posted
I read an excellent book the other day and was absolutely stunned by the fact that the highly sympathetic, interesting, deeply developed protagonist died. I was even more surprised because this character was the narrator of a book written in the first person.
I won't post the book until at least my second entry in this thread so as not to give away anything to those who don't want to know but, I was wondering how many of you have seen this done before. I had never before encountered it. Have you seen it done well? Poorly?
In the book I just read, they even had a shockingly well done bit where you read what the character is writing right up to the second that she is dying, complete with theoretical "arrgggghhh" moment at the end. I say "shockingly well done," because I would previously have assumed that it was impossible to do this in any way that wasn't ridiculously cornballish.
Just to be clear - if you read further in this thread, seeing as how the point is to talk about books where the narrator dies. I might try to describe the situation rather than give the exact book, but still:
WARNING WARNING WARNING SPOILERS!!!
SPOILERS!!!!
DO NOT READ A SINGLE OTHER POST IF YOU WANT NO SPOILERS
posted
In my case it was a great zombie-genre book, and the final words of the narrator have her live-blogging of sorts: (paraphrasing) "As of about eleven minutes ago, I am legally dead. It's getting harder to breathe and I'm having trouble focusing on words. Before the virus takes my mind, the world needs to know..."
And it ends as the words devolve into more and more typos, until she starts typing "ohgoditshappening[brother's name censored to try to avoid spoilers]shootmenowshootmenowshoo"
... at which point the post ends with her brother mercifully putting a bullet through her brain.
After this, her brother becomes the narrator for a few chapters of the climax and denouement.
posted
There was a great book I read. The soldier defiled a temple and a goddess took away his memory. He could only remember things for twenty four hours. He was told to write things down and the book was entries in his book as he continued his adventures. The author in the end, had him die, and someone else added an entry to explain what happened. I felt that ending was a cheat, like the author could not figure out how to end the story. The style was good, though.
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posted
Oh. "rstegman"'s book sounds like a series by Gene Wolfe starting with Soldier of the Mist. Don't recall it ending the way he said it did, though...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I read one like that too. It was established from the beginning that 'reading' brains was possible.
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