The End

Summary

To end a book is to perform a paradoxical act. There is always a follow-up to the conclusion, a post-history to the post-history of the end. It is impossible to trace a definite point in time, to say, “This is where it all culminates. Before, there were only dispersed chapters, now there is conclusion, closure and full stop.” And yet, just like “books and other narratives … really do begin,” they really come to an end. To end is to cut off, to make an incision in time. No matter what will follow, from now on what came before is to be seen as a lead-up to this point. As Chekov famously (and allegedly) instructed: “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off.” This instruction can also be turned around: it is the going off at last that gives the rifle’s introduction a purpose. In hindsight, the end is implicated in the beginning; it is this end that leads us back to that beginning. Just like “the beginning of a story … will … also have to be the story of a beginning,” the end of a story will also have to be the story of an end.