Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Booking Through Thursday

This week's question: "What are your favourite final sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its last sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the last line?"

You know, I always liked
"and they lived happily ever after"


It ended so many of my favorite fairy tales my mom told to me as a child. Of course, now as an adult, I know that a lot of the actual stories never ended so...nicely.

There was the much anticipated final lines of the Harry Potter series,

"The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."


I was expecting something more. I was a little disappointed with that one.

I think, though, the one that stands out the most in my mind is,

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."


from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. One of my absolute favorite books, which also gave us one of the best opening sentences ever...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."


(I wasn't here for last week's Booking Through Thursday. Sorry. )

11 comments:

  1. I can't really remember the last sentences of the books (unlike the first sentences of some books), but how it is going to end is important to me. ;)

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  2. The feeling that the reader experiences when closing the a good book's cover is similar to the cherry on the top of a delicious mountain of whipped cream!

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  3. Aww... yes, "Happily ever after" is one of the best endings of all literature. And it's so funny how ubiquitous A Tale of Two Cities is, because I've never read the book but I know the first and last lines.

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  4. I also love A Tale of Two Cities and wrote about the ending, but I'm so glad you actually wrote out the quote. How perfect!

    Welcome to blogging!

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  5. Welcome! Not many ending stick in my mind.

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  6. Remembering the last lines of books isn't as easy as remembering the first lines.

    Btw, I mentioned Harry and "they lived happily..." in my post too. :)

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  7. I think the Tale of Two Cities is up there with Gone With the Wind as most popular last line. :-)

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  8. I loved your answer---They lived happily ever after. Those were my favorite kinds of childhood story books.

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  9. I was also disappointed in the last line of the last HP book. I really thought it would be more profound or....at least leave the reader something to think about.

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  10. A Tale of Two Cities and The Great Gatsby are really up there in the popular roll. The former is my favorite Dickens other than Nicholas Nickleby.

    I don't care if the ending is happy or sad, it has to be tidy. A novel of which the ending ruins the whole book is Bel Canto. Since then I haven't read any of her books.

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Thanks for taking the time to comment! :)