82 Comments

1. March 16th, 2011 / 6:58 pm Mike Young—

   Ulysses

2. March 16th, 2011 / 7:04 pm Lincoln Michel—

   Can I count A Fan’s Notes by Exley since the actual awesome book is the result of the struggles in the text?

3. March 16th, 2011 / 7:06 pm alanrossi—

   i have a hard time thinking of “happy.” maybe House of Leaves. Deliverance, too. but neither of these are exactly happy, i don’t think, but certainly end on more hopeful or rising notes. Omensetter’s Luck has Furber’s change of heart, of course. Jesus’ Son.

4. March 16th, 2011 / 7:08 pm Lincoln Michel—

   Jesus’ Son ends on a positive note.

5. March 16th, 2011 / 7:12 pm jh—

   Barthelme’s Paradise

6. March 16th, 2011 / 7:12 pm Gabe Durham—

   That’s the one I immediately went to.

7. March 16th, 2011 / 7:14 pm JScap—

   The Fermata, Baker — the way things turn out couldn’t be better for Arno.

8. March 16th, 2011 / 7:14 pm jh—

   That’s a seriously great book.

9. March 16th, 2011 / 7:17 pm Lincoln Michel—

   I’m sure that countless genre books, especially fantasy books, end on happy notes with evil vanquished and everyone happy. Some of those are probably good.

   This question is making me realize I don’t remember the exact ending note of a lot of my favorite books though…

10. March 16th, 2011 / 7:18 pm Gabe Durham—

    Then We Came to the End, kinda.

11. March 16th, 2011 / 7:29 pm Lauri—

    Stuart Little.

    “Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led to the north. The sun was just coming up over the hills on his right. As he peered ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.”

12. March 16th, 2011 / 7:29 pm Scott Riley Irvine—

    Invitation to a Beheading is the first one that comes to mind.
    Perhaps Amis’s Money?

13. March 16th, 2011 / 7:30 pm Frank Tas—

    Calvin & Hobbes: It’s a Magical World

    I forget if Master and Magarita had a happy ending. I think it did? I think Heart of a Dog did.

    Catch 22

    Some Elmore Leonard books

    “Red” by Maxim Gorky?

14. March 16th, 2011 / 7:32 pm Anonymous—

    I thought Jesus’ Son too. I think Felicia’s Journey has a sort of light at the end of the tunnel, though an unfamiliar one. I don’t know. It seems like all the books I’m thinking of only seem uplifting at the end because they’re so depressing throughout. But, that’s the only kind of happy ending you’re gonna get, one that comes about after a lot of shit happens. Otherwise, it’s just happy-happy-happy! Oh Siddhartha has a happy ending, yeah? What could be better than that ending?

15. March 16th, 2011 / 7:34 pm D Erlewine—

    The Things They Carried is a happy ending in the final story/chapter (Lives of the Dead): “I’m skimming across the surface of my own history… thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.”

16. March 16th, 2011 / 7:36 pm goner—

    Delillo’s Underworld has a pretty happy ending and that book didn’t suck.

17. March 16th, 2011 / 7:38 pm Janey Smith—

    Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom.

18. March 16th, 2011 / 7:40 pm Gillian W—

    Tim Winton’s Dirt Music

19. March 16th, 2011 / 7:44 pm D Erlewine—

    D Cooper’s “The Sluts”

    kidding. i have no more to offer

20. March 16th, 2011 / 7:53 pm blm—

    Nabokov’s “The Gift,” Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” Tolstoy’s “The Forged Coupon”…

21. March 16th, 2011 / 7:57 pm JimR—

    Technically, the “end” is a flashback, so does it qualify as a happy ending? Leopold and Molly are unfulfilled, unfaithful, and incommunicative, yet sleep in the same bed every night. Super sad, IMO.

22. March 16th, 2011 / 7:57 pm Guesty—

    Jane Eyre

23. March 16th, 2011 / 7:59 pm stephen—

    I second this. This is what I thought of first. A chronological reading via plot doesn’t seem logical in the context of Ulysses, in my opinion, JimR. Also, I would say there is an implication that those memories are coloring the present moment, chronologically-speaking.

