The beginning sheds light on the ending

I

MUCH has been said about the three endings of John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman.

When rereading a novel, the beginning is charged with the ending(s).

Perhaps the beginning should be rewritten now? The directions that there are no pagination errors in the novel. From both the publisher and the author.

And then as a motto at Chapter 1 from Thomas Hardy's “The Riddle".

The dedication in any text charges it with subtext, dedicated to a particular person. Often just initials.

The first motto in Fowles's novel is from Hardy's poem:

The Riddle

I
Stretching eyes west
Over the sea,
Wind foul or fair,
Always stood she
Prospect-impressed;
Solely out there
Did her gaze rest,
Never elsewhere
Seemed charm to be.

II
Always eyes east
Ponders she now –
As in devotion –
Hills of blank brow
Where no waves plough.
Never the least
Room for emotion
Drawn from the ocean
Does she allow.

– Thomas Hardy

The concluding chapter refers to Matthew Arnold's Notebooks (1868): True piety is acting what one knows .

Fowles's knowledge of Victorian literature is widely known. In the closing chapter into which he smuggles new, “minor" characters towards the end and knows it's something that shouldn't be done, but does it anyway?

Then you realise anew how cunning and clever he is. That figure is like an impresario ...

II

Drive my car is a 2021 film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi that is based on a story by Haruki Murakami, published in 2014. This complex story is about a theatre director's life and his production of a multilingual production of Chekov's Uncle Vanya.

The film is nearly three hours long and with each viewing, something different emerges.

With Fowles, you have to involve Darwin and Hardy. Here, first of all, the story of Chekov's play Uncle Vanya.

The director (who has already portrayed Uncle Vanya and will portray him again) remarks to a young player that Chekhov is dangerous because he confronts you with yourself.

This exceptional film is based on the premise of Uncle Vanya.

Alexander Serebryakov, a retired professor, and his beautiful younger wife, Yelena, return to the family farm run by his brother, Vanya. He is the brother of the professor's first, deceased wife. The retired professor is able to lead an extravagant life of pleasure in the city thanks to Vanya's work. Vanya and Doctor Astrov are both impressed by the beautiful Yelena.

Ennui and resentment.

Resentment especially from Vanya for working himself to the bone, while Alexander is having fun in the city.

Sofya (also “Sonya"), the professor's daughter from his first marriage, is also on the estate. She, in turn, is in love with Astrov, but this goes unrequited. Serebryakov announces that he wants to sell the estate despite Vanya's hard work over the years.

As against Sofya's sense of disregard, Yelena is flattered in her superficiality by Vanya and Astrov's interest in her. Eventually, she rejects both men, emphasising a feeling of fruitlessness. (Vanya, by the way, is a diminution of the name Ivan, which further emphasises the character's status.)

Here's the full drama text.

The film begins with a man (Yūsuke Kafuku) who sees his wife, Oto, having sex with another man, Kōji. He doesn't let on that he's seen them. The man then later becomes a character in the production of Uncle Vanya. He plays Vanya ...

Yūsuke is actor and director. Oto writes movie scripts after having sex.

We see how he learns his dialogue by listening to recordings she has made. The car is a Saab 900 Turbo.

United by the death of their child

The death of their four-year-old child binds them and he is accepting of her having sex with other men.

We see him act in Waiting for Godot.

A car accident due to glaucoma dramatically changes his life. His wife wants to talk to him and when he comes home in the evening (after driving around alone) he finds her dead due to a brain haemorrhage.

He plays the role of Uncle Vanya but collapses due to his wife's death.

The film begins in Tokyo. Then we move on to Hiroshima. And Hokkaido.

Two years later, he has become a residential advisor and director in Hiroshima. Here he has to manage a multilingual production. Misaki Watari is his driver, seeing that he is prevented from driving himself due to his eye condition and an accident. Gong Yoon-su advises him in this complex project with Lee Yoo-na, a mute actress who acts through Korean Sign Language. And Kōji, his co-star, plays the role of Vanya.

Meanwhile, Kōji (who has been charged with having sex with a minor), confesses his love for Oto to Yūsuke. An argument develops in the bar, but the viewer doesn't see what Kōji is doing. Misaki, in turn, confesses to Yūsuke that her mother had died in a landslide. She then drove garbage trucks at the age of 18. She also takes Yūsuke to her previous workplace where the viewer sees garbage being compacted. A particularly strong image of the emotional damage the young Misaki had experienced. The deaf-mute actress also turns out to be Gong Yoon-su's wife which further complicates things.

With a corpse in the room

The two actors who portrayed Vanya drink together again: Oto's stories helped them survive when their child died and Kōji gives a shocking version of one of Oto's stories. With a corpse in the room where the story character always left objects in the room of the man she desired ...

A foreshadowing of what's to come. The police arrest Kōji during a rehearsal, because the man he assaulted has died. That man had taken pictures of him ...

Should the production be stopped or will Yūsuke be willing to play Vanya?

Then we move on to the first conclusion: Yūsuke asks Misaki to take him to her home in Hokkaido.

Here painful losses are played out. Misaki places a cigarette in a container in the cold snow.

Yūsuke confesses his enormous pain, for never having had the last conversation with his wife and Misaki reproaches herself for not saving her mother.

Yūsuke portrays Vanya with Yoo-na (as Sonya) mirroring it all in sign language: “We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all in diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress … You've had no joy in your life; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait … We shall rest."

The conclusion? Misaki lives in South Korea. There's a dog in the red Saab. With the suggestion that Yūsuke might be with her? Or is he dead?

We remember the scar on her face. She's an emotionally damaged person.

This ending takes you back to the beginning again.

As with John Fowles. How you interpret the endings is connected to the beginnings and mysteries that need to be solved.

♦ VWB ♦

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION: Go to the bottom of this page to share your opinion. We look forward to hearing from you.