Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "soap-opera"

Can a family saga ever end? I have just finished reading 'Casting Off' by Elizabeth Jane Howard, the fourth and last of the Cazalet Chronicles, or at least it was - the fourth was published in 1995 and recently the fifth has been published. I don't know why the author decided to revisit her characters after such a long gap, proof perhaps that authors can never bear to part with their creations. In real life few families die out completely and in fiction a family saga could theoretically continue indefinitely. BBC Radio serial 'The Archers' has been broadcast every week day for over sixty years, longer than most of the cast and listeners have been alive and encompassing countless births and deaths. Ambridge Village has changed, the technology has changed; listeners can download digitally and listen when they wish, but it is still a family saga.
But the Cazalet family story is at an end now, the author died recently at the age of ninety...unless, as in recent trends, another author decides to write a sequel.