One of my favorite literary quotations is from the French poet Paul Valéry: "A poem is never finished, only abandoned." And I agree wholeheartedly, though there may be a vast difference between abandoning a poem as an infant and abandoning it as a young adult. (But that's a topic for a future blog post.)
Anyway, the quotation came to mind today after I read Matthew Redmond's new LitHub essay Why Should We Read Unfinished Novels?.
The only unfinished novel I remember reading is The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway, which was actually the first Hemingway book I ever read. I was 19 or 20 at the time and had just finished a marathon of reading nothing but John Steinbeck books. Somehow I'd gotten into my head the notion that Hemingway was the next great American novelist I should binge read. So I went to Bookseller in Elyria, Ohio, and bought The Garden of Eden (which I had no idea was unfinished, though I guess I should have because I knew it was posthumously published) because it was his newest release (this was probably 1986) and because the title made me think it might be a little more fun than, say, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Though I loved a lot of the writing, in the end I found the novel rather unsatisfying (I wonder if I would feel the same today) and, coincidentally, unfinished. Then I kicked myself for picking that one to read first.
Anyway, I don't believe I've read any other "unfinished" novel. But now I'm thinking it's strange that I can easily consider every poem to some degree "unfinished" but not most novels. Why is that? (Saving this to the future blog post file too).
Also, it's interesting that Matthew Redmond's article focuses predominantly on the 19th Century and does not mention The Garden of Eden or Hemingway's other posthumously published unfinished novels (Islands in the Stream, True at First Light) - or, for that matter, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (one of two Fitzgerald novels I've not yet read).
After my Garden experience, I've spent decades avoiding reading unfinished novels. But now I'm thinking maybe I should reconsider.
Which unfinished novels have you read? Are they any you'd recommend?
Anyway, the quotation came to mind today after I read Matthew Redmond's new LitHub essay Why Should We Read Unfinished Novels?.
The only unfinished novel I remember reading is The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway, which was actually the first Hemingway book I ever read. I was 19 or 20 at the time and had just finished a marathon of reading nothing but John Steinbeck books. Somehow I'd gotten into my head the notion that Hemingway was the next great American novelist I should binge read. So I went to Bookseller in Elyria, Ohio, and bought The Garden of Eden (which I had no idea was unfinished, though I guess I should have because I knew it was posthumously published) because it was his newest release (this was probably 1986) and because the title made me think it might be a little more fun than, say, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Though I loved a lot of the writing, in the end I found the novel rather unsatisfying (I wonder if I would feel the same today) and, coincidentally, unfinished. Then I kicked myself for picking that one to read first.
Anyway, I don't believe I've read any other "unfinished" novel. But now I'm thinking it's strange that I can easily consider every poem to some degree "unfinished" but not most novels. Why is that? (Saving this to the future blog post file too).
Also, it's interesting that Matthew Redmond's article focuses predominantly on the 19th Century and does not mention The Garden of Eden or Hemingway's other posthumously published unfinished novels (Islands in the Stream, True at First Light) - or, for that matter, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (one of two Fitzgerald novels I've not yet read).
After my Garden experience, I've spent decades avoiding reading unfinished novels. But now I'm thinking maybe I should reconsider.
Which unfinished novels have you read? Are they any you'd recommend?
