Posted by Joe Windsor on August 20, 2006 at 18:20:13 from 84.12.79.72 user Joe.
In Reply to: Re: Sequels, Prequels etc etc posted by Mike Dennis on August 20, 2006 at 16:25:57:
To Peter & Mike - Dynamic versus static? I first met AR's stories about 65 years ago. Part of the attraction of his writing for us all is that he made his characters live. I read omnivourously - every night and every morning (and often in betwen!). And many writer's characters are two dimesional 'cut outs'. But not the S/A/D's.
So that's why they make me - and others, whatever you may think - wonder how they grew up. What their families were like. What happened in the looming War - and so on. Given their age range in AR's books sequels are more intriguing than a possible prequel - or they'd all be like the Ship's Baby! But how did adulthood treat them? What about their own children - as we have discussed our own children here?
Static means they are two dimensional and have no real life. Dynamic means they are three dimensional and went on to develop their individual characters into the future and carve a place in our history.
To me - and, as I said, to others, too - they're ALIVE. Which is why I can't bear the thought that they never live beyond their childhood. Accepting that would be like accepting an horrific train crash in which they all died. Phut! Gone - never to return to us. To me - they are alive and vibrant people with their futures before them. And I yearn to know what those futures held and how they dealt with them. Gnawing away at that teasing thought certainly does not chip away at the stories of their youth. Quite the reverse. Absorbing and wondering about their youth as AR described selected flashes of it fuels my imagination about their futures.
And if that image doesn't quicken your pulse - well, I'm sorry. It surely does for others of us. (Having just written that - I checked. I wear a wrist-watch type gadget that measures my pulse rate which I have to keep an eye on or take pills for. Just writing this has put it up by 10%!! Honest!!) So please think about the images I've tried to paint and join us in seeking a way of carrying forward a wonderful dynamic, living world which has given us all so much pleasure. Joe