I confess that I do. I like life-affirming novels, that's why I'm a fan of Eva Ibbotson, Sharon Creech and Michael Morpurgo, to name a few.
I like books that leave me wondering what happened next. Did Jane Eyre marry Edward Rochester? Did he regain his sight?
To answer your Jane Eyre questions first, Adrian, I have always thought that Jane could only marry an emasculated Mr Rochester - that the man who hid his wife in the attic could not be allowed perfect happiness. Yes, she had a tie to him that defied rational explanation - the voice coming through the chimney - but at the end, she is the one upon whom he has to lean. There is no perfect ending for them, but happiness of a kind, changed, quieter than either would have expected, and perhaps wiser.
I like a satisfying ending. It doesn't have to be happy, but it has to be true to the story: either the characters have arrived at the end of their journey, or they have learned enough to set them on the next part of the road. I prefer to believe that they will have a life after the book is closed - not that this is it, the perfect moment. After all, once you've found perfection, what's left? (Such cynicism!)
I am hard-pressed to think of a SINGLE masterpiece of adult fiction (this excludes Jane Austen, sorry, Austen fans) that has an unalloyed happy ending. Can any of you jog my memory? ("Masterpiece" as opposed to "nice read" or "good book".)
I hate the classic ending "And they lived happily ever after." As if life is easy once the hurdles in the story have been bested. How many marriages have fallen apart when the 2 people woke up to the fact that lives (and romances) don't have fairy-tale endings? I agree with Trent.
As a child, I used to change sad endings (of films and books) into happy ones in my head, rejecting reality. I think that might come of addicting children to happy endings.
Adrian, you're a big fan Of Sharon Creech. So am I. But her endings aren't sugar-coated-happy ones. My favourite book of hers (so far) is "Walk Two Moons". Her characters learn to live - and live positively - with loss.
My favourite living author of books for adults is Marge Piercy. I've noticed that most of her novels end with (or include somewhere):
the death of one of the main characters (one the reader has liked and admired);
the disaster or heading-for disaster of another;
a defeat;
a win;
[often] a betrayal;
the coming-to-terms with the past, present, and future of a main character;
Hope.
The message is that we get on with our lives, enriched by our experiences... including the tragedies. Not a bad message, IMO. I wish that more children's books taught it.