Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 March 2006 00:19:08
Well that's what I'd sound like if I was actually talking rather than typing to you.
So - Happy Ever After...? The ministry of obvious research have been at it again and discovered that most of us prefer happy endings to our books. This report may spoil the end of many classic novels, this one shouldn't.
I'm not really sure what I think on this one, with films my stock phrase "I'm a sucker for a miserable ending" is a fairly neat summary, but with films you've spent an average of 2 hours with the characters, and so even with the most likeable ones you're not actually that attached. Books however take longer to read, and can be slowed down and savoured if you are enjoying them (something I'm very good at) and so I am not so willing to have my paper and print companions open to the same range of fate as my celluloid ones.
I think I just like decent endings, ones that fit. The survey also asked what books people would like to change the ending to, and no, Nineteen Eighty Four needs the ending that it has. Part of the point of reading a good book is not knowing whether you're going to finally put it back on the shelf with a smile in the corner of your mouth or a tear in the corner of your eye, and I for one need that to be the case.