2002-12-06 A question

Did your copy have 187 pages? If it had more, I would very much like to know how your version finishes. I and others have commented on how Ms. Fitzgerald leaves a certain ambiguity at the end of some of her works. She invites her readers to finish the story based on what she has shared, or the reader has understood. This time around, I first felt I was reading a work like Dickens' unfinished, "The Mystery of Edwin Droid". However this time it was a bit abrupt, a door opens, the reader pops their head in, and, she decapitates the reader with an efficiency that Dr. Guillotine would have admired.

This is the fifth of her nine novels I have read, and it will be difficult to top this work. Everything I have read has been excellent, so the pleasure of reading her work is just a matter of degree. The complaint as stated at the beginning is more frustration than anything else. So much appears to be shared with the reader that ultimately deception is far too mild a word, and then when you think the puzzle is complete; she adds another thousand potential pieces by bringing the story to an abrupt halt.

But the story really is quite complete. After you read what she has written a logical explanation follows. She sets the process in motion, steps back, and knows the reader will continue to follow her lead. She pulls the strings of a reader like twine on a top. Once pulled she can step back, the top continues to spin. She is as manipulative as any writer I have had the pleasure to read, she also respects her readers with the presumption they will read what she gives them, and though left wanting more, will be able to put their own finish to what she has written.

I cannot use any names, as it would ruin the piece. She produces one character that is such a brilliant fraud, that when his actions become known, his victims are left with mouths agape when they should be throttling him. As she has done in other works, she has children that are well beyond precocious and other players that the reader is routinely lead to underrate.

Ms. Penelope Fitzgerald was a great discovery for me, as I knew nothing of her or her work. She started writing late in life, and sadly died a few brief years ago. The collective work she has left behind is as good a written legacy as any writer could have left, for all who love to read.