Ta-dah

My last post was on films, today it’s my picks for the eight most memorable closing literary lines and what makes them special.

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."    

Fitzgerald hypnotized successive generations of readers with this tale. Nick Carraway's signing off after the death of Gatsby is my favorite last line in the Anglo-American tradition – resonant, memorable and profound. It hovers between poetry and the vernacular and is the magnificent chord, which brings this 20th-century masterpiece to a close. Somehow, it sums up the novel completely, in tone as much as meaning, while giving the reader a way out into the drabber, duller world of everyday reality.

Ulysses by James Joyce

"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another… then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Joyce is the master of the closing line and this is his most famous and most suggestive. Compare it with the end of The Dead, his short story that concludes Dubliners: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Middlemarch by George Eliot

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Middlemarch is many readers' favorite Eliot novel, with so many quotable passages. This passage is a lovely, celebration of Dorothea's quiet life, after she has renounced Casaubon's fortune and confessed her love for Ladislaw.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

"Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision."

And she has. Lily's closing words complete the circle of consciousness. Virginia Woolf was good at last lines and was always a decisive closer. Mrs. Dalloway, whose first line famously has Woolf's protagonist buying the flowers herself, ends with: "It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was." That's the perfect conclusion, to a climax, nailed in nine words.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Brontë's masterpiece is often cited for its gothic morbidity and intoxicating romantic darkness, but here – stepping back from the tragedy of Heathcliff and Catherine – the novel displays an acute evocation of Yorkshire combined with memorable poetic grandeur. This note of redemption promises a better future in the union of Cathy and Hareton.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better place that I go to than I have ever known.”

Sydney Carton spends much of the book as a brilliant but self-indulgent type.  He finally learns the true meaning of sacrifice as he offers his life in order to save that of the brave Charles Darnay, and he realizes that this sacrifice is the single best thing about him. In his final moments, he at last becomes worthy and he has no fear of death because his death means something. Dickens' words have been the symbol of self-sacrifice for centuries.

Emma by Jane Austen

"But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union."

Jane Austen can write one hell of a happy ending, can't she? The "deficiencies" she refers to are told from the perspective of the ceaselessly imperious Mrs. Elton, who complained of the small amount of white satin and lace: "a most pitiful business!" Romance and satire are never so beautifully interwoven as in a Jane Austen novel.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

"But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and civilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before

This last line captures Huck in two sentences: he can't be civilized. He's been there before and it simply didn't take. Huckleberry Finn must be free! It also presents a bit of optimism in the (often too strict) love that Aunt Sally offers the boy, who has had very little in the way of love his entire life. It's a sardonic note on a happy ending, which is vintage Twain. 

Less on endings more on Characterization: For those readers who are interested on Wednesday I’m a guest blogger on Janice Hardy’s The Other Side of the Story, in which I discuss—Who is in the title role?  Click on: http://blog.janicehardy.com/

The final word

I’ve spent many hours contemplating what makes a perfect closing line. It must be resolute yet ambiguous, thematically satisfying without ever spelling anything out for the reader. The last line must trust the reader’s intelligence and must sound final but offer promise, somewhere between a period and ellipses in tone.  

Today I’ll focus on films, and next time I’ll discuss classic novels.  For this blog post so as not to spoil anything, please speak up with the title of the film and your choice of more current picks in the comments section. 

This film, won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Can you name it? It concludes with:
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” said Rick.


The next is my Holiday favorite–a tear jerking story about true friendship and the importance of community: 
"Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings."
"That's right, that's right. Atta boy, Clarence."

A man walks out on his wife with the parting shot: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”. The words she utters are optimistic:

"I’ll go home and I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day!”

In a risqué line for 1959, this is a comedy that ends with a joke from a millionaire as he is steering a boat away from the pier in Miami. With his new love Daphne—who is a man in drag, played brilliantly by one of the best most versatile actors of the century (my opinion).  Daphne takes off her wig and says “I’m a man!” to which the millionaire  replies:
"Well, nobody’s perfect!”

This great film noir ends with a suitably bleak and cynical last line when an associate of a Los Angeles private detective says of the corruption in 1930s Los Angeles:
"Forget it, Jake, its Chinatown.”

In her ruby red shoes in the 1939 fantasy film based on the 1900 novel, the main character says after clicking her heels and returning back to the farm:
"And oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home."

The final line of the 1950 movie was delivered by the incomparable Norma Desmond:
"You see, this is my life. It always will be! There's nothing else - just us - and the cameras - and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up."

This 1960 film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won five, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It ends with the lines:

"Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you."
"Shut up and deal."  

Sitar Fusion

In the car when I heard on NPR that sitar master and composer Ravi Shankar died today, my first thought was of his spirituality.  I had known that he gave up a glittery life to study with a guru who taught him the sitar. And of course there was the George Harrison connection that put him in the limelight.  My husband on the other hand, spoke of Shankar bringing different rhythms and forms of eastern music to the west. Shankar's music reached out to some of the West's finest musicians including Violinist Yehudi Menuhin and composer Philip Glass.     

Now I understand the dichotomy.  His music is a combination of tranquility and sadness. The tranquility comes from the kind you experience when you hear music and the sadness is ... like wanting to reach out for something and not finding it, be it God or for a physical love.

A few years ago, remembering those demanding early years of sitar studies, Ravi Shankar said his guru's most important lesson was this: "He says that we have to earn our livelihood, and for that we have to perform and accept money. But music is not for sale. The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshiping God. It's absolutely like a prayer."

Shankar once said he felt ecstasy when he made music — the world was erased, and he experienced great peace. May he too have the peace that he generously spread throughout the world.

A day without laughter is a day wasted

—Charlie Chaplin


My volunteer work at Vegas PBS http://www.vegaspbs.org has been spent on a regular basis—having fun.  Last night I was actively involved in the seasonal pledge drive for a few hours, while Cirque de Soleil performed. As it turned out every phone call that came in was from listeners who wanted to purchase tickets for the troupe’s upcoming Zarkana show that will be performing at the Aria at City Center next month.  Members of the troupe were behind the volunteers contorting every which way demonstrating their acrobatic experience that blends circus arts with the surreal to create a world where physical mime rubs shoulders with the strange.

At one point, my face was turned and unbeknownst to me one of the artists had his face so close to mine, that when I turned back I let out a scream—startled… in studio and on the air!


The general manager then dubbed me, the Screamer.

In Zarkana, the ringmaster of the extraordinary circus guides the audience in an abandoned theatre populated by a collection of off-the-wall characters and incomparable acrobats. Among other attractions, he introduces the Mutants, four sirens as sinister as they are fabulous. It’s a highly visual show with a twisted musical and acrobatic fantasy universe where, little by little, chaos and craziness give way to a true celebration.   

As for me, I had hoped to gain quite a bit—as a volunteer, with a hope of donating my time and energy to an organization and a cause that I care about. But I’ve encountered a lot of fun with people who care as I do about what we are doing in a spirit of fellowship and excitement.