A few short weeks ago, the entire world (particularly my New Jersey world) was ensconced in heated debate over the series finale of The Sopranos. “They never said what happened! It just dropped off a table!”
Me, I thought it was brilliant. David Chase, the creator of the series, said that if one had been listening and watching carefully over the entire last season, they would have known exactly what had happened when the “black out” occurred at the end of the episode. When reporters continued to say, “Yes, but for our dumber listeners … what exactly did happen?” Chase simply ended the conversation and walked away.
Good for him.
Me, I like ambiguity. I hate Hollywood endings. Life is not like that. Even when one thing gets tied up nice and neatly, a million other loose ends continue on. In contrast, was there ever a worse ending than the series finale of Sex and the City? The polar opposite of The Sopranos. And now they say they’re making a movie about it? How??? If they tied things up any neater, they would have given a “future projects” schedule for the entire behind-the-camera crew (“Larry, the ‘best boy,’ is now checking time cards for the electricians on Mind of Mencia.”).
Artistically, as an author, I believe in making the reader work a little. Not a ton, but at least a “low-impact” workout for the mind.
Does everyone like that? No. But you can’t please everyone. I rewrote the ending of THE FOURTH HOUSE at least 90 times. I decided not to go with the version where the ground opened up and everyone fell into a fiery pit reminiscent of nearby Centralia (Darn, I should have written “SPOILER” before saying that’s not how it ends. Oops.). But I did, indeed, have the temptation to take it a number of different ways. There was one issue I always wanted resolved in one particular way (and I won’t tell you what I’m talking about), but there are at least two major questions one goes into the final chapter with, and one of them I played with every which way it could be done before settling not only upon how it resolved, but how I presented that resolution.
And it is because of that presentation, that some have said I ended the book with ambiguity. To this, I mimic the response of David Chase. The answers are all there. But if you still can’t figure them out, thanks for reading, but I gotta grab me some gabba-goo.