Last night, I went with Shannon, Aaron, Rhaynely, and Chloe to watch "Inception" for the second time (it was their first time, except for Chloe; the two of us were able to laugh at the 0-gravity scenes this time, since we had a pretty good grasp of the plot). I didn't fully appreciate the film until the second time around, partially because I fell asleep the first time I saw it, and consequently missed about five minutes of crucial plot. One thing that I was able to appreciate a lot more this time was the involvement of the "creative" man on the team, Eves (or however his name was spelled). I did not even realize, the first time around, that he took on so many disguises, first as Fischer's godfather, then as the pretty girl that he talks to in the hotel. It was also mainly his job to decide what events will occur in the dream to make inception possible, like the finding of the little pinwheel found inside the vault in the father's hospital room. The end of the movie is eerie, because while there seems to be resolution in the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio has returned to his kids, the screen flicks to the credits before the totem topples to the table. It is still spinning, which may suggest that Leonardo Dicaprio has not yet returned to reality. It was a very interesting ending, because it could have gone either way, like the end of the book The Giver, in which it is impossible to tell if the main character makes it to safety or dies. In any case, "Inception" is a good movie (I'd even go so far as to say that it is great, after seeing it the second time), and if you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it.
Just the other day, my mother and I were discussing the various ways that authors end books. It seems that there are a couple of different general styles that are utilized when ending books; I meditated on these all day at school, and finally hashed them out with my mother when I returned home that day. There is the "fireworks" method, there is the "life-goes-on" method, there is a combination of the two, and then there is Steinbeck. I'm sure that there are probably others, but I suppose that I am not well-read enough to list them in their entirety.
I call the first method the "fireworks" method because books which utilize this style tend to end with a bang, no pun intended, or like a fireworks show. Throughout the show, there are lulls in the excitement and climaxes, but there is nothing quite like the clustered lights of the finale, which is what makes the whole show worth it. Much in the same way, authors who utilize this method will throw in a last page or paragraph of what is supposed to be a profound conclusion - and this conclusion is meant to unite all of the previous events of the book while also driving home a strong point to the reader. Sometimes this point is a theme that has subtly existed throughout the entire book, but which is now made blatantly clear - or sometimes this point (when reading a narrative in the first-person restricted perspective) is meant to convey what the main character has been trying to say the whole time. I can think of a couple of books which use this strategy: Looking For Alaska, Notes From Underground, and even the Harry Potter series in a way, because Rowling spends the last paragraph instilling a deep sense of peace and catharsis in the reader. However, the example that I shall present is from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground: (It will not let me put the quote, so here is the link. It starts at "But hadn't I better end my 'Notes' here?")http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DosNote.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div2
The first thing about this monologue is that it is very quotable. There are so many things to think about within this quote. . .like, what would human beings really do without stories, without books? That is, indeed, where we learn most of our morals, is it not? Dostoyevsky challenges us in this statement. I tell you, this book is not an easy read, for the sole reason that the main character is difficult to like - not only is he cynical, but he does a very cold and cruel thing toward the end of the book, just when you feel like he might be redeemed. But then, he turns his cruelty around, telling us that he merely carried his actions to one extreme, and if we base our morality in fiction, who are we to dictate how cruel or not cruel he is? (He still isn't a very likeable character and is still an anti-hero, but he makes a good point). I was ready to come away from this book with a general feeling of disappointment, but this final monologue, this finale to the fireworks show, if you will, was successful in that it redeemed the entire story for me and made it worth it.
Now, the life-goes-on method consists of an open ending in which the characters go about their daily lives and the reader is supposed to infer that things are continuing according to the norm established near the end of the book. The two best examples of this that I can think of at the moment are in The House of Sand and Fog and A Spot of Bother. I believe that in the former, on of the main characters, who has been recently incarcerated, sits down at a table with some other inmates, and lights a cigarette. That is it. And then, in the latter, the middle-aged man who has spent the entire book battling insanity in the face of potential (but imagined) cancer sits down at the kitchen table and drinks a cup of coffee. It is a simpler but powerful approach, because it leaves the reader with a general sense of hope that things may not be perfect, but they are continuing. Life goes on.
While these two ending styles seem very distinct, some authors decide to combine the two. This must be a Southern thing, I've decided, because the two books which immediately come to my mind are of the Southern Gothic genre: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. In both books, one of the characters has a revelation which gives new meaning to all events which happen earlier in the book, but then that character (or all the characters involved) does a simple action which indicates that life goes on. In Mockingbird, of course, we have Scout's inner monologue when she's standing on the Radley porch - when I first read the book, I thought that it would end right there. However, she returns home to where Atticus is sitting with the unconscious Jem. "Atticus would be there all night," and would be there "when Jem waked up in the morning." The end. It is a simple action, but it implies that life continues. It is a similar type of thing in The Heart, but it is late and I am running out of time.
