I wrote a little while back about the impact of good endings on us as readers.
A good ending can sum up a character’s journey within a story – as well as point us to where they are going next.
Certain endings stand out in my memory. They may offer encouragement, or solace, or simply the grace that our dinner is still hot when we return to it, despite our earlier mischief.
I have alluded to The Phantom Tolbooth before on the blog, though I have never really tackled it properly.
(Nor should I really expect to do it full justice in one post, or many – it is one of those books you can return to time after time, and find new things in it on each reading.)
It seems a little unfair that I should undercut Juster’s book and begin with the ending, but it strikes me as a good antidote to our concerns at the end of a busy week.
Whether we remain in love with the world, or bored by it, as the book’s hero Milo starts out feeling, the world is amazingly full of interest and variety.
Call it a different phrasing of my earlier quotation of Stevenson – about being ‘happy as kings’.
But there is something lovely about having our perspective refreshed, whether through adventure, excitement or simply the presentation of other ways of seeing things.
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‘…And, in the very room in which he sat, there were books that could take you anywhere, and things to invent, and make, and build, and break, and all the puzzle and excitement of everything he didn’t know — music to play, songs to sing, and worlds to imagine and then someday make real. His thoughts darted eagerly about as everything looked new — and worth trying.
“Well, I would like to make another trip,” he said, jumping to his feet; “but I really don’t know when I’ll have the time. There’s just so much to do right here.†‘
Norman Juster