Fictional Nostalgia

Toward the end of a fictional biography, the central character remembers his younger days and we remember reading the earlier chapters or installments. Thus, there is a shared nostalgia. For our part, the nostalgia is vicarious insofar as we identify with the character but might also be real if we read the earlier installments years or even decades previously. A prime example is the concluding chapter of Poul Anderson's Mirkheim, which I have quoted more than once, e.g., here, here and here.

In the last full Dominic Flandry novel, Flandry does not reminisce about his career because he is still working past retirement age. Instead, he reflects on his current situation, addressing himself in the second person:

"You've got health, money, power, friends, women, interesting work that you can even claim is of some importance if you want to."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT III, p. 31.

That last claim reminded me of Dornford Yates' characters appraising their private crime-fighting careers:

"'We've had our day,' I said.
"'Yes,' said Mansel, and smiled. 'But what a day, William!'
"'It suited me,' I said.
"'And me. The open air, and doing something worthwhile. "And gentlemen in England, now abed..."'"
-Dornford Yates, Ne'er-Do-Well (Kelly Bray, Cornwall, 2001), p.5.

That novel was Yates' second last, originally published in 1954. His very last is dated 1956, the same year as Anderson's first Nicholas van Rijn story. Mansel and Chandos remembered the Edwardian age. Living in a different social milieu, they differed from Flandry in that they did not "have women." Chandos married, was widowed and married a second time whereas Mansel remained unmarried.

Mansel again:

"'Times have changed, and the world that we knew has gone.'"
-op. cit., p. 6.

Fictional nostalgia in other media:

Life And Art II

"...when a police siren wakes me, and, for a moment, I forget that it's all over...
"But Batman was a young man."
-Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (London, 1986), BOOK ONE, p. 5, panels 3, 4.