Then there is Steinbeck. He's a different ball game entirely, or whatever people say. From what I've read of Steinbeck, I get the feeling that he took joy in messing with people's heads. I imagine him sitting down, writing his novels and cackling to himself, "Let's see, now, they want realistic fiction? Well, they'll have it, all right - " (snicker) "Yep, let's develop our characters, make 'em nice and round. It's coming up on the end now, so I'll throw in A GIANT RABBIT! What do you think of that?" I do not think that any of us who have read Of Mice and Men expected that one of the main characters would, at any point, have a conversation with a giant rabbit, even if that rabbit was a hallucination. And then, I will remember this until the day I die: my mom and I were eating pizza one day at the Mario's over by Target, and we were discussing the Grapes of Wrath, because I had a desire to read it. My mom, reminiscing about it, revealed the ending to me. I was horrified. Then she said, "Wait, maybe that's not the way it ends. It's been a while since I've read it." To which I replied, "If you made that up, then you are sick in the head." She did not make it up - I will not reveal the ending on here, because I believe that most of my followers have not read it yet and I don't want to ruin it - It somehow has the same effect as the life-goes-on ending, because it gives the reader a feeling of hope, even though the situation is desperate and strange. It is a strange catharsis, this ending. I think that I'm going to re-read this book; I've been thinking about it lately.
In any case, I babble. The CD-318, I discovered today, is apparently the Platonic Ideal for a Baroque piano. It is a Steinway model, and it is the favorite of Glenn Gould, who apparently spent years searching for the perfect piano. I didn't know this until today, but it ties into my dream from last night, because it involved Glenn Gould and his Steinway piano.
I slept in the guest bedroom last night because Heather is in the process of moving back in, and so there was a television in the middle of my bed. I took my purse, my gloves, and a Bible into the guest bedroom with me, and they sat on the bedside table (I had the Bible because I'm trying to find a Psalm to set to choral music). In the beginning of the dream, my dad and I were in what seemed to be half of an amphitheater. It was a semi-circle of ascending seats, and down at the bottom there was a wide stage. My dad and I had decent seats in the center. Glenn Gould was performing on the stage. Just after he finished, he said something to the audience that I could not catch because everyone was applauding. Just after he finished speaking, flocks of people made an eager beeline for the stage. I was excited. Turning to my dad, I asked, "Is he taking requests for songs?" I realized, even in the dream, that this was a silly question - it was not as though classical performers responded to yells of "Fur Elise!" like a cover band might respond to a cry for "Freebird!" My dad, shaking his head, replied, "No, he's letting people come down to play his Steinway. You should go," he added, gesturing down at the stage. I scrambled from my seat down to the stage, eager to see if the action on the keys was heavy or light, and eager to meet the pianist himself. The crowd disappeared as I made my way down to the stage, and then the stage itself became an enclosed, brightly-lit room with a desk, a mirror, and the piano against the wall. The famous chair was there as well, and I remember feeling the temptation to sit on it or touch it through the entire scene in the room, but I restrained myself for fear of being kicked out of the room. "So, there is the piano," said Glenn. "What are you going to play on it?" I sat down on another chair and thought for a moment. "Probably the second movement of Beethoven's 'Tempest,'" I said. He nodded and stood in the center of the floor, listening as I played it. After I played the piece, he rambled for a few minutes about how he wished that all concerts were performed on an individual basis because individuals interpreted music so differently throughout a crowd. Because of this, he claimed, it was harder to play for an audience who would perceive everything a different way. The speech was something to this effect. After he had finished, I began to play the hymn "All Creatures of Our God and King" because I was reluctant to leave. I sang along as well, and my voice sounded full and nice in the dream. I was surprised when Glenn also began to sing along just before the chorus of "O praise Him! Alleluia!" After a moment, I stood up and the music continued even though no one played the piano. Spontaneously, we began to waltz to it, even though it is in 3/2, so I don't even remember how that worked. In any case, we were waltzing and singing, because we both miraculously remembered the words. It was very strange. Then the next part of the dream was stressful, because I was home alone, and there was a creepy guy who lived next to us. All that I remember of this part of the dream is that I left the house to do something, and found myself being pursued by this creepy guy, who had the intention of killing me or gravely injuring me in some way. In the last part of the dream, I was back at the amphitheater without my dad, and I was wandering through the hallway which encircled the seating area. I walked out into one row and found it to be full of little kids wearing Halloween costumes. I remember in particular that there was a little girl with her face painted green and she wore a pointed hat. She was supposed to be a witch. The children were sitting down in the rows and were being chaperoned by two college age people wearing red, like the employees at the YMCA. Down on the stage was Conor Oberst. He had grown a mountain-man beard. I found this strange and oddly embarrassing, and so I left the room, and subsequently awoke.
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