This book was either frustrating in the extreme, despite the absorbing plot and characters, or else I just didn’t get it. It ended in the way that many of us fear LOST (the TV series) will end: ambiguously and without answers. Consider yourself warned.
I enjoyed reading The Little Stranger, but I enjoyed reading it because I thought I would find an explanation for the suspenseful events of the novel by the end. If you read The Little Stranger hoping to find out what is causing strange things to happen at Hundreds Hall, you will be disappointed. The book has drawn comparisons to Edgar Allan Poe and to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, but there is a difference. When I read The Turn of the Screw, I was also frustrated by the ambiguity and the unresolved ending. But as I thought more about it, I realized that one could choose how to interpret the book, there were “plausible” answers to the questions raised in the books and there were more supernatural possibilities. But there were answers. The Little Stranger is not so satisfactory in this regard. All of the people in the book could be insane, but that’s hardly likely. There could be actual ghosts at Hundreds Hall, but since everyone experiences the ghostly events in the book quite differently, that solution doesn’t satisfy either. As a third possibility, some real person could be producing the supernatural effects at Hundreds Hall for some nefarious purpose, but it’s not clear how that could be true either. In fact, it seems impossible –which brings us back to insanity or a multitude of ghosts.
Some ambiguity at the end of a book, or a TV series, is acceptable. Total confusion and anticlimactic dissatisfaction is not. It’s the difference between fiction and real life: in real life sometimes I must resign myself to never knowing how the story ends because “we see through a glass darkly.” I want my fiction to have an ending.
Other bloggers say:
Fleurfisher: “It made me want to go back and look at things again, and this could well be a book that has much more to offer with subsequent readings. And the ending? It’s subtle and could be read in more than one way.”
Stephen Lang: “It is beautifully paced, full of subtle observations and quite simply a pleasure to read. It is also one of the most effective, chilling and original ghost stories I have read for some time. I finished The Little Stranger a few days ago but, still thinking it through, I have been unable to start a new book.”
Nicola: “It did not end the way I had expected and I was quite shocked with the outcome and actually quite annoyed that things ended up the way they did. I’ve had time to recuperate now, but that is the sign of good characterization, when a book’s characters mean so much to you that you are invested in them and want all to end well for them all.”
I love reading this books so much. I thought the language was beautiful and I definitely wanted to know what was going to happen. I guess it could have been very ambiguous but I had my thoughts I was leaning toward and I think I was able to find enough there for me to be happy enough with the ending. It did make for an interesting discussion.
SO, I read this book about two weeks ago, my mum read it and just literally gives it to me to read. I couldn’t stop or put it down.
SPOILERS!
as you have read it, I want to ask a few questions for clarification.
In the end, where caroline exits her room and goes upstairs for some reason, she cries out “YOU!” No, had it been her mother, roddie, or her sister whom she never knew, she would have said their names, would she not? however, she calls out “YOU!”
earlier in the novel, the doctor is talking to a friend(ach i forget the name!) who mentions outer body experiences, where your “soul” can leave your body, and go elsewhere.
Could it not have been the doctor who she saw? because at the time he was in his car by the lake, having fitful dreams, of hundreds and caroline, at the same time as she “Jumped/fell/ was pushed” off the landing.
ALSO at the end, the doctor has what he wanted, does he not? all the way through there are subtle intonations to the reader, that the doctor would like to take over hundreds as his own, he feels ties because it was his mother who kept it running, his family and friends who did the work. I think he wanted to amrry caroline, not because he loved her, but because of his infatuation with the house itself. and when she refuses, is his temper tantrum not a reflection of this. So, back to the end(sorry i got sidetracked there!) he is in the house on his own, playing lord and master, airing the rooms, sweeping them through, in their on his own, and yet he doesn’t see the “supernatural” things.
one clue, i thought for it possibly being the doctor who did it, created the ghosts, and whistlings, and angering gyp, and exposing every weakness of the family to bring them down, is that when he is in the house on his own, he mentions seeing something out of the corner of his eye, whipping around and merely seeing millions of reflecitons of himself, over and over again. is this not a subtle clue, by waters, to say “it was the doctor, THE DOCTOR DID IT!”
i thought so, but i would like to know if you agree, or indeed if anyone agrees!
Lucy,
You could be right. I would have to go back and re-read the book to see if there is any reason why your solution wouldn’t work. I’s not something I thought of while reading the book, but it sounds plausible.
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