Epilogues should be banned. Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh but I can’t remember the last time I read an epilogue and came away with that little sigh of satisfaction I usually get when closing the cover on a really good book. There’s something so forceful about an epilogue, a way of pushing me forward to a place I’m not yet ready to go.
My quibble with epilogue comes about after finishing Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto last evening. For those of you who have read this book, you’ll know exactly what I mean. For anyone else, suffice it to say that the last scene of the novel wrenches the reader out of the false sense of security we’ve been lulled into by the previous 300 pages. It’s a devastating moment and if you’ve developed any sense of sympathy for the characters by this point, those last few pages ask you to be exceedingly brave. It’s an incredible tactic, and quite admirably executed by Patchett.
However, we end that last chapter and then turn the page only to find….da dum…the dreaded epilogue. Which I felt only served to undercut the actual, real emotion of our reaction to that difficult final scene. It was a bit like throwing a band-aid over a still-raw wound with a slap, an eye-roll and a, “don’t worry, everything’s fine now, get over it.” But I’m not ready for that. I’m still picking myself up off the floor and surveying the damage around me from the end of the book. And I definitely want to try and make sense of those last scenes without the writer telling me exactly how I should do that.
The word epilogue comes from the Greek epilogos, from epi meaning ‘after’ and logos meaning ‘word’. Its function is to give closure to a story, often revealing the future lives of the characters once the main story has already wrapped up. It operates outside the narrative, independent of the structure that preceded it.
So what’s with my frustration? Why do I reject the idea that a story can be further informed by a few paragraphs at the end telling me the fate of all those involved? My sense here is that my dismissal of epilogue as an effective literary device comes from an aesthetic preference for ambiguity. I want the lopsided structure. I want the story to risk imprecision. By that, I don’t mean I will accept any incoherence. I just want the novel to accept that it can’t control every last detail about the outcome of the world it created.
Maybe that last sentence seems a bit weird. Surely the novelist knows everything about the world they have invented. Well, not necessarily, I think. Most fiction treats a specific event, with the implication that the characters exist both before and after the time period contained in the story. The story can give me clues to those more ethereal worlds but they remain undefined. And thankfully so, or the main story would lose its power.
Mostly, I think my frustration with epilogue comes from my sense that as a reader I have a right to participate in the actual story at some level. I’ve been invited into the fictional world. What would be the fun of implicating myself if I can’t have any say? After a novel’s denouement works its magic on me, I want to be at liberty to consider the implications of that ending on my own. My feeling is that if what happens after is as important as the story, or informs our understanding of the story in such a crucial way, it should have been worked into the main story in the first place.
Let me consider some other epilogues I’ve read recently. The epilogue from Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale catapults the reader forward into a distant future and attempts to resolve some of the ambiguity of the end of the book. It’s almost like an apology, like the reader might not be able to handle abandoning our heroine to her unknown fate. Sometimes this is true and we could take issue with the main story for not preparing us for that eventual and scary end, but I think in the case of The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood prepared us perfectly to let Ofred go.
Thinking about it, I can come up with one epilogue that didn’t bother me. Kate Walbert’s The Gardens of Tokyo has a very short epilogue which does something quite unique. It informs the reader about the future of another character, not about Ellen our narrator. It tells us nothing about her future, instead in one short, quiet scene, she learns something about an old friend which answers a question the reader didn’t even realize they had. It’s very subtly done. And we could probably debate whether it needed to be called an epilogue.
So those are the two that come quickly to mind, anyone else have any thoughts?
17 responses so far ↓
Stephen // February 29, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I like your line “I just want the novel to accept that it can’t control every last detail about the outcome of the world it created.” It’s the kind of thing I always tried to work into my essays as a student - I like the idea that a writer creates a world that comes alive to the extent that it can run away with itself.
