“how does one reconcile writing “the end” when life is still unfolding?”

November 20, 2015 9:08 AM

Begin Again: On Endings in Nonfiction by E. V. De Cleyre [Ploughshares.org]

Talking, or writing, about endings is hard—whether it’s the end of a marriage, the end of a life, or the end of a book (lest one spoil the conclusion). Life rarely offers sudden and definitive endings or epiphanic conclusions. Rather, events leading up to the end seem to be a slow unfolding, occasionally bleeding into a new beginning. For writers of nonfiction, dealing with actual occurrences often means there is no definitive end, and even if there were (such as a death), there comes the aftermath—the grief, the coping, the rebuilding.

posted by Fizz (2 comments total)

Suppose you're writing about a person who died before finishing an ambitious, lifelong project.

In real life, as it turns out, someone else takes the project on. The project seems to fail, but sows seeds for something essential that worked out many years later.

You, as the writer, might not know any of these things yet. Maybe the person has just died. Or maybe you're writing from centuries later. Depending on where your narrative ends, the "meaning" of your account -- and of the person's life, as remembered through your story -- will seem radically different.

As you stumble through life making sense of the world, each successive fragment of information alters the meaning of what you've already experienced. You're constantly trying out successive hypotheses about what things mean, how they work. What's the pattern? Does this feature/event/image reinforce or contrast with the theme? What's signal, what's noise? What's the figure, what's the ground?

Until you decide where to end the story, you haven't decided what the story means. Up to that point, some possibilities have to be left open. But although the outcome can't be entirely predictable, it can't be a swerve out of nowhere, either. Any narrative that's interesting enough to be worth reading encompasses divergent possibilities.

In the mid-90s, I was working in a college town at a job that was fun and interesting -- I was learning a lot -- but we were being paid a pittance. I didn't mind so much. You could rent a lovely half-house with a generous porch in a leafy neighborhood for less than $400, and walk or bike just about everywhere. I'm city-bred and accustomed to long walks, so I managed fine without a car. But Eric, the guy in the next cube, had some reasonable material ambitions. He needed a different job.

Eric had had a run of what seemed like decent interviews. He kept coming that close, but a stream of mishaps kept him from clinching the deal. Once he'd gone so far as to give notice, but then some sudden restructuring happened at the place he'd supposedly been hired by, and he had to go back and rescind the notice he's just given. He was convinced it couldn't be bad luck; there had to be some explanation. He was obviously well qualified, so what could it be? The problem, he decided, had to be his ancient, banged-up car.

I told him he was nuts. "What do you think they're going to do, rush over to the window and check out your car before making a decision? 'Don't hire this guy, he drives something that looks like an old zinc garbage can?'"

But by that point Eric was convinced. He was too discouraged to want to haggle, so he decided to shop at Saturn, since they had a reputation for straightforward, no-nonsense pricing. He asked me to come with him to the dealership so I could drive his old car back. I watched in horror as he signed the papers for a car I knew he couldn't really afford, and followed him as he headed back to town in the gleaming burgundy sedan. We pulled up outside Eric's place. Eric stepped out, gave me a big hug, and then offered me his old car for nothing.

My first thought was that he'd gone stark staring bonkers. Then I realized it wasn't a bad idea. If anything went wrong with his new car, and I had the old one, I could always give it back to him. So we put $10 down on the title transfer, and I told him that every time I saw him I'd give him a quarter. It was a 1981 Toyota Starlet. It had been through some mysterious rough times—it really did look like a garbage can on wheels—but it had five speeds and a ton of room in the hatch. I felt pretty lucky.

I immediately arranged to take a week off work, and I set out across the country to visit my parents in Montreal. My boss and work friends were all taking bets on not whether but where the car would conk out. But I headed out before sunrise. The car held up fine, and I got there, and the car a) lasted another year and a half, and b) made three more round trips to Montreal and one to New York before taking its last exit.

The reason I can actually tell this story in good conscience is that Eric was in some sense absolutely right. It worked! In less than a week, before I got back from my trip, he'd bagged exactly the job he wanted. In no time he'd moved away and he and his wife had bought a big, comfortable house.

As for me, I stayed in that job for years longer than I should have. I eventually moved to California, and I like it here, but aspects of my life are still pretty unsettled.

If the story just ended at the simple point of sale—how and why I got a car from my friend Eric for $10—it would still have a point, it would still be funny, but I probably wouldn't tell it. For one thing, it would make Eric out to be a sadsack; I like Eric and I wouldn't tell a mean story about him. If I also added the detail about my own concern for him (what if they repossess the Saturn?), I'd come off as self-aggrandizing to boot.

But by following up with what happened later, the story changes its tone, zooms out to a much odder, zanier world, and points out that when you—and by "you" I really mean I—are at your most insufferably smug and patronizing, the joke's probably on you. Of course I could have continued the story; as long as Eric and I are still alive, the narratives of our lives are still evolving, and no doubt there's more to be prefigured by that ten-dollar transaction. But I always tell that story the same way. I know what I want it to say.
posted by tangerine at 11:55 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."
– Orson Welles
posted by bryon at 10:15 PM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]