Character Interactions

Part of the pleasure of reading or rereading a long novel with a large cast of characters is that the narrative moves back and forth between characters or sets of characters and also presents them in different combinations. While reading a dialogue between Daniel Holm and Matthew Vickery in Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind, we glance ahead to the following page and notice with pleasurable anticipation that the next narrative passage features Tabitha Falkayn and Philippe Rochefort. While reading about the fatal confrontation between Gullberg and Zalachenko in Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, we glance ahead to the following page and notice with pleasurable anticipation that the next narrative passage recounts how Lisbeth Salander and Annika Gianni respond to the sound of gunshots from Zalachenko's room just two doors down the hospital corridor. Each new passage returns us to characters that we like or at least are interested in and there are endless ways that they can interact. Rereading, we know in general what happens in the novel but usually do not remember the precise sequence of narrative passages or which interesting character we are going to encounter next when we turn a page or begin a new chapter. There is extra enjoyment in noticing as if for the first time the details of how each character responds to what to them are new and challenging situations. And not all of them will survive to the end of the novel.