How to End a Book

My sister went on a campaign to England while she was in college and brought be back a souvenir of her trip-- an original edition, first run copy of Mark Twain’s novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. Twain published the novel under the pseudonym Sieur Louis de Conte, (SLC, as in Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Joan of Arc did have a page named Louis, and Twain published the novel in the first person as the memoirs of the page and secretary of the Maid of Orleans. It’s a good read, far different from any other of Twains writings. Don’t take my word for it; tread it. The two volume work is available for free on the web. I can’t imagine reading 750+ pages of html text, but it really is a good book.

Twain had a problem with the story… how was he to end it? Everyone knows how the Joan of Arc story ends. Even if you have never heard of Orleans or Patay, you know what happened to Joan of Arc. The rest of the book may read like a fairly take, but there can be no “happy ever after ending.” It kind of like the last Star Wars movie— you know how it will end and it won’t be pretty! Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a witch by her English captors in an attempt to discredit her king and undermine the victories that eventually ended the Hundred Years War Years. Not a happy ending. But Twain comes up with a pretty good ending anyway, and the aged Conte reflecting back--

As the years and decades drifted by, and the spectacle of this marvelous child’s meteor-flight across the war-firmament of France and its extinction in the smoke clouds of the stake receded deeper and deeper into the past and grew ever more strange and wonderful and divine and pathetic, I came to recognize her at last for what she was—the most noble life ever born into this world save only One.

Not a bad ending, huh? Some people just know how to end a book.

I can’t help butreflect on the ending of our book. The ending of the gospel story was penned at the end of the first century by an aging apostle John "reflecting forward" through the strange visions and images of the Apocalypse. I don’t think John was predicting the precise details to be played out in an exact timetable right before the end of days. I rather see John encouraging persecuted Christians by pointing to the end of Roman power and by extension the never-ending battle between good and evil. I see the key point of Revelation as, “They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.” (Rev 17:14). There are two sides—good and evil, the Lamb and His enemies. We cannot change nor even contribute to the ending of the story; that has already been written. What we can do is choose which side on which we will fight. We know which side will win, so which side will we choose?

How are we going to end our book?