I knew about the socialist ending of The Jungle, so that didn’t surprise me. However, I was definitely surprised by the super-racist “lazy Negroes are moving north and taking all our jobs” segment immediately before it.
Bernard Malamud’s novel, The Natural, has a lot in common with the movie. But in the end of the novel, Hobbs accepts a bribe and throws the last game.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Fantastic book that took a hard left near the end.
Is that where there’s a strike at the packinghouse and Jurgis and the others are working as “scabs”?
Supposedly that was based on a real strike where a big factor of the strike was the immigrants that were working there didnt want “lazy negros” working there because even tho they were black they were paid more because they were " American"
This was definitely in Charles Dickens’s mind when he wrapped up David Copperfield by packing all the loose-end characters onto a boat and shipping them off to Australia to seek their fortunes.
Speaking of Dickens, Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust certainly contains a WTF ending, but it’s not an annoying one. It’s the most gloriously horrifying ending in all 20th century literature.
Actually, I thought “Gone with the Wind” had a perfect ending. Scarlett realizes at long last that it’s Rhett she loves and not Ashley, but it’s too late. Rhett no longer loves her. But in true Scarlett fashion, she refuses to accept defeat, and plans to pursue Rhett after a rest stop at Tara.
Of course, that story was botched by Alexandra Ripley, but that’s another thread.
At the end of James Barrie’s Peter & Wendy, a grown Wendy asks Peter about Tinker Bell. She’s not only dead, but he doesn’t even remember her, and just says “They don’t last a long time.”
I would agree. But it didn’t take a “hard left turn,” it completely changed genres.
The ending of Robert Tressel’s *Ragged-trousered philantropists * - bible of socialism, left me cold - bleak future of penury and dead children alleviated by rich man giving him money?
Seemed at odds with the skill and wit of the book, I didn’t understand it.
I may be way off base here (not having read GoW), but is it possible that the Three Amigos were satirising this speech?
The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James. Read this in college. Main characters are a couple who want to marry, but don’t have enough money. They decide to have the man court and marry the woman’s wealthy cousin, Milly, who is (conveniently for them) dying. To be fair, they don’t hasten her death, at least not intentionally, but she thinks her husband truly loves her. She finds out differently.
I plowed through the novel, eagerly awaiting the scene where Milly finds out about the plot, and then the scene where she confronts them. They’re both “offstage”. The author never shows them happen. I was seriously annoyed.
I always thought it was. I read GoW long before TTA’s was made.
It’s been decades since I read it, but (I think it was) From Russia With Love, there was a Russian agent with poisoned daggers in her shoes. She kicked Bond in the shin and he got dosed with a lethal poison, and the book ended with him lying on the floor of the train, dying…
A truly unsettling book - McCarthy starting to find his voice with it. Long time since I read it but I recollect the whole book really built tension toward the ending, there was a feeling that something truly horrible was going to happen - the man walking toward the swamp did feel like it had crossed over into the supernatural, which was effective for the book.
Heard a few people complain about the ending of The Road - written when McCarthy was famous so far higher readership, a counterpoint to Outer Dark. The ending appears very deus ex machina, a ray of hope appears out of nowhere to shine light on a hellscape of pain and torment. I think, though, that it is consistent with the subtext of the book where the child is holy or like an angel. But if you are just turning the pages of it then it would be like WTF just happened there?
It’s a hotel in Paris, I believe, rather than the train, with French security there. And if I recall correctly, the next Bond begins with M having a conversation about Bond’s recovery and how lucky it was that there happened to be a doctor who knew and recognized the symptoms of the exact poison used.
So it’s a cliffhanger ending, but one that’s resolved in the next book (if a bit quickly and lightly). I guess i don’t see the WTF.
Yes, I’d say it’s more “holy fuck” than “what the fuck?”.
'Blood Meridian has its own ‘WTF’ ending as well.
It’s been a good long while since I read GOW, but isn’t the girl’s name Rose of Sharon?
Yes, but Rosasharn is how her name is pronounced in Okie, and is what the family called her.
Malamud apparently liked the movie, but said that it wasn’t his novel: When Bernard Malamud saw "The Natural" - SBNation.com
The novel’s ending is really sad especially in comparison with the triumphant ending of the film.
Roy Hobbs sees a newsboy selling a paper with a headline saying that he might have thrown the game. The boy begs Hobbs to say it isn’t true, but unfortunately, he can’t:
“When Roy looked into the boy’s eyes he wanted to say it wasn’t but couldn’t, and he lifted his hands to his face and wept many bitter tears.”