In the final passage of the story, Atwood reflects that, all things being equal, endings are fundamentally uninteresting. She writes, “so much for endings,” implying that by this point the story has neatly summed up what an ending is, and has found it lacking. She argues that “beginnings are more fun,” in part because of their novelty. Meanwhile, the “true connoisseurs”—a phrase perhaps in reference to skilled writers, avid readers, or simply self-aware, well-adjusted individuals—are said to prefer the middles of stories, since they are both difficult to “do anything with” and are the only place in which stories may…