I recently read this novel and found it engrossing and fascinating. The ending is left deliberately ambiguous, and no one else I know has read it. I am very interested in reading the interpretations others had of the ending, and what evidence they found in the text to back up their interpretation. Thanks.
Well, it’s been awhile since I read it, but I agree that it was a fantastic book. They did a Tv movie of it awhile back, but didn’t come anywhere near close to capturing the power of it. I generally like his short work best (the short story format from The Things They Carried suits him), but this is his best full novel, IMHO. If you read The Things They Carried, there’s a story in there that deals with the need to tell and retell a story over and over, trying to get people to understand. At some point, the exact facts don’t matter: it’s the feel of the thing. He expresses it perfectly in that work, and it’s a theme he develops further in this book.