Comments on: arguing with an epilogue

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:13:03 +0000

I am about one half way through “The Historian” now. I like it well enough for the story line, its descriptions of Istanbul and historical events, and the way it builds up a sense that something big will happen in the second half, major mysteries will be unraveled. I find a lot of the conversations in the book do not come close to ringing true. The author’s physical descriptions of characters seemed cliched. I guess I would recommend this book to people who like academic vampire books. It can be enjoyed as a scary read.

By: Jinho

Jinho — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:40:43 +0000

@Amateur Reader

“The Harry Potter anti-finale is an example of something different – Rowling protecting her characters from fan fiction and post-copyright sequels.”

But that still does not stop people from writting fan ficion – it makes more, what with all of the new characters that we now have acess to, with little detail! x’D
By not really giving us alot of detail(ex. Scorpius who is “different” than his dad and raised much better soupposedly), she is giving us more to work with, as we can now fill in all of those blanks.

By: Jinho

Jinho — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:37:10 +0000

I dislike them greatly as well.
As much as I would like to find out about what happens next, it shoul be in detail. rather than a, “All was well with Twinkleshoes the donkey – marrying Shoestwinkle the stallion, his true love, and moving to the moon!”
I was also going to comment on the HP novel, DH as well.
The epilouge was horrible, and made me crave for more of the book that I already have.
“All was well.” as a concluding sentance to a 7 book series?
I understand it was to avoid more and more sequels, but it killed me to read all of the rushed “feel” the epilouge had to it, and just as it felt J.K Rowling was to “maybe” add another book to the series of the children’s stay at Hogwarts, it ends with that sentence, basically saying, “OPPS! Sorry ’bout that! I should have told you in the beginning of the epilouge that there shall be no books pertaining to the children I told you of in some DETAIL.” D:

By: verbivore

verbivore — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:45:10 +0000

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.

By: Logophile

Logophile — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:52:39 +0000

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

By: Amateur Reader

Amateur Reader — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:18:36 +0000

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.

By: Dew

Dew — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:14:59 +0000

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!

By: びっくり

びっくり — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:24:31 +0000

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.

By: verbivore

verbivore — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:27:27 +0000

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.

By: snackywombat

snackywombat — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:50:03 +0000

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.