Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily...

[maerdi]

I can't help noticing that the fictional media I've been consuming all seems to end in a Happily Ever After sort of way. I can see the appeal of the wish fulfillment ending; after all, it's probably far easier to gain repeat customers from a happy ending than from a more muddled, possibly more realistic one. And yet, part of me has trouble with

Comments

[porfinn]

if you have an hour or two, it shouldn't take very long, you might find yourself a copy of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Fly-Night-Frances-Hardinge/dp/0060876301/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249282493&sr=8-3

It is cute, endearing, and settles the way happily ever after should actually be, at least for me.

[maerdi]

Thank you! A copy is winging its way to me via the library as we ... "speak."

[porfinn]

Perfect! I actually might buy it to put on my "read to others" list. I have two people who like getting silly cds/mp3 files from me (I'm reading my 26 year old cousin Harry Potter! And I'm reading another friend the Bartimeous trilogy by Jonathon Stroud. Incidentally, if you like kid-stuff, it is very, very good. Kind of Harry Potter with more politics and much more cynical)
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_14?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+amulet+of+samarkand&sprefix=The+amulet+of+

[maerdi]

I love the idea of you reading books out loud via CDs! I don't know if there are any very old books you'd be interested in reading aloud, but if so, and if you have a hankering to do it, you can always volunteer with LibriVox (acoustical liberation of books in the public domain) (Ha! As if you needed more projects! But sometimes we need a little art in our lives to keep us healthy and sane, and it does seem up your alley...)

Oh, and I've also requested your Jonathon Stroud; I'm sure it will join Fly By Night on the hold shelf in a day or two. ;)

[maerdi]

I do understand your idea of suspension of disbelief, but I also feel like a good story is something that teaches you about the world, and it pains me a bit to have good, interesting lessons consistently marred by an entangling with the lesson "people always get what they deserve / in the near future right will prevail".

I think we're much more susceptible to internalizing ideas that are prevalent in our media than we think we are, and so I think any single idea that is ubiquitous enough is fairly dangerous.

[maerdi]

What I object to is the general attitude of "happy endings in stories are so simple/unrealistic/etc,"

I think any ending that wraps up all the loose ends is simple and unrealistic, and happy endings seem to be most often the ones that imply that everything is settled and fixed in perfection forever.

as if being depressed by a work somehow makes it Deeper or more deserving of praise

I disagree that a story that doesn't have a happy ending must therefore make the reader depressed. There's lots of room for bittersweet, not completely wrapped up, mixed, and a beginning of a new story endings (to name a few).

I think that the fetishization of suffering among intellectuals

I'm intrigued by this idea, but don't think I've seen or experienced it myself. Can you give me some examples?

much more dangerous to society than happy endingsMy point was that those good people in the world who _do_ experience pain and suffering are taught that they are somehow deserving or to blame, that they aren't _good enough_. I think that's a horrible

[dhalps]

I feel exactly the opposite these days, at least in the movie domain. Rang de Basanti, Rachel Getting Married. Have you seen No Country for Old Men? :-D I *love* that movie.

And in book land, you should read Un Lun Dun, and Neverwhere. And The Time Traveler's Wife. And Perdido Street Station, if you like the kind of gothicy sci-Fi-y evil-younger-brother-of-Neal-Stephenson kinda thing. At least the books in this set (not to spoil, but not all of them) that end in a Happily Ever After sort of way make the protagonists work for it. Hard.

Oh, and see (500) Days of Summer. The first line in the movie is, "This is not a love story." It's good!

[maerdi]

Thanks for the suggestions!