Amateur Reader // February 29, 2008 at 6:44 pm
From The Tale of Old Mortality, (1816) final chapter, where Sir Walter Scott, having declined to write an epilogue for his novel, is having tea with a friend who wants to know how everyone ended up:
“Really, madam,” said I, “you must be aware that every volume of a narrative turns less and less interesting as the author draws to a conclusion,–just like your tea, which, though excellent hyson, is necessarily weaker and more insipid in the last cup. Now, as I think the one is by no means improved by the luscious lump of half-dissolved sugar usually found at the bottom of it, so I am of opinion that a history, growing already vapid, is but dully crutched up by a detail of circumstances which every reader must have anticipated, even though the author exhaust on them every flowery epithet in the language.”
This is only Scott’s third or fourth novel, and already he’s sick of the exact issue you’re describing. So this is an old problem.
Eva // February 29, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I agree-epilogues tend to just detract from the novel (and the Bel Canto epilogue had me rolling my eyes-of course, so did the whole novel, but I rolled my eyes more during the epilogue!). If the author wants to tell me how the characters end up, add a couple chapters to the novel (and hopefully a good editor will tell them to take them out again, if they just bring the story down).
That being said, the War and Peace epilogue didn’t bother me in structure (it didn’t feel like it detracted from the rest of the book), although it did make me super angry (Tolstoy’s depiction of the ‘perfect wife and mother,’ that is). But I still think it’s an example of an epilogue done right…there are hints of what will probably happen even later on, but Tolstoy doesn’t spell them out.
Ann Darnton // February 29, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I have to admit to not having very strong views either for or against epilogues, but I do have a friend who becomes positively incandescent with rage when she picks up a book that has a prologue. She considers it a lazy way of giving the reader information that should have been carefully seeded into the main narrative. I’ve known Jenny take an author to task in public over this - and win.
Amateur Reader // February 29, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Ann’s comment reminds me of another relevant example. Lolita’s prologue, written by “Dr. John Ray, Jr.”, actually contains the information ususally found in the prologue. But the first-time reader doesn’t know the characters and has no idea what any of it means.
verbivore // February 29, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Stephen - yes, I think a fictional world should be powerful enough to run away with itself. That’s what I want. Very nicely put.
Amateur Reader - how do you find these things? That was perfect!
And thank you for reminding me of the Lolita epilogue, now I’ll go back to it tomorrow to see what I think.
Eva - I did a fair share of eye rolling through Bel Canto as well, although the story and the characters grew on me enough by the end. And you’re reminding me how much I want to read the new War and Peace translation this year!
Ann - When I was writing this post it made me think I should consider prologue as well, I suspect I actually skip over most prologues until I’m reading along and get confused, then I might go back.
Dorothy W. // March 2, 2008 at 2:28 am
Interesting. I haven’t thought about epilogues much myself, but I can see why you don’t like them. I wonder if they are more difficult to take in contemporary fiction, where ambiguity is maybe more highly valued, and less annoying in older novels (like 19C ones) where you get a strong sense of the action wrapping up fully.
I’ve been meaning to read Bel Canto, as a friend of mine really loved it. I’m even more curious now!
jess // March 2, 2008 at 3:29 am
Having just finished Bel Canto, I can agree wholeheartedly with your comments about that particular epilogue. It seems as though Patchett, and many other authors, fight against their own novel when they can’t resist skipping forward and wrapping things up so neatly. I like the idea of being given some credit as a reader to imagine the characters after the events of the novel.
verbivore // March 2, 2008 at 11:49 am
Dorothy - I do think they are much more difficult to take in contemporary fiction. You’re right about that. I think we’re often less willing to accept the sweeping overview style that feels comfortable in older novels. I suspect is the difference in the narrative voice. Most older novels have the all-knowing omnicient narrator or use the voice of someone close to the action so its less jarring in the epilogue.
