For the purposes of this thread I'm going to interpret
"surprise ending," in the context of a list devoted to
mysteries, as meaning the concealment of the villain's
identity until the end, while, nevertheless, giving the
reader the clues necessary to figure out that identity is
s/he is only alert enough to spot them, and sharp enough to
figure them out. In other words, a classic whodunit plot.
There are, of course, other kidns of surprise endings, but
that seemed to be what Vicki was talking about when this
thread first began.
There is a general sense, not altogether undeserved, that the
whodunit plot can only come at the expense of character,
motivation, action, etc. That certainly seemed to be the
point of view Vicki espoused.
Nevertheless, as Kerry suggested, the qualities of a good
novel, and the qualities of a fair-play whodunit need not be
mutually exclusive. And I'm surprised no one's suggested the
example that should most immediately occur to a member of
this list. Perhaps it's because the "surprise" ending is so
well-known, none of us thinks of it as a surprise.
Consider, though, our response if we didn't already know that
Brigid O'Shaugnessy murdered Miles Archer, and if, as a
result of that, there weren't so many other hard-boiled crime
novels using the "wenchdunit" twist at the end. I submit
that, in such a case, the penultimate chapter of Dashiell
Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON would come as a major surprise
to most of us. I think it probably WAS a major surprise to
anyone reading the book when it first came out.
Nevertheless, Hammett is able to keep us focused on
character, and action, and dialog, by an expert piece of
misdirection. First of all, he makes us think, by making it
appear that this is what Spade thinks, that Thursby killed
Archer, and, since Thursby's already dead at the hands of
Gutman and his gang, Archer'sw murder is now a closed
issue.
The main plot point we all focus on from that point is where
the Falcon is, and we're so focused on that, so focused on
the interactions between the characters contending for its
possession, and so surprised when, after all the moves and
counter-moves, it turns out to be a fake, that Spade's
immediate revelation, once he and Brigid are alone, that he
knows Brigid is Archer's murderer would come as a complete
shock if we weren't already so familiar with the story that
it's part of the collective DNA of the hard-boiled
fraternity.
Significantly, the main clue by which Spade figures out the
killer's identity is one that's available to readers from the
start. It's a clue Hammett used before, in his Continental Op
short story "Who Killed Bob Teal?," and he recycles it
expertly in the novel. I mention this, because the presence
of the clue
("Archer had too much experience to go down a blind alley
with his gun holstered unless he knew, and trusted, the
person he was going with") fulfills all the requirements for
regarding TMF as a formal, fair-play puzzle.
Though the miieu and atmosphere are very different, the story
mechanics of TMF are not much different then those of an
Agatha Christie novel. However, unlike Christie (at least in
my view), Hammett keeps our interest focused on character and
story, NOT on the formal puzzle. And thus makes the puzzle
that much more effective.
So, not only are surprise endings NOT inimical to more
novelistic ambitions but, in the right hands, those very
novelistic ambitions can make the surprise ending that much
more surprising.
JIM DOHERTY
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