24. March 16th, 2011 / 8:01 pm stephen—

    The Waves (though a part of me sort of doesn’t care for/isn’t sure about the final sentence(s), which is what supplies the happy ending)

25. March 16th, 2011 / 8:01 pm GiovanniGF—

    To my surprise, a lot of John Cheever’s short stories had happy endings.

26. March 16th, 2011 / 8:02 pm stephen—

    damn, yeah, the ending of “To the Lighthouse” is sweet

27. March 16th, 2011 / 8:07 pm Nathan Goldman—

    Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
    Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
    JSF’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (maybe)

28. March 16th, 2011 / 8:12 pm karl taro—

    you mean in a massage sense, right?

29. March 16th, 2011 / 8:13 pm stephen—

    I second Franny and Zooey. Love that book. I wouldn’t bet money that Blake thinks it doesn’t suck shit, though

30. March 16th, 2011 / 8:19 pm Nathan Goldman—

    Second.

31. March 16th, 2011 / 8:21 pm Omar De Col—

    uh, ever heard of ‘The Holy Bible’ guys? jesus.

32. March 16th, 2011 / 8:21 pm Mike Young—

    I am thinking more of Molly’s conviction and construction of her mood; albeit, the mood’s a stilted one in the context of her reality, as you point out. Also, I admit, I was somewhat trying to mildly josh the subject and jostle the definition of happy.

33. March 16th, 2011 / 8:28 pm Court—

    Ada.

34. March 16th, 2011 / 8:28 pm stephen—

    in my recollection, the memories climax with the moment of Leopold proposing marriage and Molly accepting, and as well, Joyce purposely picked what he called the most affirmative word in the English language, capitalized for emphasis, Yes

    so, Yes, happy ending

35. March 16th, 2011 / 8:34 pm deadgod—

    That’s a great call, Mike.

    The ‘happiness’ is surely severely qualified: Stephen still has disappointed his dying mother, and still has his jolly-profligate father and poverty-stained siblings and his own not-fitting-in with Ireland, and Bloom and Molly still have dead Rudy and each other’s infidelities.

    But I think Molly is confirmed in her preference for Bloom – I think yes I said yes I will Yes indicates her response to Bloom now – , and a father has found a ‘son’ and a son a ‘father’, and there’s a tremendous channeling of joy over the final three sections.

    So, “happy” in the primary sense of ‘fated; lucky’ and the secondary sense of ‘joyous’.

36. March 16th, 2011 / 8:46 pm deadgod—

    Pierre’s insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people’s merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and, loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was worth loving them.

    Natasha and Pierre become happy.

37. March 16th, 2011 / 8:49 pm reynard—

    here come the warm jets

38. March 16th, 2011 / 8:51 pm deadgod—

    The Moviegoer has a complicated, joyous ending.

39. March 16th, 2011 / 9:00 pm Spotterama—

    The Masters of Atlantis, True Grit (sorta kinda), Gringos, all by Charles Portis.

40. March 16th, 2011 / 9:14 pm Trey—

    Wuthering Heights I thought was pretty good, but I think people generally don’t like that book maybe. I wish I could remember more books I’ve read.

41. March 16th, 2011 / 9:30 pm romeo jones—

    most canonical Victorian-era novels. take your pick pretty much.

42. March 16th, 2011 / 9:32 pm Joseph Young—

    I thought of Grapes of Wrath, though it’s a weird kinda happy. I balled my eyes out reading that. In a sorta similar way is the end of The Road. I mean, that tiny bright spot of utterly hopeless hope is breath taking. A less qualified happy ending miught be Passage to India.

43. March 16th, 2011 / 9:32 pm Joseph Young—

    I thought of Grapes of Wrath, though it’s a weird kinda happy. I balled my eyes out reading that. In a sorta similar way is the end of The Road. I mean, that tiny bright spot of utterly hopeless hope is breath taking. A less qualified happy ending miught be Passage to India.

44. March 16th, 2011 / 9:32 pm Kevin Spaide—

    You’ve got a point there. How many hundreds of novels have I read – and not much comes to mind. Didn’t Hunger end sort of happily? War and Peace? James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia had a happy ending.

