Lame Endings & Great Photography

There are few things worse than a lame ending to a great book. I just finished reading a book borrowed from the library, and for the life of me I can't remember the title even though I just returned it two days ago. It doesn't matter, the ending ruined the book for me.

The story is original, the style difficult to pull off, but the author did it well - except for a couple of parts where she lost me because the emotion didn't seem strong enough for what was happening in the scene. It's as though her inspiration waxed and waned as she was writing this novel. There are parts where the reader is able to experience the story fully, because of the way the author describes what is going on. Then suddenly the writing turns bland. Something tremendous is going on in a chapter, yet the characters are hollow, their reactions boring and listless. Then in the following chapter, the writing reverts to vivid again, and I'm drawn back into it.

The ending was the last straw for me. The final scene tells of an elderly man, mourning the death of his beloved wife. He's taken a bottle of whiskey into bed with him, sprinkled the sheets with her talcum powder, and curled up drunk and weeping. Well written so far ... then it falls apart. His best friend comes into the old man's house, enters his bedroom and wonders how to comfort him. Then he hits on an idea - he will give him some money! He will give him land! Even though the man is old, he will be given vast fields to plow! So this is how the book ends. The old man accepts these gifts and in doing so, throws his grief aside. Suddenly he feels better and is able to face life again because he has been handed these material things.

How rediculous. I won't read that book again. Well I'd have trouble finding it anyway, because as I said, I can't even remember the title.

I haven't been writing much these days. I did write a new poem, and I'm fiddling with a strange little project that I don't expect I will ever try to publish, but that's about all in the past several months. The reason for my lack of writing, is photography. I am more and more in love with that art form every day! I spend hour upon hour working on folders full of pictures I've taken. I have adobe cs, and I have plugins that offer me incredible choices in what to do with the original photographs. I continue to be amazed (if I do say so myself) at my growing talent. Thank God I picked up a camera two short years ago! It was such a fluke that I decided to try my hand at photography, I had no idea that it would lead to this.