The fragility of the end

I accomplished what I imposed on myself two months ago, which was to reread and recompose the entire novel... before moving on to the last chapter. The end has long been thought and rethought. I still had to go around the garden again to keep in mind all the unifying elements. I know that by writing this ending, it could still surprise me even if it has been in my head for so long. It was already there, almost at the beginning, was born at the time of the necessary anchoring of history. Without an end, there is no possible direction, the no more or less chaotic gathering of the scenes.

I attach as much importance to the end as to the beginning and immediately criticize the authors who seem to put the whole effort into the beginning and do not have much interest or energy to bring their story to the end.

I don’t claim to have succeeded all the time. Crever mon fils is probably my most clumsy text at this level. I don’t know if I succeeded in the others. I try not to reread myself, perhaps for fear of finding that I always repeat the same thing!

Les Mailles sanguines has 80 small ends, after each scene. The text does not make a scene, it is in this sense as quiet as L’Effet Casimir, it also borrows several techniques, even character ideas. We can make the connection, for example, between the character of Rose and Lucienne, that of Diane who lost her artist husband and Martha whom the artist companion left. We will also be able to discover the similarities in the concept of travel as an outlet (which, in itself, is really not original).

This end, now, I have to compose it for Les Mailles sanguines. It is a fragile moment, the last look the reader will have at the text, the one with which he or she will judge the rest. I do not want to disappoint them, I want to leave them with a warm breath in their heads, because, to paraphrase the end of Les Années-rebours, if we do not understand everything, there remains for us the luxury and delight of wanting to start over.