45. March 16th, 2011 / 9:32 pm Kevin Spaide—

    You’ve got a point there. How many hundreds of novels have I read – and not much comes to mind. Didn’t Hunger end sort of happily? War and Peace? James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia had a happy ending.

46. March 16th, 2011 / 9:43 pm Kevin Spaide—

    Frog and Toad are Friends!

47. March 16th, 2011 / 9:43 pm Kevin Spaide—

    Frog and Toad are Friends!

48. March 16th, 2011 / 9:46 pm Joseph Riippi—

    This is a tough question, because if I liked the book enough to determine it as “good,” then I would consider that a happy ending as far as I’m concerned. I finished Blood Meridian with a smile on my face. Moby Dick the same (Tashtego’s arm gripping the bird? I mean, come on! Happy!) When By Night in Chile ended and the damn paragraph finally broke into a sentence I won’t give away, it wasn’t a happy sentence, but damn itif it wasn’t a beautiful ending.

    An ending full of smiley-happy people in a book with few redeemable qualities is a sad ending, far as I’m concerned.

    But insofar as the intent of the question, then i suppose Jesus’ Son, sure, that makes sense, as well as most political autobiographies (at least the ones that come out within two years of a term-ending).

49. March 16th, 2011 / 9:46 pm Joseph Riippi—

    This is a tough question, because if I liked the book enough to determine it as “good,” then I would consider that a happy ending as far as I’m concerned. I finished Blood Meridian with a smile on my face. Moby Dick the same (Tashtego’s arm gripping the bird? I mean, come on! Happy!) When By Night in Chile ended and the damn paragraph finally broke into a sentence I won’t give away, it wasn’t a happy sentence, but damn itif it wasn’t a beautiful ending.

    An ending full of smiley-happy people in a book with few redeemable qualities is a sad ending, far as I’m concerned.

    But insofar as the intent of the question, then i suppose Jesus’ Son, sure, that makes sense, as well as most political autobiographies (at least the ones that come out within two years of a term-ending).

50. March 16th, 2011 / 9:48 pm Sean—

    Suttree

51. March 16th, 2011 / 9:48 pm Jane—

    Bullet Park by John Cheever

52. March 16th, 2011 / 9:53 pm tai carmen—

    This taps into one of my pet peeves, literarily speaking. It’s as if writers are afraid to write redemptive endings because it’s never done in “real literature” and so simply produce more and more of the same, creating a status quo that everyone is too brainwashed by the fear of being labeled “light reading” to attempt.

    It’s harder to write a chillingly poignant happy ending than a chillingly poignant sad ending…but damn it, I wish they would try. I have bones to pick with the endings of all my favorite books (White Noise, The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, A Gate At The Stairs…)

    It’s a good question. I’ll check out some of these. Thanks!
    http://www.taicarmen.wordpress.com

53. March 16th, 2011 / 10:13 pm interference—

    Kafka’s Metamorphosis

54. March 16th, 2011 / 10:17 pm dean—

    the your face tomorrow trilogy ends happily, which is saying something considering all the shit that happens in the books. herzog by saul bellow has a nice ending. disgrace by j.m. coetzee is pretty good, too (just kidding, it’s one of the saddest of all time).

55. March 16th, 2011 / 10:19 pm dean—

    the your face tomorrow trilogy ends happily, which is saying something considering all the shit that happens in the books. herzog by saul bellow has a nice ending. disgrace by j.m. coetzee is pretty good, too (just kidding, it’s one of the saddest of all time).

56. March 16th, 2011 / 10:30 pm cameron pierce—

    The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola has a happy ending. Most of the Brautigan books I can think of right now have happy endings. Washer Mouth: The Man Who Was a Washing Machine by Kevin Donihe too.

57. March 16th, 2011 / 10:32 pm Michael Goroff—

    The Road? I guess it’s not happy-happy, but it made me feel okay, sort of.

58. March 16th, 2011 / 10:34 pm Ken Baumann—

    How It Is.

