the sense of an ending and a beginning

I read Julian Barnes' book The Sense of an Ending yesterday. To quote the main character, 'I didn't get it.'

When did unlikeable characters start to people modern novels? I remember not enjoying Emma because I really didn't like Emma herself, but she is positively delightful (and corrigible) when compared to the selfish, self-centred, miserable characters that appear in so many contemporary novels (I'm thinking One Day, How to be Good, Arlington Park, The Finkler Question). Even Jane Austen's anti-heroes and heroines have an attractive warmth and full-bodiedness, whereas today's versions are self-absorbed, unreliable, and scarily unemotional. Thank goodness for the world of Persephone and books that are full of interesting characters who may be weak and fallible and contemptible, but never this detached, cold, and flatly drawn.

There's another sense of an ending for me as well at the moment, a more uplifting one this time. After six years of non-stop work, I'm giving myself a break. I have a book to write by the end of the year, but as that won't take up all my time, I'm going to do a few other things like taste wine, wonder whether the website is worth the time and money and, if so, do something about it, consider a few new ways of using my material, do some different writing. I've got a long list of films to see, books to read, and I want to get back to creating for the fun of it. So as the deadlines are met, and pressures lift, I have a very pleasant sense of an ending - and an even more pleasant sense of a beginning.

[I've just picked up my crochet hook again, and am at the beginning of a blanket - only a couple of hundred more squares to go. The yarn is Biggan Design DK which is wonderful but, alas, no longer available in the UK.]