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296 Part IV: Developing Your Plot and Structure
Then, starting home, he walked towards the trees, and under them, leaving
behind the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.
—Truman Capote (In Cold Blood, Random House, 1965)
Interesting narrator
Just as the voice of a character can intrigue us at the start of a story, so it
can lead us out at the end. Molly’s wonderful monologue at the end of Joyce’s
masterwork is beautifully poetic and life-affirming:
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.
—James Joyce (Ulysses, Bodley Head, 1955, first published 1922)
In Greene’s novel the irony of the narrator, Bendrix, talking to a being he
doesn’t believe in is a fitting ending to this passionate tale of faith, love and
hate:
I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there
beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer
that seemed to serve the winter mood: oh God, you’ve done enough,
you’re robbed me of enough, I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave
me alone forever.
—Graham Greene (The End of the Affair, Heinemann, 1951)
The narrative voice throughout Salinger’s novel grabs readers’ attention, and
the last line is no different:
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
—JD Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye, Little Brown, 1951)
Ambiguity
An ambiguous ending can intrigue readers and keep them thinking about
the novel – for hours, days or weeks after they’ve finished. At the end of
Hamid’s short and hard-hitting novel, is the narrator about to be killed? Is the
American from the CIA? Readers never know:
But why are you reaching into your jacket, sir? I detect a glint of metal.
Given that you and I are now bound by a certain shared intimacy, I trust it
is from the holder of your business cards.
—Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Hamish Hamilton, 2007)