Do you like books to end with a bang, a whimper, or a punchline?
Last year the American Book Review published a list of the 100 Best First Lines from novels. According to novelist and writing teacher Lance Olsen, they are following up that list with a new collection of the 100 Best Last Lines from novels.
On his blog, Olsen mused about what makes a great last line, something all fledgling writers should read: "[L]ast lines often carry what I think of as a sort of rhythmic burden, a sort of aural crescendo that depends on the lines just before them to establish the right rise and fall, or rise and rise and rise, or ironic brake or trap door."
I love books with that end with his "rise and rise and rise," and I hunt for last sentences that will send me spinning straight for the clouds. I can think of a couple literary home runs like that, but most recently I'd add Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It ends like this: "In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." Listen to those fabulous vowel sounds singing together, it's like the cosmic chorus singing a lullaby at the end of a symphony.
What are your favorite last sentences? Let's make a list and send it to the American Book Review. Add yours in the comments section.
My favorite novel, Knut Hamsun's Hunger, has a very strong ending line:
"When we were out on the fjord, I straightened up, wet from fever and exertion, looked in toward land and said goodbye for now to the city, to Christiania, where the windows of the homes all shone with such brightness."
This might sound like a unusually happy ending to an otherwise desperate book, but by my interpretation the ending is anything but happy - instead, it's rather ominous regarding the narrator's future well-being. If can track down the college term paper I wrote on the book, I'll expand on this conjecture sometime soon on my blog.
Posted by: Pete | July 20, 2007 6:19 AM | Permalink to Comment