Novel Endings

I've heard that authors spend months - years even - birthing the first line of a book. It's important stuff, setting the tone and reeling in the reader and all that. There are a plethora of fine examples of first lines. A few quick picks from my bookshelf demonstrate:

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."


"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."


"Christina Brannigan would have laughed at the empty sheet of college ruled paper if it weren't so sad."

Not bad, eh? Are you hooked?

I picked up a book recently called Flabbergasted by Ray Blackston at my favorite library. I fell in love with the title, the cover, and then the author. I truly LOLed through the whole book. I loved his style, his humor, just about everything except...the end. Why is it that authors (save those who penned the above quotations, of course) who spend so much time crafting the beginning of their works seem so darn sloppy at the end? Perhaps they get tired, or bored, or pressing deadlines trump creativity. Whatever the reason, I often find myself disappointed as I approach the back cover.

There is a possibility I expect too much. Look at my college career, for example. The beginning was exciting, fresh, intense. The middle long and drawn out to be sure, but the tantalizing question of "how will it end?" kept interest high, like the obsessed viewers of The Truman Show (see video below). The end turned out to be disenchanting. As you can see, I didn't even blog about Graduation. It rained, I wasn't given the Summa status I earned because I transferred too many credits, and I spent most of the time cold and worried that the black from my drenched gown was going to bleed on my nice new dress underneath. Disappointing.

But, you say, what else did you expect? Where did the experience fail you? I suppose I anticipated a feeling of satisfaction and completedness. Kind of like the satiated sensation I experience after summer fare of grilled chicken and pasta salad, or the accomplishment of lying in the middle of a room I've just redecorated. Or the rare exultation of closing the cover on a book which ended in a lovely way I didn't expect.