It was a dark & stormy night: Favourite beginnings & endings

[j. d. worthington]

That, too, is a lovely ending.

One of my own favorites is from Lord Dunsany's "The Hoard of the Gibbelins", in his A Dreamer's Tales:

"The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a seperate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have been known to scatter rubies about, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again."

and the ending?

"He was in the emerald cellar. There was no light in the lefty vault above him, but, diving through twenty feet of water, he felt the floor all rough with emeralds, and open coffers full of them. By a faint ray of the moon he saw that the water was green with them, and, easily filling a satchel, he rose again to the surface; and there were the Gibbelins waist-deep in the water, with torches in their hands! And, without saying a word, or even smiling, they neatly hanged him on the outer wall -- and the tale is one of those that have not a happy ending."

[Nesacat]

I just finished Justin Marozzi's Tamerlane. I've always been fascinated by the man, even by his name. And this book is particularly well-written. A sweeping, historical saga and puuls the reader right into the world of the Tamerlane and the city of Samarkhand.

Beginning:
At around 10 o'clock on the morning of 28 July 1402, from a patch of raised ground high above the valley, the elderly emperor surveyed his army. It was a vast body of men, spreading over Chibukabad plain, north-east of Ankara, like a dark and terrible stain. Through the glinting sunlight the ordered lines of mounted archers stretched before him until they were lost in the shimmering blaze, each man waiting for the signal to join battle. There were two hundred thousand professional soldiers drawn from the farthest reaches of his empire, from Armenia to Afhganistan, Samarkhand to Siberia. Their confidence was high, their discipline forged in the fire of many battles. They had never known defeat.

Ending:
Temur's burial place was a simple slab of carved stone engraved with Koranic inscriptions. After the pomp and colour of the mausoleum above, the drab, dark chamber was a sombre sight. This was the grave of the man who had blazed across Asia like a comet across the heavens. For a few years his descendants had watched over the glowing embers falling through the sky until the Temurid empire and dynasty had crashed to earth, extinguished altogether. In the West Temur has been but forgotten. Those who know his name perhaps remember the fire and brimstone of Marlowe's play bout a tyrant who styled himself 'the Scourge and Wrath of God/The only fear and terror of the world.' But to all but a few, the greatest Islamic empire-builder in history, the man who joined Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan in the trio of the world's greatest conquerors, remains little more than that: a name. The city he had built so brilliantly and decorated so lovingly, once the envy of the world, lies in a neglected southern outpost of the old Soviet empire.

[Rosemary]

'I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man, winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place - then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement - and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice.
"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."

Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities.

I have always found the ending of this story somehow inspiring.

[j. d. worthington]

Yet another Dunsany, from "The Highwayman", in The Sword of Welleran:

"Tom o' the Roads had ridden his last ride, and was now alone in the night. From where he was, a man might see the white recumbent sheep and the black outline of the lonely down, and the grey line of the farther and lonelier downs beyond them; or in hollows far below him, out of the pitiless wind, he might see the grey smoke of hamlets arising from black valleys. But all alike was black to the eyes of Tom, and all the sounds were silence in his ears; only his soul struggled to slip from the iron chains and to pass southwards into Paradise. And the wind blew and blew.

"For Tom to-night had nought but the wind to ride; they had taken his true black horse on the day when the took from him the green fields and the sky, men's voices and the laughter of women, and had left him alone with chains about his neck to swing in the wind for ever. And the wind blew and blew.

"But the soul of Tom o' the Roads was nipped by the cruel chains, and whenever it struggled to escape it was beaten backwards in the iron collar by teh wind that blows from Paradise from the south. And swinging there by the neck, there fell away old sneers from off his lips, and scoffs that he had long since scoffed at God fell from his tonue, and there rotted old bad deeds that were evil; and they all fell to the ground and grew there in pallid rings and clusters. And when these ill things had all fallen away, Tom's soul was clean again, as his early love had found it, a long while since in spring; and it swung up there in the wind with the bones of Tom, and with his old torn coat and rusty chains.

"And the wind blew and blew."

the ending:

"... Then these three, that had robbed the Law of its due and proper victim, still sinned on for what was still their friend, and levered out the marble slabs from the sacred sepulchre of Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. And from it they took the very bones of the Archbishop himself, and carrid them away to the eager grave that they had left, and put them in and shovelled back the earth. But all that lay on the ladder they placed, with a few tears, within the great white sepulchre under the Cross of Christ, and put back the marble slabs.