59. March 16th, 2011 / 10:37 pm Scott Riley Irvine—

    Complicating what doesn’t need to be complicated.

60. March 16th, 2011 / 10:47 pm Dan Moore—

    Sputnik Sweetheart and After Dark by Haruki Murakami. The Human Comedy by William Saroyan. Some great Updike stories, especially “The Happiest I’ve Been” and “Pigeon Feathers.”

61. March 16th, 2011 / 10:51 pm Frank Tas—

    Also Cannery Row

    and

    Sent for You Yesterday, John Edgar Wideman

62. March 16th, 2011 / 10:52 pm jh—

    What?

63. March 16th, 2011 / 11:01 pm southridge—

    Michael Ondaatje’s IN THE SKIN OF A LION. Sort of. Also, the ending of Mark Helprin’s great novella “Ellis Island” comes to mind.

    Or LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA? It’s been so long since I’ve read it that I can’t remember it exactly.

    I’ll second THE MOVIEGOER and HERZOG as good happy-endings-with-a-caveat.

64. March 16th, 2011 / 11:03 pm Dreezer—

    You balled your eyes out? Damn!

65. March 16th, 2011 / 11:03 pm Jeff—

    I second Nabokov’s “The Gift.” And there’s also his “Invitation to a Beheading.”

    Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler” for sure.

    Plus I’d make a case for Cormac McCarthy’s “Suttree.”

66. March 16th, 2011 / 11:07 pm skauffy—

    Monsieur by Jean-Phillipe Toussaint has a happy ending in that monsieur finds a girl and they seem to like to be sad together.

67. March 16th, 2011 / 11:08 pm Bugsy—

    Nicholson Baker’s books all have pretty up endings, I think.

68. March 16th, 2011 / 11:09 pm Anonymous—

    Does Murakami ever not fuck up his endings?

    Also, too many cats.

69. March 16th, 2011 / 11:09 pm Anonymous—

    Does Murakami ever not fuck up his endings?

    Also, too many cats.

70. March 16th, 2011 / 11:17 pm Anonymous—

    When things are dialed back to the guy only having has his legs broken (do I remember that correctly?) I did feel a sense of relief and happiness, which actually is disgusting and awful when I think about it now (“lucky guy didn’t get his balls sawed off in a filthy sink, just beat with a bat. yay for him!”), but which is a testament to Cooper’s absolute skill.

71. March 16th, 2011 / 11:42 pm Rion Amilcar Scott—

    1984 has a happy ending. The epilogue is the novel’s true ending. Not the narrative where Winston gets popped in his head.

    The epilogue is of that world and written at a time when that repressive state is no more. Very hopeful ending.

72. March 17th, 2011 / 12:00 am sm—

    old but good: The Odyssey, The Book of Job, The Ethiopian Story, The Betrothed, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Sense and Sensibility (and Pride and Prejudice), Bleak House (more or less), Tom Jones, Pamela, Middlemarch. The Talented Mr. Ripley (if you consider getting away with murder a happy ending).

73. March 17th, 2011 / 12:03 am BAC—

    The Death of Sweet Mister. Dude finally gets to bone his mom.

74. March 17th, 2011 / 1:44 am Lincoln Michel—

    haha

75. March 17th, 2011 / 1:53 am Rick Hale—

    Glass Bead Game. Also Journey to the East.

76. March 17th, 2011 / 2:33 am John Minichillo—

    Unbearable Lightness of Being (an anti-nuke rally). Falconer (ever prison novel should end with an escape).

77. March 17th, 2011 / 2:40 am seafar—

    REMAINDER ends happy.

78. March 17th, 2011 / 10:23 pm Pascal—

    Dennis Cooper’s Try and David Lynch’s Inland Empire.

79. March 18th, 2011 / 1:46 am Alex W. Henderson—

    The Woman in the Dunes, yo!

    And maybe Watership Down? Do we count that as a good book?

80. March 18th, 2011 / 6:24 am mat—

    A Personal Matter

81. March 18th, 2011 / 6:24 am mat—

    A Personal Matter

82. March 24th, 2011 / 10:16 pm davidk—

    Falling in Place – Ann Beattie