# Totally Unexpected, Out-of-Left-Field Literary Endings **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 31, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668 "2011-03-31T19:20:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/21 "2011-04-01T10:44:59Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > The Stand relied too much on Dues ex Machina. If the Hand of God was going to intervene, it didn’t need a nuke, it could have intervened earlier. > . I disagree. A lot of the book was about Larry’s path from a-hole to redemption, and the hand of god certainly fit in with that. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/22 "2011-04-01T12:08:21Z")
Read \*\*Ernest Hemingway’s \*\*short story, **The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber**. It is only maybe 20 pages and I wouldn’t dream of discussing the plot. Best damn short story _evah_. ---
**Author:** ![Time\_Stranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Time\_Stranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Time_Stranger)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/23 "2011-04-01T12:28:06Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > As I mentioned n the current “Whatcha Reading?” thread, I just finished Evelyn Waugh’s _ **A Handful of Dust.** _ It was a very funny portrait of upper class life in interwar Britain, and I enjoyed it immensely. > > However… the ending to the novel came completely out of left field. I read this one earlier this year and had the same reaction! I kind of get what Waugh was going for, but it still surprised me. I just finished Chip Kidd’s _The Cheese Monkeys_, which for the great majority of the book is a lighthearted romp through a 1950’s art school interspersed with design tidbits that I really enjoyed. Then in the last 40 pages or so… The main character rapes/sodomizes and photographs his drunken art professor for a project, and it is played for laughs (those wacky design students!). Then the OTHER main character gets drugged and raped at a frat party and she has a mini-meltdown in the final critique. The story went so dark so quickly, it was completely bizarre. I have no idea where it came from or if I just didn’t pick up on more sinister hints earlier on, but it left me feeling bewildered. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/24 "2011-04-01T14:01:11Z")
I recently read Elmore Leonard’s latest Djibouti. I have never read anything of his before. After reading this one, particularly the ending, I will never read anything else of his. Leonard, you owe me 2 1/2 hours of my life back. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/25 "2011-04-01T14:41:33Z")
> [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](#): > > I thought the part at the end where: > > The boys all have a gangbang with Bev. > > was a lot more left-field. Both those things in _It_ were so far out that I keep wondering whether they actually were in the book, or if I’m conflating it with something else. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/26 "2011-04-01T15:11:28Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > And they were only 11 years old!!:eek: > > Surprised King wasn’t damned for writing child porn. Speaking of SUPRISE KIDDIE SECKS, the ending of _Sophie’s World_ just unravelled into chaotic freakishness including an underaged coupling in the bushes while the adults sit idly by. Weird. > [@Time Stranger](#): > > I just finished Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys, which for the great majority of the book is a lighthearted romp through a 1950’s art school interspersed with design tidbits that I really enjoyed. I’ve met Chip Kidd; he went to my high school and was friends with my sister. A brilliant book designer but a very odd man. I have no explanation for _Cheese Monkeys_. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/27 "2011-04-01T15:16:01Z")
A _great_ surprise ending was _ **Atonement** _. It’s the whole point of the book. But one of my favorite ‘how the hell did we get here?’ endings is _ **Tarzan of the Apes** _. I don’t it requires a spoiler to reveal that it ends at a train station in Wisconsin, USA, just beyond the reach of a forest fire. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/28 "2011-04-01T16:21:34Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > _Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow_: studied and intricate novel of Denmark/Greenland colonialism and post-colonialism, digressions into sub-Arctic lifestyle. Driven by a crime thriller narrative and a kickass protagoniste. > > Then: What? [No spoiler proffered] Oh my god yes. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/29 "2011-04-01T16:22:26Z")
