Earned endings?

[nancylebov]

http://nineweaving.livejournal.com/144151.html?nc=4

"Happy endings and how do you earn them?"

Interesting question, but I'm wondering if all endings have to be earned. Entropy is always with us, so sad or inconclusive endings can also be an easy option.

One of the A.S. Byatt books in the Virgin in the Garden series ended with people sitting quietly in a room, and it had a strong impact. (This is from memory, and it's literally the only thing I remember from the book.) How did she get away with that?

Any other endings that would go in the "I can't believe that worked" category?

Comments

[penprickle.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it qualifies as either earned or happy--it's a very complex book--but the final chapter of CS Lewis' Till We Have Faces always leaves me in awe. To me, the book doesn't read at all like his writing, right up to the crucial moment--when he then flips everything neatly inside out, and I finish the book thinking "Wow, that was Lewis."

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it did work, but the 'ending' to GG Kay's Tigana has 3 of the characters encountering a riselka. According to the legends the reader has been informed of, this means that one of them will die, one of them will have a major change of destiny, and the third will be blessed. The encounter with the riselka is literally the last sentence of the novel.