Beginnings and Endings
We all like a “good ending”, if not a “happy ending”.
The other day I happened to be listening to some music and started to sing along … and the people in the office were somewhat surprised at this, and commented: “Ian, we’ve never heard you sing before.” In itself, that shouldn’t really be a surprise, because I tend to restrict my singing to private moments like sitting in the bath … when no-one can hear me. The trouble is that I cannot sing … well, of course I can sing but to be honest I can’t sing in tune and cannot hold a tune.
Despite this, when I was at school I took part in a number of performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas: The Mikado; Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore – hidden away in the chorus, not as a soloist.
As an impressionable schoolboy the convoluted plots with their simplified morality, catchy tunes combined with the thrill and atmosphere of greasepaint and being on stage was seductive. Although my performing was limited to those three, I developed a liking for Gilbert and Sullivan … and especially their classic ‘The Yeoman of the Guard’. There is something very peculiarly English about Gilbert and Sullivan, grounded in Victorian culture and the British Empire, with Gilberts satirical comments about great British institutions, such as the House of Lords in Iolanthe, and Sullivan’s catchy music with traces of popular music hall tunes mixed with hints of grandeur, classical symphony and grand opera, which follow a regular and predictable pattern.
One of the things I learned from my turn on the stage in these three operettas was the importance of the opening number and the grand finale – or as the teacher who produced the shows put it … “We need to start and end on a high”.
The point was reinforced on a “Handling the Media” course I attended … amongst the advice we received was that it’s all very well to present the facts, but a press release or statement needs to have an opening which will catch the editor’s attention and encourage them to read on … and a powerful, “punchy”, conclusion, … and the two should be linked in some way. One of the examples given in a talk by an editor of a local newspaper concerned a story about a war veteran, which began in a pedestrian manner introducing the hero and then followed his life story chronologically. It was only in the final paragraph that it was revealed that the artillery shell that he had had kept as a souvenir and was using as a doorstop turned out to be “live” and could have exploded at any moment. Not only an interesting fact, but one which contained a vital message about the dangers of such “souvenirs” and the need to take proper precautions. The problem was that it was almost included as an add-on, as if it was merely an afterthought. How many readers would have persevered and got to the final paragraph?
All of this came to mind last week because one of the podcasts that I have subscribed to included an interesting discussion in the latest episode about the last words of novels …
Apparently there has been a newspaper article in a major British newspaper on the topic … and although people seem to be able to remember the openings of several novels, they rarely ever seem to be able to remember the closing words. The author raised several reasons why this might be the case, including:
- openings are more memorable because they set the scene. The author and their story are fresh and new and the opening needs to be “attention grabbing”, so that the reader wants to – is driven to – continue, whereas by the time the reader gets to the closing words the author and the story are already running out of steam;
- the role of the opening words are to “grab the reader’s attention” and encourage them to read on but that of the closing words is to round off the story and bring it to a close … (although in these days of sequels, trilogies, multi volume sagas and so on, that seems less relevant than it might have done in the past);
- the endings of novels tend to be disappointing – “If I had been the author, I wouldn’t have ended it like that …” – How often do we feel let down as we close a book having read the final page and closed the covers for the last time?
Classic opening lines might include “Once upon a time …” yes, well … numerous fairly tales are supposed to start with this, and the phrase brings the comfort of familiarity before the strangeness of the story settle in … and many fairy tales are strange … and disturbing … just look at the original stories published by the Brothers’ Grimm before one of their other brothers bowdlerized them. Other examples which occur to me are:
- “In the beginning …”, (the Bible)
- “To begin at the beginning …”, (Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas)
- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”, (A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens)
- “It was a dark and stormy night …” (originally by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton in his story Paul Clifford, but hijacked by Snoopy, the Peanuts Beagle in many a cartoon by Charles Schultz)
- “It was love at first sight.” (Catch-22, by Joseph Heller)
- “Mother died today.” (The Stranger by Albert Camus)
- “All this happened, more or less.” (Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut)
- “Call me Ishmael”, (Moby Dick, by Herbert Melville)
- “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen .” (1984, by George Orwell)
- “I had the story bit by bit from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.” (Elthan Frome, by Edith Wharton)
- “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.”, (Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess)
Perhaps the opening line that is most frequently quoted by people taking part in surveys is Dickens’ “It was the Best of times, it was the worst of times …”. In fact the line is extremely well crafted list of eight opposites that compliment each other almost like poetry:
“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.”
