I’ve noticed a fascinating phenomenon in titles of some literary works. Sometimes the title tells the whole story.
I’m not talking about cheap examples like “Snakes on a Plane” (and really, what else do you need to know about that movie?). I mean titles that tell the tale in a more stealth way.
My favorites are the titles that seem at first to merely be descriptive phrases. But when you look more closely, they are actually complete sentences.
I was most of the way through one of my favorite novels — Vernor Vinge’s “Rainbows End” — when the author revealed that the title was not just the name of a place, but also a complete English sentence.
And that sentence explained key themes of the novel. I was delighted by that.
Similarly, it wasn’t until after I saw the recent film “Free Guy” that I fully understood the title. I had thought it was merely a catchy phrase. It’s actually an accurate synopsis of the movie, in one terse yet brilliant sentence.
I wonder how many other examples are out there of titles that turn out, when you look more closely, to have an alternate meaning that sums up the theme of the work.