"Thence the soul of Tom, arising hallowed out of sacred ground, went at dawn down the valley, and, lingering a little about his mother's cottage and old haunts of childhood, passed on and came to the wide lands beyond the clustered homesteads. There, there met with it all the kindly thoughts that the soul of Tom had ever had, and they flew and sang beside it all the way southwards, until at last, with singing all about it, it came to Paradise.

"But Will and Joe and the gypsy Puglioni went back to their gin, and robbed and cheated again in the tavern of foul repute, and knew not that in their sinful lives they had sinned one sin at which the Angels smiled."

[j. d. worthington]

And another from Lovecraft, "The Quest of Iranon":

"Into the granite city of Teloth wandered the youth, vine-crowned, his yellow hair glistening with myrrh and his purple robe torn with briers of the mountain Sidrak that lies across the antique bridge of stone. The men of Teloth are dark and stern, and dwell in square houses, and with frowns they asked the stranger whence he had come and what were his name and fortune. So the youth answered:

"'I am Iranon, and come from Aira, a far city that I recall only dimly but seek to find again. I am a singer of songs that I learned in th far city, and my calling is to make beauty with the things remembered of childhood. My wealth is in little memories and dreams, and in hopes that I sing in gardens when the moon is tender and the west wind stirs the lotos-buds.'"

the ending:

"And in the twilight, as the stars came out one by one and the moon cast on the marsh a radiance like that which a child sees quivering on the floor as he is rocked to sleep at evening, there walked into the lethal quicksands a very old man in tattered purple, crowned with withered vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if upon the golden domes of a fair city where dreams are understood. That night something of youth and beauty died in the elder world."

[Nesacat]

Originally Posted by Rosemary

'I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man, winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place - then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement - and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice.
"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."

Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities.

I have always found the ending of this story somehow inspiring.

That is a lovely piece of prose Rosie ... thank you for reminding me. It is very hopeful indeed.

[Nesacat]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

That, too, is a lovely ending.

One of my own favorites is from Lord Dunsany's "The Hoard of the Gibbelins", in his A Dreamer's Tales:

and the ending?

Goodness I loved this one ... the whole time I was reading I was trying to tell the guy not to be so stupid and to just leave ... now. He didn't listen.

[YOSSARIAN]

This beginning may be out of place here. The passage is not from a book or a short story. It is the first passage of the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Which leads to the best ending paragraph of any book:

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding. O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

[j. d. worthington]

I think the thread was intended to have beginnings and endings from the same piece in the same post, but what the heck. These are both wonderful choices. And, yes, that ending, first time I read that book, gave me nightmares for weeks....

[Nesacat]

Ummm ... I think I shall go with being flexible and allowing beginnings and endings from different books since we often find ourselves liking the one bur not necessarily the other.

Indeed Yossarian that is a very good beginning and an awfuly scary ending in comparison. The book truly frightened me when I first read it and it still does.

[steve12553]

Mine is not quite Science Fiction or Fantasy but it is close on both counts.
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore,I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world."

And ending with:"It was the devious cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, found only another orphan."

The preface to the epilogue is a quote from Job "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee"
If memory serves this was paraphrased by Ray Bradbury in his screenplay to the 1956 movie, "And I alone escaped to tell the tale"

For the youthful group not yet exposed this is of course Hermen Melville's Moby Dick Or the White Whale.

Add that to the Gunslinger, Dune, the Foghorn, and the Haunting of Hill House, you've got some of my favorite beginnings and endings

[j. d. worthington]

Steve -- WONDERFUL CHOICE! Good to see somone quoting Melville. Also, have you ever heard Bradbury tell about his experiences when Huston was trying to get him to do the screenplay for Moby Dick? It's quite interesting....

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Steve -- WONDERFUL CHOICE! Good to see somone quoting Melville. Also, have you ever heard Bradbury tell about his experiences when Huston was trying to get him to do the screenplay for Moby Dick? It's quite interesting....

I have a vague memory of that and I don't remember where I read it.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by steve12553

I have a vague memory of that and I don't remember where I read it.

Actually, I heard him tell the story on the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder several years ago, but I think it may be in one of his collections, as well... I'll see if I can't track it down; if I do, I'll let you know where to find it.

[YOSSARIAN]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Actually, I heard him tell the story on the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder several years ago, but I think it may be in one of his collections, as well... I'll see if I can't track it down; if I do, I'll let you know where to find it.

I'm not sure but I think Bradbury tells this stort in "Zen and the Art of Writing".