Most WTF Endings in Classic Books

[NDP]

@gkster

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.”

Hobbs in the book is also less likable and more insolent than in the movie.

[DocCathode]

Ahab, who thinks he’s invincible, learns that he is mortal and vulnerable. Then, he dies.

Re The Stand

It’s been a while since I read it. I remember it as ‘After sending good men on a mission, the Lord decides to kill them and everybody else in Vegas’

[Ukulele_Ike]

@Ethilrist

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…

He got better…

[Colibri]

@DocCathode

It’s been a while since I read it. I remember it as ‘After sending good men on a mission, the Lord decides to kill them and everybody else in Vegas’

I was living in Boulder, Colorado, when the book came out. I liked the fact that all the good people went to Boulder, and all the bad people went to Las Vegas.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

@gkster

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.”

“Say it isn’t so, Joe…”
“I’m afraid it is, kid.”

Art imitating Life.
(Or maybe Art imitating Art as there’s some doubt the “original” quotation is any more genuine than the one in the novel.)