Jules Verne’s “An Antarctic Mystery” began from the end of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” According to Jules himself, the original work by Allan was incomplete.
This is not to, however, insinuate that both stories are nonfictional. That is the literary world for us!
Read Also: The American Author Who Inspired Jules Verne
Relatively every book is a continuation of another literary work somewhere— usually one that inspired the writing.
So, what do they mean when people say the end of a good book is the beginning of another?
While I have seldom heard people say this, I think there are at least two ways in which we can get to understand the meaning of the saying.
First, again and again, I have heard successful writers say write the book you want to read or write whatever you think is missing from the shelf. I think the original version of this saying came from Toni Morrison, by the way. But what is meant by writing that which is missing?
Writers are readers, and of course you cannot offer what you don’t have. In the same vein, you do not want to offer what has already been or always been offered. There is a need for every writer to be himself and show his creativity to his audience, so he wants to go to the shelf, check the books in there and start writing whatever he feels the shelf should contain.
With this, we can say the statement in question is used in gearing writers to continue to where they think other writers could not reach.
From another standpoint, people could say that the end of a good book is the beginning of another because as noted in the introduction of this piece, no literary work is independent of other literary works. People are triggered to write, they are provoked to write.
If a subject matter is not properly written, any writer who comes across it may be piqued to write a response-to-literature essay of that work. And you know what, responses to literature essays are not usually in the only form we put them in. They may come as bulky books too.
In the same vein, writers referencing other works may also be a proof to validate this saying.
Conversely, writers don’t have to do what Jules Verne did before they fulfill the saying. It could come as a unique treatment of an already examined subject matter—certainly leaving one thing in our minds; that one similar or so work inspired the writing.
We should not also bypass the meaning of this statement as an idiomatic expression. It is a way some people say that life could happen to one when one least expects it. According to a source, the saying suggests that nothing is permanent; life changes.
Conclusively, this article has not attempted to validate or nullify the given statement. It has only done justice to explaining the saying.
Attention: This is an opinion article.
