What Does The Ending Of The Elsewhere Express Mean?

Question

Finished The Elsewhere Express and that ambiguous finale left me with more questions than answers about the metaphysical journey. What are other readers' interpretations?

Fahmi AnnaNur · Answer

The journey of the train is left to the reader to decide whether it’s physical or not, whether it’s a trip into the afterlife or a collective dream. In the final scene the conductor folds his ticket and we return to the starting point of the story, but whose journey was this? It’s a theme of open, philosophical endings. It reminds me of another story, ‘Conversations from the Other World’, where a scholar sends letters to a spirit. The central mystery of the story is not how she died, but why she wants to stay in contact with the scholar. The story reaches a conclusion in terms of the emotional truth that the two characters discover about each other, but it’s not a conclusions in terms of a neat plot.

Gabriella · Answer

The ending of “Becky” was wonderful. It was so balanced between magic and consequences. The Elsewhere Express was fantastical but not a “get out of life free” card. As the story unfolded and we saw the repeat boards from earlier in the story that formed the loop of the story for Raya, we learned that staying in the Elsewhere Express could mean being erased from the world that Raya left behind. And we learn that Lily is a future version of Raya who had forgotten her past self. That was very sad but very clarifying of her character as well. Q’s sacrifice of himself to unravel the loop was very moving. But in the end it was Raya who made the hardest but most brave decision of all – to leave the train and the story and have a chance at reconciliation in the real world. I liked that the book chose to go with realism over fantasy and that healing from her past was ongoing but worth it in the end. I closed the cover feeling hopeful and somehow comforted by her story.

Bella · Answer

After finishing the book I was left pondering cycles – the train in its constant motion around the circle, Raya and all her past versions, ‘Lily’, in constant search of something whilst at the same time forgetting who she is, and finally the way in which memory can be both a cure and a wound. But it was two moments in particular that made me realize how the author had written a story of healing, which wouldn’t be an easy fix for its protagonist. Q’s sacrifice to break the cycle of the train was key to the novel, as well as Raya becoming Conductor only to leave. It showed that healing is hard work and often very painful but that there is always the possibility of coming back to join the other versions of ourselves.

Talia · Answer

I finished reading this book with a sense of both comfort and also a lot of pain, lingering long after the story had ended. It had shown us how the Elsewhere Express was both a shield to protect its passengers and also a prison which could trap them for ever. Raya becomes the Conductor of the train in the end, which to me signifies her acceptance of responsibility and the fragile nature of memory and identity as one travels between worlds. As for Q’s decision-making in this story, it reframed his whole storyline and that of others in a completely new light. Their stories were not just of tragic loss, but also of great love and also of how art can be used to intend something new and different after someone’s passing. This was not a ‘happily-ever-after’ kind of ending, but rather a very meaningful and reconciliatory one, and I was glad to have read it.

Olive · Answer

The ending of the book left me with a warm-but-bittersweet feeling, because it was an ending and also a new beginning. During the novel I saw the Elsewhere Express as a place for people lost in this world. On the train they could confront their losses, their choices. In the end Raya takes on the responsibility of guiding those lost on the train, just as Q had done before her. She becomes the new Conductor of the train. I saw how the book tied together sacrifice, memory and identity. Q’s decision to try and break the loop to save Raya even at the cost to himself, explained so much of what had gone before. The echoes and repetitions of events that had been scattered throughout the book, were all because of Q’s attempt to save Raya. And then there was the revelation about Lily. That she was another version of Raya who had chosen to stay on the train. That was so tragic, because it showed what Raya had been given. The chance to leave the safety of the Elsewhere Express and return to the messy real world. The book was saying that healing is a choice that we can make. Raya chose to leave the train and to go back to the world she had left. This was made possible by Q’s sacrifice and the pain that staying on the train would bring her. The bittersweet reunion with memories of Q, his art, and the connection that she had finally found with another in the real world, was so much more real and honest than a tidy ending.

