Two Beginnings And Two Endings

A novel can have two beginnings, e.g., a Prologue and a Chapter One, and two endings, e.g., a concluding chapter and an Epilogue. Thus, an optimistic Prologue and Epilogue might sandwich a more sombre text or vice versa.

Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606, begins with an untitled italicized exhortation to praise Bodin Miyatovich followed by the opening chapter, I, of the narrative. Chapter XX, concluding the narrative, is followed by italicized praise of Gospodar Bodin, ending with a prayer. During the narrative, we have learned that "Gospodar" is a title. ("Star of the Sea" in Anderson's Time Patrol series also alternates between kinds of prose and ends with a prayer.)

Whereas the speaker of the italicized passages is extravagant in his praise of the peace brought by St. Kossara through the valor of Gospodar Bodin, the viewpoint character of the narrative is decidedly downbeat. Dominic Flandry begins Chapter I by reflecting that Terra is cold in spirit yet ends Chapter XX by saying that he will not stay with his dead fiancee's, Kossara's, people but will return to his own people - on Terra.