If the author wants it or not, Magnus Linklater argues, long-running characters should be bumped off and the rest of us freed from the tyranny of the sequel.
Even as we wait, breathless with anticipation, Inspector Rebus is shuffling off into an uncertain future; Ian Rankin is writing his world-weary detective out of the script.
Thanks to Jenny Davidson at Light Reading for this one.
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Mar 31st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
The argument puts me in mind of Kurt Vonnegut who simply sets Kilgour Trout free of his novels, only to have one of Vonnegut’s fans make use of him as the author of an alleged novel by Trout.
Apr 1st, 2007 at 12:39 am
I think Vonnegut accurately described himself in some book as an author who had very interesting ideas but was a bit of a lousy writer. A kind of stand-up wroter or slapstick intellectual, which to my mond isn’t as damning as it might seem. I’ve probably more interested in a slap-stick intellectual of sparkling but somewhat shoddily executed ideas, than a consummate artist of the bourgeois “poverty, dirt, and a miserable ease” of Nietzsche’s. Because you are neither hot nor cold, I spit you out of my mouth and all that.
jb says: Cheers, Andrew. You know how to make a guy feel good on a Sunday morning.
Apr 1st, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Odd that he didn’t mention Dexter’s Morse as an example in the article. That was one of the cleanest ends. And boy, did the viewing and reading crime fiction community mourn…
jb says: Yes, CFR. It didn’t register with me at the time, but of course, you’re right.