So he specifically told the hardcover publisher to make sure the last line of TUC was on the last line of the right hand page, right?
Same reason he put an EMORMOUS glossary in the back? So our brains would fool us into thinking there's more story to come when we got to salt and butchery?
That's the crash space, right? By doing that, he KNEW that, even despite his telling us hundreds of times, that there is no meaning, that every character ends up in oblivion, our adorable human heart-minds would, without us knowing it, cheat our perception so that when we were 451 pages in, appalled, engrossed, terrified, that even then our minds would be saying 'Holy cow, I know there's a glossary in the back, but still, things have to wrap up soon. How does it end in a satisfying fashion?'
Which is to say: How does the story end in a way that tells me, Yes Dear Reader, all of this means something. Maybe not much, maybe something awful. But this story, this universe, this life, means SOMETHING, right Bakker? Right, me?
No.
On that last line of Page 451, Bakker did exactly what he said he would do:
He reached right out of the book and made us actually FEEL the ultimate fucking horror:
There Is No God.
Maybe you guys have already been here this whole time and I'm just spouting the bleeding obvious. Either way, this thought hit me like a thunderbolt yesterday. I thought about the ending, then I thumbed through the book, and I couldn't believe my eyes.
