About the Ending… (spoilers)

I’m curious to hear other readers’ thoughts about the ending.

The story seemed to be building up to something larger between Eleonora and the Sultan. There were the birds, the prophecy, the condition of the empire, the exploding boat, and all the intrigue with the Bey and Reverend Muehler. All these pieces wanted to be fit together — and so it seemed to Eleonora — but in the end it was all abandoned.

One can, of course, lament the choices with which Eleonora was confronted in the end, due mainly to Reverend Muehler’s personal ambitions and those of his journalist friend. But the resolution, which was for Eleonora to run away, felt unimaginative. That was, after all, her first move. Why repeat it?

She was in a strong position with respect to the Sultan. He wanted her advice. She might have parleyed that into a good deal for herself — a promise to be treated as a daughter, to be able to travel with the Sultan on his tours of the country, to be able attend a foreign university, and marry as she chose. It seems like the Sultan’s mother would have been sympathetic to those ambitions.

Such a course would have entailed a compromise with her personal freedom, but that is the nature of the political situation in which she had become involved — everything is a compromise. One part of wisdom is choosing the best of what you’re offered and turning it to your advantage. And, on the whole, it seems like a better — and far more plausible — choice than striking out on her own at nine-years old.

And with that business settled, the story could then have followed up on the intrigue. This would have made for a much larger book, or perhaps several books.

So, why not? What was the point of the ending? Was it meant as an ironic commentary on how easily people take signs and portents to signify a larger story, when in fact there are no larger stories? Are we to read it like Kafka?

I don’t know. I think we’re constantly trying to make our lives into stories, and to tell stories that make our lives meaningful in some larger context. And I don’t see anything wrong with that. We may fail, tragically. Or our stories may be cut short. But even that seems better to me than to have no story at all.