When you don't finish a book (which I'm finding I do more and more as I feel I'm running out of book time somehow, and can't waste it on not brilliant books), what happens to the characters? Do they get lost? Somewhere in you? Unresolved and wandering, in a kind of limbo? You might remember them when you're eighty, and not be sure whether you met them, dreamt them, read them, or what happened to them.
There seems to me something irresponsible about leaving characters hanging like that. But I'm not sure who the responsibility is to. Similarly it seems irresponsible to write bad characters. It's like people you've only half met, but they linger in your brain. Do writers owe us good archetypes? And do we owe it to them to finish reading and understand?
I suspect the characters are quite grateful - they get to knock off early. Like when you have a meeting canceled and go home instead of going back to work.
Posted by: russell | Jun 07, 2010 at 21:08
Hello.
This is nice.
Good evening.
Posted by: Paul H. Colman | Jun 07, 2010 at 22:40
It is nice isn't it?
Hope everyone's well.
Posted by: russell | Jun 09, 2010 at 22:16
It is nice, although some characters deserve it frankly.
This reminded me of Stoppard and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern being "dead". Bex & Mum saw him at Hay this year, really lovely apparently.
Posted by: Paulo | Jun 17, 2010 at 12:29