Advent is upon us once again. This month EN looks at three successful works - two films and a novel - which ask the same question as that raised by this particular Christian festival: 'Will the ending come as a surprise?'
There is no doubt that fictional stories set around actual historical disasters are hugely popular with audiences. When James Cameron made Titanic in 1997, it attracted millions of viewers worldwide, with a final gross of £1 billion. When Gus van Sant (director of Good Will Hunting) made the smaller, independent film Elephant about the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, he won the coveted Palme D'Or award at the 2003 Cannes film festival. This year, the novel Pompeii has taken its writer, Robert Harris, to the top of the bestseller lists once again with his fact-based version of the events leading up to the eruption of Vesuvius.
Knowing the end
While these three texts are very different, they share the same premise; the reader knows what the characters do not. A great disaster is just around the corner, yet none are aware of it. Each of the stories introduces us to fictional characters who are living their lives with no thoughts of their mortality. They certainly don't have any idea that death is imminent or that the world as they know it is about to be destroyed.
