Two endings to his story.

I think it's interesting that he wrote two endings, one with a Christian triumph and one with their defeat.

It may well be that he wrote the happy ending to satisfy himself and then the alternate to reflect his knowledge that suffering is central to Christian thinking.

It may also simply be that the entire fiction was an exercise in exploring conflicting impulses within him. It seems from the exerpts to me that his stories reflected issues he had, emotional difficulties and crises of faith. In the stories he's able to explore his own conflicted psyche. Hence we get him as a turncoat general, angry at god. We get scenes of horrors inflicted upon children. We get his impulse to protect innocence coupled with angry and violent response to their harm.

I think maybe the 'unhappy' ending coupled with the happy one is simply his further exploration of his own desires. He was still not reconciled with his faith, and the two endings reflect what he wants to believe juxtaposed with what the world seems to force him to accept.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."