The End (spoilers)

[betsy....@gmail.com]

OK, I just finished last night. Scott was about to turn the lights
out, and I was like, oh, just let me finish the chapter, two more
pages, but alas, it was the end of the novel.

Didn't except Chabon to be such a softy. You're totally right, it'd be
a really good candidate for a second read. It's not like The Usual
Suspects level of needing the second run through, but I definitely
think it would add to the reading experience.

OK, I gotta go do some work, but I'll be back and ready to discuss
this evening. Hopefully without this freaking humidity freezing up my
keyboard (wishful thinking, I know).

[richt...@gmail.com]

It was an interesting and satisfying ending. I'm glad that it was
sudbtle enough that there was no second Messiah and it wasn't so far
fetched that they were able to simply stop the crisis from happening.
>From the soft ending I believe that it is something a little difficult
to discuss en masse as it was a logical conclusion; though, by that
rational whatever they would've done would still have been a logical
response to the situation.

It was a soft ending a soft landing? But it did tie everything up
quite nicely

[Megan....@gmail.com]

it was a soft ending in that our hero ended up with his girl, ready to
keep going in a crazy world... but in every other aspect, this crazy
world is completely up in arms. whether or not the messiah comes is
almost irrelevant. there's a new war starting in the middle east, an
uprising in alaska, and i'm pretty sure a pissed off rest of the
world. the "calm" of the Landsmans could be taken as unnerving or
encouraging. i'm on the encouraging side - life keeps going, take what
you have and move forward together.

kind of a funny message for such a detailed book. it's almost trite.
should i feel different?

[betsy....@gmail.com]

Megan, I agree, it is a warm-fuzzy kind of ending. It's not entirely
neat because the world, as you noted, is still in chaos, but it is a
decidedly happy ending. So happy that it does seem trite when we talk
about it. But as I read it, I didn't feel that way. At least I didn't
entirely feel that way. I was mildly frustrated with how unimportant
all of the important plot twists were to the ending. I guess that's
what adds to the softness of it.

I get the sense at the end that all of the death and destruction that
brought us to the end are supposed to matter less now that we've
arrived there. I am supposed to feel that Landsman's sister's death is
now completely resolved and he's done grieving now that he's back with
Bina? Really?

[Megan....@gmail.com]

no, i dont think so... i also dont think we've totally solved her
death, either. i'm taking the assumption that her plane was sabotaged
- should i think otherwise? and i'm a bit confused as to why her plane
was sabotaged after she dropped off Mendel - why not kill them both at
once?