norma… IT’S NORMA! NOO..” This scene reminded me of an art project I did in elementary school in France. We had to draw a bunch of concentric circles and then color them. Apart from I drew too many and it was taking me too long and everybody else had moved on to working with clay so I quickly colored everything in purple and black, essentially destroying all the hard work. This last scene just goes to show how hard it is to build something very eloquent and how easy it is to destroy it (you build a huge lego building and spend a lot of time on it and your sibling just knocks it down). The anger was strongly built inside of me when I read this because the author just ruined a book that I was going to categorize as one of my favorites.
But let’s analyse this in a more professional way (now that I have established that scene was one of the cheesiest and dumbest ideas on the part of the author). “You’re not into the story”. Of course I’m not, it’s unrealistic. As Erik said in class “Is Smithy immortal?” Because the amount of times the guy’s been shot and the places where he has been shot (and his quick healing) and the amount of patience and saint-like zen quality which Smithy posses are all unrealistic. But I pardoned the author for that. I pardoned the author for creating a character who loves smoking and quits smoking just like that. I pardon the author for saying that Smithy survives on tuna fish and bananas for 4 months. BUT, Norma coming in was unacceptable. First off, let’s look at this happening realistically. Norma stirs up the courage (and the cash, a lot which she has already spent on Smithy, put I guess that doesn’t matter if they get married) to go out of her house and board (in a wheelchair) on an at least 18 hour journey to L.A. just to go up to Smithy while he is saying his final goodbyes to his sister at the freezing smelly morgue and say “Oh baby, I love you” and kiss him. Uh, no. Sorry author, can’t give you this one. It’s not impossible but it is so highly improbable that it is impossible: 0.0 repeated 1 is equal to 0 for a reason.
It’s like those scenes in movies where the villain can easily kill the hero but no, they've got to give a speech about everything and give away their entire plan and the hero narrowly escapes and wins in the end. Everytime I see it, it pisses me off. That’s why I like A Song of Ice and Fire so much: you never know what is going to happen because there isn’t one hero’s journey-- it’s the journey of every character and as soon as you get attached to one particular character, they’re dead. Needless to say I did enjoy the book while reading it, but the whole ending killed it for me. Mr. Mitchell said in class “It seems that Smithy is hurrying towards the end of his journey”. Smithy isn’t hurrying towards the end, it is McLarty who rushed the ending into a typical happy ever after ending which this book didn’t deserve. It deserved more. What an ending: cutting off the nose to spite the face. Saturday, November 15
First off, thank you for making what could've been a somewhat routine discussion about the ending come alive with your entertaining recounting and interpretation of the last few pages! I definitely agree that the ending feels hurried and unappealingly cliché in comparison to the rest of the novel, where all sorts of wacky people and unexpected things happen to Smithy. Yet, I don't think that a bad ending necessarily spoils the whole book, as you say -- I think the message of positivity, the hero's journey, and all the emotions of Smithy's transformation all stay intact even if the ending wasn't as great as we'd expected it to be.
ReplyDeleteI understand what both you and Tiye are getting at and I agree with you. The journey remains intact as it is. The optimism of the story and the heroic quality of patience which Smithy has is still very vivid.
DeleteI'm with Alice, the overall message of the book is still there. I got a 'don't give up' kinda vibe because Smithy could've just wallowed in an alochol-heavy depression and not biked across the country. And although the ending was not ideal, I did still enjoy the rest of the book. It's not like the middle of the book is erased when you get to the end. But yes, it's cheesy and frustrating that he ended the book that way. McLarty's foundation in the entertainment industry really does show through at the end,
ReplyDeleteI guess Alice and Tiye already said what I was about to, but yeah I still enjoyed the book and the message is still there despite the rushed ending.
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