Happy Endings

I just finished reading Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural. I saw the film adaptation starring Robert Redford some time ago and loved it, but I had never read the novel. The movie ends nothing at all like Malamud’s novel and the protagonist, Roy Hobbs, was changed dramatically for the movie. I liked the movie better.

Don’t get me wrong, Malamud’s writing is every bit as good as his reputation would suggest. He was worthy of all the accolades he received. And novels like The Natural have their place. The novel version of Roy Hobbs is obsessed with fulfilling later in life the destiny he believes was his due, that in his youth he was cheated out of by forces he didn’t understand. In the end the hero is felled by his own unquenchable ambition, bad choices, hard luck and harder acquaintances. By the end of the book he is broken, bitter and despised as a failure.

I don’t need stories like that. Some people do. I’m not one of them. The movie version allows Roy Hobbs to make up for his past arrogance and bad decisions. He gets one last chance to remake his life with a single swing of the bat. And he does. He still has to quit baseball, but he gets the winning homer, the adoration of the fans and, this time, the right girl. He gets redemption and a happy ending.

Malamud’s novel gives Roy Hobbs a fate much closer to what such a character would suffer in real life. Think Barry Bonds without the long career. But I get enough real life every day that I don’t need a great writer to emphasize the bad for me. Yes, in the real world, in almost all cases, once an asshole, always an asshole. (Again, see Barry Bonds) But there are those rare cases where people do change for the better. Against all odds and base human selfishness, someone does the right thing. We cling to stories like these for a reason. We need to be reminded that it can happen, that people can be good. We need to be reminded that we can change for the better.

One of my favorite movies is an adaptation of a Richard Russo novel, Nobody’s Fool. The protagonist is Donald “Sully” Sullivan, a ne’er-do-well, self-defeating carpenter who seems never to learn from his mistakes. In Russo’s novel, the character has under his crusty and cynical exterior a deep humanity that is finally allowed to surface. He renews a relationship with his estranged son and grandson. He is allowed to change just a little, enough to have hope. The novel’s end drags out far too long. After Sully’s story-long flirtations with a younger employer’s wife, his naïve notions of romance are revealed when he is shocked to find that his son has been sleeping with the woman. He is once again the fool, but now a fool with a family. An altogether mixed bag of an ending. And not all that happy.

Once more I like the movie better. The screenwriter crafts a dramatic ending that allows Sully a rough dignity, honor and one more chance to choose his better angels. He does. He chooses love without possessing, chooses friendship and loyalty over his own needs long unfulfilled. Sully gets to be a hero, albeit with a small ‘h.’ And I get to believe a little longer that I have that kind of small ‘h’ hero inside me. In the movie, Sully gets the happy ending he deserves.

Yeah, they are Hollywood endings. Perhaps it is naïve to believe that people can change, that redemption is possible. Maybe it’s even corny to want stories that perpetuate what are arguably myths. But I need these stories. I need to know, somewhere deep inside, that it is possible for me to change, that I can learn from my mistakes and someday overcome them. I need to think I can redeem myself. I need a happy ending.

The climactic scene in Second Hand Lions is one I will never forget. It inspires me to know that writers can create scenes like this one. A boy confronts his uncle, demanding to know if his uncle’s stories of high adventure are true. The uncle tells him it doesn’t matter. “Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason a man can’t believe in it,” the uncle says. “Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this, that love, true love, never dies. . . . Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. A man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”

And I believe in happy endings. Doesn’t matter if they happen in real life or not. It is a thing worth believing in.