Speaking of King, what about Thinner? The Jaunt? The Ledge? ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/30 "2011-04-01T16:29:50Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > Maybe not quite a WTF? but definitely a surprise… > In Ken Kesey’s _Sometimes a Great Notion_ The reader traverses some 600 pages wondering if sensitive, intellectual Leland Stamper will manage to seduce his beautiful sister-in-law or whether his uber-tough big brother will beat him up and drag her back to his cave by the hair. > > In the final chapter beautiful Vivian says “to hell with you both”, walks out on her family and her old life, meanwhile the two brothers bury the hatchet and figuratively go dancing off arm-in-arm to do battle with the wilderness and the logger’s union. > > Not sure what point, if any, Kesey was trying to make (he was tripping when he wrote it), but it’s a darn fine novel anyway. > SS Wait…maybe I’m misremembering things, (and I’m not spoiler-tagging this because I may be wrong) but doesn’t Leland die thereby precluding the burying of the hatchet? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/31 "2011-04-01T16:31:17Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Speaking of King, what about Thinner? The Jaunt? The Ledge? The Dark Tower? ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/32 "2011-04-01T17:18:04Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Wait…maybe I’m misremembering things, (and I’m not spoiler-tagging this because I may be wrong) but doesn’t Leland die thereby precluding the burying of the hatchet? I just dusted the book off to check my own memory…No, Leland doesn’t die, the ending is pretty much as I described. The brothers do have a knock-down drag out brawl toward the end. Cousin Joe Ben dies, trapped under a fallen log while the tide rises inexorably over his head (a horribly gripping scene that induces nightmares). Old Henry Stamper the clan’s patriarch probably dies, his imminent death is implied but not written in. Several secondary characters meet their maker. But young Leland survives to join his brother in a last mighty f\*ck you" to the union and the town. I never saw the movie, it may have ended differently. SS ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/33 "2011-04-01T17:25:12Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The Dark Tower? But how else could **The Dark Tower** ended? There’s not really any way to end that book that wasn’t going to feel like either a cop-out, or leave you underwhelmed. The series had been built up so much by everyone that no ending would have lived up to expectation. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/34 "2011-04-01T17:35:52Z")
Ender’s Game Not so much the fact that he was really fighting the Buggers instead of a simulation, but the fact that he learns that the Buggers are not evil or just “bugs”, but a thoughtful society and that he committed genocide against them. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/35 "2011-04-01T17:53:15Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > Cousin Joe Ben dies, trapped under a fallen log while the tide rises inexorably over his head (a horribly gripping scene that induces nightmares). Oh, that’s what I was remembering! Yeah, that scene certainly leaves an impression on you…that’s about the only thing I remember about the book in any detail at this point. The ending sounds pretty good from the way you’ve described it – I’ll have to reread it some day. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/36 "2011-04-01T18:05:36Z")
I was taken by surprise by the protagonists’ …er… backstory in _The Gone-Away World,_ although if I had heard there was kind of a twisty ending I may have guessed it, which is why I hesitate to post even this much. An interesting, if manic, book – I’m curious if anyone else has read it. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/37 "2011-04-01T19:23:25Z")
I think the Chip Kidd example is a prime one. Fantastic book which obscenely derailed. Has anyone read the sequel? Does it er fix things? > [@Superdude](#): > > But how else could **The Dark Tower** ended? I don’t think SK books really fit. The endings can be weak or twisty but they aren’t unrelated wtf out of nowhere. DT had two quests - unselfish fix the tower and selfish showdown with Gan. I’m not disappointed that the unselfish quest was completed and the selfish one stymied. I guess the other issue was that getting to the tower was a lot more difficult than the final confrontation. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/38 "2011-04-01T19:41:24Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Speaking of King, what about Thinner? The Jaunt? The Ledge? How are those WTF endings? Thinner: He seeks out revenge on those he think wronged him, it backfires, and he offs himself. The Jaunt: Don’t fuck with time-space - it’s an eternity in there. The Ledge: The protagonist gets revenge on the antagonist. [QUOTE=jayjay] The Dark Tower? [/QUOTE] That wasn’t WTF either - that was entirely predictable. You may not have seen it coming, but looking back you can clearly see how it was building to that. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/39 "2011-04-01T20:34:10Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I don’t think SK books really fit. The endings can be weak or twisty but they aren’t unrelated wtf out of nowhere. I agree 100%. I only mentioned it because someone else referred to it. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668/40 "2011-04-01T20:35:14Z")
Arturo Perez-Reverte’s book **The Club Dumas** is about a man investigating the life of Alexander Dumas (in modern day), but then halfway through the investigator realizes that he has been going down the wrong path the whole time and ends up doing an entirely different investigation which ends up being far more otherworldly… I stopped midway through the first time because I thought it was rather stupid to start an entirely new book (without really resolving the first) halfway through – and it’s the same book – but the second half is actually much better and very quotable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/totally-unexpected-out-of-left-field-literary-endings/576668.md?page=3)