Jess - I agree completely. It must be tough for an author to just let their characters go once the main story has been told.
litlove // March 2, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I also want to read Bel Canto. Can’t think of any epilogues (or prologues) at the moment that have excited my ire, but I love your reading of them, verbivore! Endings are such an important moment in a piece of fiction that to have an extra bitty ending may well seem like unnecessary and indeed, irritating excess, demanding yet another rereading of the novel’s events in the light of this final summation. You can only call on a reader’s sense making capacities so much, I think, before you upset them.
snackywombat // March 3, 2008 at 8:50 pm
bravo! i completely agree with epilogues not having any place in post-modern fiction. they usually seem like either a writer’s indulgence or a total cop-out. i think the idea of an ending with loose ends has become part of our literary aesthetic and so to wrap it up so neatly feels too “hollywood” nowadays.
verbivore // March 3, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Litlove - you put it nicely, an extra bitty ending after the real ending. That’s what an epilogue feels like. And I would love to hear your own reading of Bel Canto - an interesting book.
SnackyW - We really do prefer ambiguity in literary fiction nowadays, don’t we? I wanted to write about why this has come about but I don’t nearly have enough theory under my belt. I suspect it has a lot to do with our assimilation of the post-modern aesthetic, but I’m sure there is much more than that.
びっくり // March 4, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Sorry, I haven’t been reading other’s blogs lately. Trying to catch up a little now that I have a breather.
I went through a lot of phases as I read your post. I haven’t seen an epilogue in years, so I had to think awhile to recall my experiences. I think the first time I saw one I went to my mother and asked her, “What’s this thing?” It did seem odd that it wasn’t just labeled “Chapter 56″ or such. Of course, if they are abruptly different in tone or disturb the normal cycle of a novel, then perhaps they need an abruptly different name.
I seem to recall reading some that weren’t abrupt, but then they really should have just been the next chapter. I seem to recall at least one book which had more than just a prologue and an epilogue, but I can’t remember what the extras would have been called.
Also, this got me thinking about omake in Japanese animation. Often, after the story is done, but while credits are rolling, we will see an extension of the story in the margins. Sometimes it is still shots, sometimes live action. Some animation is developed from serial graphic novels, so the stories get abbreviated; omake provide a way to slide in story elements which otherwise wouldn’t see a theater. The ones I’ve seen provided a warming extension rather than a shocking epilogue-type interruption.
Dew // March 4, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I often have trouble with endings of books in general, and in movies, too, whether they have epilogues or not. It seems that most books end either wrapping up all sorts of details we could have imagined for ourselves (the last HP book being a good example) or just randomly ending any old place (the film Broken Flowers being a good example). I would like something in between. I would like an actual ending, not just a random stopping, but I also don’t want a condescending, dragging on forever, explanation of what happens to the main characters for the rest of their lives.There is a timeline in a story. For example, let’s take a book I’m rereading right now, Le Petit Prince. The timeline is the narrator’s time with the prince in the desert. We don’t find the story abandoned in the middle of the fox talking to the prince about taming. We also don’t hear about how the narrator and the prince ended up later in life. There is an epilogue, but it simply asks us to watch for the prince to come back, because the narrator misses him. Now that’s an ending!
Amateur Reader // March 5, 2008 at 5:18 pm
The Harry Potter anti-finale is an example of something different - Rowling protecting her characters from fan fiction and post-copyright sequels.
Why she wanted to do this I don’t exactly understand, but see Part 2 of “Don Quixote” for the canonical parallel.
Logophile // March 6, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I largely agree with what you’ve written here - “endings” can so often be ruined by an epilogue. Endings in general are tricky, and can spoil an otherwise wonderful book (Mr Pip springs to mind - I would think it excellent, instead of very good, if it had ended about 20 pages before it did).
Really enjoying catching up on your blog btw
verbivore // March 6, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Bikkuri - Your omake comment is really interesting. I seem to remember seeing that in Totoro but maybe that’s not correct…you’re right, though, its like an epilogue but much more integrated.
Dewey - I agree with you on the HP ending. Ridiculous epilogue. Although Amateur Reader’s comment is also true, she did it to avoid sequels etc. Still, it annoyed me.
Amateur Reader - some day I will read Don Quixote and know exactly what you’re talking about!
Logophile - Mr. Pip is a great example! and one I did not think of right away. The epilogue was so frustrating and the actual story, the story I cared about, ended much earlier.
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