Whatever happened to happy endings?

Jane reads more than I so I asked her. Reading and writing, while connected, differ in process and purpose. One reads to find out what others think; I write to find out what I think. Reading humbles one into a listener, taking notes; writing exalts one into a speaker, making points. No matter how self-effacing an author, there’s nothing self-effacing about their attempt; self-facing, rather – painting one’s own face.

I love reading but I love writing more. I try to write four to six hours a day, after which I’ve emptied my mental cupboard. I used to be a better reader, but urgency intensifies as time shrinks. I must excavate my interior while I still can.

My question to Jane concerned serious literature. There will always be jokey and sappy entertainments that manipulate readers’ moods with old tricks. Romance fiction always ends in flagrante; hard-bitten detectives collar their culprits. Broadway musicals will always end o

n a blasted tonic. Many slump into stories as into a summer hammock, to relax and forget. Nothing wrong with that.

Serious literature strives to convey the truth of its time, to paint portraits that probe, not just flatter. Serious literature reflects what German professors labeled the Weltanschauung, that is, the spirit of its moment, which inevitably evolves.

Serious literature in English, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century, preponderantly affirmed. Morality plays, where our literature started, emphasized God’s providence, wisdom, justice. The Devil was thwarted, God prevailed, hallelujah. In Shakespeare’s plays, the good guys win in the end, even if the hero goes down. Stories may be sad, but their conclusions reassure. Novels through the nineteenth century hearten. Christian makes his way to the Celestial City, Crusoe returns to civilization, Gulliver survives his weird travels (though he’s grouchy to be home). Dickens’, Thackeray, Trollope, George Eliot all present morality tales in period costumes. Their audiences would have bolted otherwise.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the weather in stories turns stormy. Characters’ prospects after “Finis” grow iffy, bleak. At the close of fictions by Hardy, Conrad, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, few hurrahs. Same goes for the poetry of the period: waning Victorian optimism is dashed by the Great War, never to resume. Sentiments darken through the twentieth century. The only happy contemporary poetry I can think of is jokey or ironic. Only fools feel good!

What curdled us? Whence fled the enthusiasm, patriotism, confidence of our parents’ parents? Materially, we’re prosperous; morally, we’re desolate. Our public discourse is grimed with rancor and spite. How come?

My hunch is we’re victims of our success. We’ve fulfilled most of our basic needs, gained awareness of our bodies and minds, deflated the myths of religion and patriotism, portrayed our every sorrow and horror, achieved unprecedented self-awareness and, ugggh, we’re not happy where we’ve ended up. Heaven as we approached evaporated like a mirage. Happy endings vanish because we no longer believe in them, they’re lies. No one is happy in the end.

Is the drab realization of the twentieth century forward the final word? No word is final until humans stop speaking. For me, increasingly, imagination is my recourse from despair. Happy endings may be delusory but we’re free to believe in them if we like. Hallelujah may be unattainable but it’s still fun to sing. We can be so much more than we are and if we fail, what the hell, we can always keep trying. As Pope put it, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Or Thomas Gray, more sardonically: “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”