Nths of a sending

On Sunday, Stephen Romei asked, “What are the best final sentences in literature?” He himself nominated the last sentences of Der Prozess, Nineteen Eighty-Four, L’Etranger, A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and Slaughterhouse Five.

Readers added the closing lines of Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, Mrs Dalloway, Lolita, Brave New World, and some poor soul went on and on about the film version of Philip Roth’s Dying Animal, though what it had to do with memorable literary conclusions was last lost on me [great slip!].

Roth, however, contributed one of the best endings ever: “Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?”

Other personal favorites. From Invisible Man: “Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”

The Assistant: “After Passover he became a Jew.”

Francine Prose, Blue Angel: “But how strangely light-hearted he feels, what a relief it is to admit, even just for one moment, how much he will never know.”

Janet Lewis, The Wife of Martin Guerre: “But when hate and love have together exhausted the soul, the body seldom endures for long.”

The American: “Newman instinctively turned to see if the little paper was in fact consumed; but there was nothing left of it.” (The words are not impressive, but the image, returned to its narrative context, may be the best concluding image ever. On the paper is written evidence that the two people who betrayed his trust and broke his heart—Madame de Bellegarde and her son Urbain, who had forbidden Christopher Newman’s marriage to Claire de Cintre after they had published the engagement—were guilty of murder. Making the evidence public will be his revenge, but Newman decides in the end not to follow through—decides to let go of his betrayal and broken heart. He tosses the paper into the fire. And only then does Mrs Tristram tell him that the Bellegardes had depended upon him to do that very thing, not to take revenge. Then the last sentence.)

Finally, from Herzog: “Not a single word.”