How Does 'The Things We Leave Unfinished' End?

This is a beautifully written book that follows the story of two main characters, Scarlett Stanton, a spirited pilot, and Jameson, a moody RAF officer, who fall deeply in love in WWII. It is told through their letters to each other, full of passion, longing and despair. The author does a wonderful job of portraying life during war and how it tore apart so many loves. The book also follows the story of Scarlett’s granddaughter, Georgia, who is left with mystery of her grandmother’s life when she finds a stack of old letters in her attic. The author then brings us to the present day where Georgia’s life is somewhat mapped out and she is struggling with her own messy life and her writer boyfriend Noah who is trying to adapt her grandmother’s life into a novel. Their love story mirrors that of Scarlett and Jameson’s in many ways, but with an ending that Georgia and Noah can control in order to reach the ending that they both desire. The ending of the book left me in tears as I finally understood the what had happened to Scarlett all those years before. Even though Scarlett’s life was left unfinished for decades, her love was timeless.

I also loved how the author handled the present-day storyline. At the beginning of the book, Noah is a bit of a snob when it comes to love stories, but by the end, he understands why people are so fascinated by the story of Scarlett and her Jameson. He chooses not to give readers the closure they want to experience for themselves, instead leaving the novel to end how the real story ended: in uncertainty. I loved how Georgia chooses not to publish the letters between Scarlett and Jameson, instead preserving them for historical value and to show respect for the deep grief and pain that they contain. It was so beautiful in the end when Georgia and Noah sat down together to read the last letter from Scarlett to Jameson. Their silence was more powerful than any words could have been. The end of this novel shows that some stories are better left unfinished and that they can still have such great meaning to us.

What is so satisfying about the end of this story is the reversal of power dynamics that we see in the character of Georgia, the amateur, and emotionally vulnerable, Scarlett-ellerndahlfan, of Jameson the famous writer. By the end of the story, Georgia is the expert on all things to do with her grandfather’s life, and the historical truth as she has found it. She is no longer depending on her family connections to get things done, as she was at the beginning of the story. Rather, her authority as a person and as a researcher comes from her having worked so hard and from her having a moral vision to present the truth of her grandfather’s life to the public. Jameson’s role as writer is reversed. Instead of being the writer of the story, he is the facilitator. The last thing he does in the story is to publish Georgia’s work. This is a wonderful character arc for Georgia. Not only does she find love, she finds her voice and her place in the world as a confident, accomplished, and mature writer. The equal relationship that she finds with Jameson, as opposed to the starstruck-amazed relationship that she would have had with her “idol” at the beginning of the story, is arguably more important than the love story itself.

I’m stuck on a tiny detail from the end of the book, a detail that has to do with the date on the last letter Noah wrote to Georgia. The letter was written decades after the war had ended, only a year or so before he died. He never sent the letters he wrote to her, apparently, but the fact that he continued to write to her all those years after the war had ended is the real story of the book. The story of their love wasn’t one of intense, short-lived passion that was finally extinguished in an explosion of flame. Rather, it was a pilot light that never went out, sustained at a low heat for decades. The end of the book isn’t dramatic; it’s simply presented to us in the form of all the letters that Noah wrote to Georgia. And what we realize, along with Georgia, is that their love wasn’t a short-lived thing. It was a lifelong condition. And therefore, all of the passion that Noah felt for her all those years ago wasn’t just a product of their youth. Instead, it was the basis for the rest of his life. That’s a wonderful realization, one that is rendered quietly.

That ending left me staring at my ceiling for 20 minutes or so. The resolution of the dual-timeline story came down to this: the historical story of lovers Noah and Scarlett finally had their fate revealed to us through a collection of long-lost letters that present-day writer Georgia discovered. Their story wasn’t a simple, tragic, and neat separation as everyone had assumed all along. Rather, it was so much more heartbreaking AND more beautiful than that. Meanwhile, the modern romance between Georgia and Jameson got wrapped up pretty quickly, but for me, the real meat of the story was with the historical Scarlett and Noah. As for the end of the modern story, it did favor emotional honesty over wrapping up the story with a bow and calling it “perfect” – which is how I’d have it, naturally. I found it rather refreshing, actually – even if it left me a little teary-eyed in some places. Some of the end scenes are quiet and simply develop as we read on. There’s no huge climax – but by that time, you’re so emotionally invested in the characters that it’s all you need. The very last scene is between Georgia and Jameson – and it has to do with accepting the truth of the past just as it was, rather than as you wished it to have been.

I didn’t think the modern story resolved the romance quickly enough, but that was totally secondary to the historical part for me.