Thomas · Answer

I felt a mix of giddiness and sadness when I finished the book, because it did a great job of tying together the magical elements of the story with the very real and human elements. The Elsewhere Express is a kind of in-between place for people who have lost their way, and it gives them a purpose while also tempting them to stay in comfort. Raya grows up to be the new Conductor of the train, which to me means that she has finally accepted the responsibility of her actions to stay or to leave. And as for the plot twist about how people keep returning to the train and reliving the same scenes over and over again because they are stuck in a grief loop, it makes sense that Q’s actions in the end would break the cycle of that grief for Raya. His sacrifice of himself in order to allow her to move on in a way that will allow for the possibility of their return to each other is very powerful, and it completely reframes their previous relationship in a really beautiful way. The rest of the novel is a gentle coda to that, in which Raya returns to the world and finds Q there in a way that feels completely earned and not at all contrived.

Jennifer Crookston · Answer

This captures a feeling I had after completing a huge, multi-year project. It was a empty space where all that energy had been. The Platform is that empty space. The train in his case was survival. And instead of happiness after the struggle, there is this empty, directionless feeling of being. Of being free, but of not knowing what to do with yourself. That is the feeling of the end of the story. It is not cosmic horror, it is mundane horror. The horror of having no struggle left in you to against.

Tony Ibarrondo · Answer

Wait, I thought that there must be a reason for this character’s early release from suffering. Is he special? Did he deserve to get off the train? No, the book doesn’t tell us why he was allowed to get off the train. Perhaps it was even part of the train’s regular route. I don’t know. The reason for his early release from suffering would have to be part of the reason that the train was operating the way that it did in the first place. I suppose the book is suggesting that in this weird, rule-based world, the ultimate transition simply happens without reason. It is either completely random, or there is some reason for it that can’t be understood by man. Both scenarios are deeply, disturbingly frightening. And what I find most upsetting is that sometimes things just happen. You can suffer for a long time and then, for no good reason, it all just stops.

Marc van Assel · Answer

This special edition cover is amazing too. It captures the mystery of the last part of the story perfectly. The train disappears into mist on one side of the cover and there’s an empty station on the other. The art for this book is so good at sometimes conveying what the words only hint at.

Tammy Welter · Answer

This is what really gets me about this book – the sound. On the last page of the book, our protagonist hears the far-off whistling of the Express disappearing into the distance. This is what kills me. This sound represents everything our protagonist went through to get to where he was going – his struggles, his goal of getting to where he wanted to go, the sufferings of those around him. This sound is him arriving at a new place but at the same time, this sound is the end of everything he went through to get to where he was going. The sound of this whistle is more powerful than any description of what he sees and it leaves our protagonist and us silently haunted by the sound of what has just passed us by. The sound is bittersweet and also terrifying because it means the end of a period of time in his life – for better or for worse.

Lisa B · Answer

I’m not quite ready to rule out the option of a ‘it was all a dream’ ending that has been done well. Perhaps the train is simply a very long episode of a dream / accident-induced coma and he ‘wakes up’ in a cold, sterile hospital / rehab setting, surrounded by cold, sterile lighting and, ultimately, cold, sterile space. His journey, difficult and lonely as it is, is only just beginning to be. The rusting ticket could be the last reminder of his dream and then he’s off, representing the terrible journey of, say, a traumatically brain-injured person returning to some kind of fractured reality.

Ricky Smith · Answer

It reminds me of the ending of certain video games. After you defeated the last boss of a main quest, you get dropped back into your saved game in the open world of the game. The main story is over, and the game switches to sandbox mode. It can be quite an anticlimactic but also weirdly profound experience. You have this plethora of skills, all this history and experience, but you have no direction anymore. You have to find your own way in the game world. Renn’s platform is that post-game world. The main quest of surviving the Express was so much fun, but what’s next? The game doesn’t end, it switches to sandbox mode. That’s very modern and very interactive storytelling in a novel.

Hilda Peña · Answer

The train? The Elsewhere Express? A metaphor for the author’s depiction of clinical depression or grief. The novel describes the journey of its protagonist on this train. He’s stuck on this track. He’s just going through the motions. There are other people on the train, too, but they’re echoes of his pain. In the end, the protagonist steps off at a gray, quiet platform. This is his moment of clinical recovery from the intense feelings he had before. Of course, his world isn’t as colorful and full of life as it once was. But he’s no longer on the train, and that’s the point the author is trying to drive home. The novel does not describe a cure for the author’s depiction of the illness, and it’s very, very bleak and realistic. The author is not portraying a happy ending to his story. The protagonist is not cured of his depression or his grief in the novel. He’s just not on the train anymore. That’s it.

What Does The Ending Of The Elsewhere Express Mean?

13 Answers

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