# Novels that end with their own beginning -- Any examples? (Open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 11, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393 "2012-10-11T05:02:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/1 "2012-10-11T05:02:22Z")
I recently finished a novel that was quite good, but ended with the (in my opinion) somewhat clichéd conclusion where a character starts writing a book, and the first lines are the same first lines that start the novel, and thus the whole thing is an infinite loop. I remember being extremely impressed by this narrative trick when I was a teenager and saw it in a Robert Ludlum novel, _The Chancellor Manuscript_ (1977). Now, if a middlebrow thriller writer like Ludlum was doing this in the 1970s, I figure it must have been around a long while and that I’m probably missing some pretty famous examples of this. Can anyone list any other instances of this? Who was the first author to do this? ---
**Author:** ![Naive\_Evian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Naive\_Evian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naive_Evian)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/2 "2012-10-11T05:06:43Z")
Not the same thing, but Finnegans Wake by James Joyce starts in the middle of a sentence that starts at the end of the book. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/3 "2012-10-11T05:15:11Z")
_The Outsiders_ by SE Hinton does exactly that, published 1967. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/4 "2012-10-11T05:47:55Z")
James and the Giant Peach, 1961. ---
**Author:** ![Greekfreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@Greekfreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greekfreak)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/5 "2012-10-11T06:19:42Z")
Carlito’s Way. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/6 "2012-10-11T09:56:04Z")
Not a novel, but the film _Twelve Monkeys_ does this. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/7 "2012-10-11T11:50:33Z")
Samuel R Delany’s Dhalgren. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/8 "2012-10-11T12:12:10Z")
Fredric Brown’s short story THE YEHUDI PRINCIPLE was built around this back in '44. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/9 "2012-10-11T12:16:57Z")
V.S. Naipaul’s _The Enigma of Arrival_. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/10 "2012-10-11T12:52:36Z")
Neil Gaiman’s short story “Other People” starts where it finishes, with the line “Time is fluid here”. By the second time, of course, it has a lot more meaning to it. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/11 "2012-10-11T12:54:58Z")
Stephen King’s **Dark Tower** series. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/12 "2012-10-11T12:59:42Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Stephen King’s **Dark Tower** series. When your entire post is in a spoiler, it doesn’t do anyone any good. How are we to know if we’ve read what’s in the spoiler or not until we click it? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/13 "2012-10-11T13:05:23Z")
For those afraid to click on QtM’s post (which you should be, since there is zero indication of what’s inside it), allow me to help. This is probably what he should have written: Stephen King’s: Dark Tower series ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/14 "2012-10-11T13:09:07Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > For those afraid to click on QtM’s post (which you should be, since there is zero indication of what’s inside it), allow me to help. This is probably what he should have written: Yeah, that’s what I meant to write. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/15 "2012-10-11T15:40:45Z")
Kinda sorta what you are asking for: There is an Asimov short story (can’t remember the title) about mankind trying to figure out how to reverse entropy as the eons go by and the universe slowly expires. A super computer eventually figures it out, and solves the problem by saying: Let there be light! ---
**Author:** ![Sarabellum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarabellum/32/3492_2.png) [@Sarabellum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarabellum)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/16 "2012-10-11T21:38:21Z")
\*\*Portraits \*\*by Cynthia Freeman. ---
**Author:** ![Iggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Iggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggins)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/17 "2012-10-11T21:59:42Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Kinda sorta what you are asking for: There is an Asimov short story (can’t remember the title) about mankind trying to figure out how to reverse entropy as the eons go by and the universe slowly expires. A super computer eventually figures it out, and solves the problem by saying: > > Let there be light! The Last Question. I like that story… ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/18 "2012-10-11T22:01:32Z")
100 Years of Solitude? > [@Gabriel Garcia Marquez](#): > > Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/19 "2012-10-11T22:11:56Z")
_Close Up_ by Len Deighton ends with a writer about to write a roman a clef of the events in the book, ending with the starting words of the novel. Regarding the Asimov story, he once wrote that whenever somebody told him that they remembered reading a great story of his but couldn’t remember which one, it turned out invariably to be “The Last Question.” ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393/20 "2012-10-11T22:24:20Z")
Not quite the same but _Watership Down_ starts with the line “The primroses were over” and ends with something like “and the first primroses were starting to bloom.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-that-end-with-their-own-beginning-any-examples-open-spoilers/637393.md?page=2)