MovieChat Forums > American Pastoral (2016) Discussion > The ending

The ending

posted 17 years ago by Em-25
4 replies | jump to latest

Okay, I haven't found any online forums that deal with the book and most of you seem to know the book pretty well and I have a question if anyone feels like answering it.

(spoiler alert)

Okay, in the end the Swede hears his father in the other room scream "NO!" and he imagines that Merry has shown up and has told his father about the other murders. The Swede then imagines that his father dies of a heart attack.

BUT

In actuality his father just got stabbed in the eye with a fork. I only read the book once but I got the impression that the father died much later.

I was pretty sure this interpretation was correct, but then I came across an essay that seemed to believe the Swede's take on the situation was the correct one.

[–] dvg77 17 years ago

No, I am pretty sure you're right, and he just gets stabbed in the eye. Keep in mind though, that pretty everything that happens in the book is actually being filtered through the mind of Nathan Zuckerman.

[–] josdjohn 17 years ago

Towards the beginning of the book, if you recall, the Swede sends Zucherman a letter asking him to write a tribute to his father, who had died the previous year. The letter was dated "Memorial Day, 1995", so the indication is that the father lived another 21 years after the stabbing. This section of the book was (presumably) not fictionalized by Zucherman.

[–] minisatellites 10 years ago

I hated the ending. The book is good until that last part. Also, he never confronts his wife and friend about their affair. The dinner party just leaves you hanging and when you invest time in a book, the reader, I think, deserves an ending that sums things up. The author could have made a sequel off this book it's so open-ended.

[–] Artaxias_I 10 years ago

With any luck the movie will rectify that and have a better ending.