In the same book, Dickens also provides a contender for one of the best and most memorable closing lines: “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.” Apart from drawing the story to a close with a very definite ending, perhaps it is not quite as final as a simple “The End”.
Dickens is a bit more positive in ‘A Christmas Carol’ with: “And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”, and the classic ending of fairy tales, “… and they all lived happily ever after” places the story in a continuum of time – life goes on … Margaret Mitchell also achieved this with the ending of ‘Gone with the Wind’: “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
As a teacher I am conscious of that important principle of repetition. When delivering a lesson, cover the ground four times: Start by telling the class what you are going to tell them … tell them … then tell them what you’ve told them … and finally ask them what you have told them. Set the scene, give the detail, summarize and the test.
In English, there is a tradition that the most important information is introduced at the outset, at the beginning of a book, a paragraph or even a sentence. It sets the scene and informs the reader of the context and purpose of the book, letter or article, or of the paragraph, and what follows is supporting information. When writing a reference, for example, I usually begin with a simple sentence … “I am writing to support the visa application of xxx to visit the United Kingdom”; follow it with paragraphs outlining who I am, how I know the person, what I know about the person and why I think they should be given the visa; and then round everything off with a recommendation such as “I am happy to recommend that xxx should be granted a visa …”. The test, of course, comes in the decision of the consul – whether they agree with me and grant the visa, or not.
When I was learning the art of Precis, (creating a summary), we were told that we should avoid the temptation to simply reproduce the first sentence of each paragraph … on the basis that everything else in the paragraph should be supporting information, illustrating the main point which was made in the opening sentence.
Perhaps that is another contributing reason as to why opening lines are so memorable in English …
In Russian, on the other hand, the emphasis is on the ending … the justification comes first and then the important information comes at the end.
The importance of Beginnings and endings is relevant in other walks of life as well …
Take, for example, the case of tourists visiting the Kyrgyzstan for the first time. The airport and officials managing the Immigration and Customs controls are, after all the first face of the country that many visitors will encounter. International flights usually arrive at Manas Airport. in Bishkek, in the early hours of the morning. After a restless night with any sleep they have managed to grab in flight disturbed by having to disembark and run the gauntlet of Customs and Immigration procedures could hardly be described as a “high spot” of anyone’s holiday.
The same is true when it comes to departure … having to arrive at the airport in the early hours of the morning, in ample time to go through the necessary formalities
To be fair, the authorities in Bishkek have done much to help alleviate the discomfort and unpleasantness of the experience. The airport building itself ahs been renovated and although they couldn’t do much about the basic architecture, the modern bright, colourful, clean and spacious halls are a welcome change and far removed from the drab, grey, monolithic, Soviet blocks that I encountered when I first arrived here fourteen years ago. There are still problems, however, as visitors have to stand in long lines and officials rarely offer a welcoming smile. At times these officials can be very helpful … but at others they can also be very officious and bureaucratic … and their dedication to their duty and can make them appear dour and makes for an unwelcoming experience. It is true that they have a job to do, (and it is a very important job – safeguarding the gateway to the country), but it would give a much better impression and create a much more pleasurable experience for the visitor if there were enough officials on duty to offer a speedy and efficient service, delivered with a smile and perhaps a simple phrase, such as: “Welcome to Kyrgyzstan, we hope you enjoy your stay”, or “We hope you enjoyed your stay in Kyrgyzstan, and hope to see you again”, (neither of which costs anything but they can make such a difference, especially before or after a long and tiring journey.
These are issues that those of us working in tourism have been trying to press home for some years … the fact that we are still trying is evidence that we have not yet, unfortunately, succeeded in getting the message across.
Let’s hope for a good, a happy, ending to this particular story.
Bishkek