Posted by Roger Wardale on June 28, 2011 at 23:09:30 user RogerW.
In Reply to: End of GN? posted by andy clayton on June 27, 2011 at 05:41:00:
Yes. What CAN they do with him? I have always felt that the ending of GN was unsatisfying, although the picture of Dick pulling (paddling?) joyfully for the shore is a pleasing one.Think how carefully the loose ends in PD are tied — and neatly in CC and BS.
Jemmerling, left forever standing with his hands in the air, does seem to be uncharacteristic — and it was not as if AR had a Christmas deadline to meet, since it was published in August. This suggests that AR let Cape have the manuscript in the spring, as he was about to embark on his frustrating summer with Peter Duck. Yet the bulk of the writing took place a good bit earlier. The 'Red Herrings' revision took place in January 1945!
In that month Myles North was revising the egg collector to give a more sympathetic view. AR was having none of it! Nothing more seems to have been written that year. It was complete by the following April 1946 when he read it all through. The beginning was 'slow' and the end 'tame' was his verdict, and it had been a mistake to have continued with it. Yet Genia said to go ahead! But AR does not seem to have gone ahead for months, for that year was taken up with the building of Peter Duck, selling and buying back etc.
Eventually he did improve upon the beginning, but is the ending that we read still the 'tame' one?