0:00:11 > 0:00:13This imposing house in Kent
0:00:13 > 0:00:17was once the setting for one of literature's greatest mysteries.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22Our story begins in 1870,
0:00:22 > 0:00:25on the 8th June, around about six o'clock in the evening.
0:00:25 > 0:00:26On that particular day,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29Charles Dickens had been hard at work on his latest novel.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32He'd worked for eight hours solid, which was unusual for him -
0:00:32 > 0:00:34he preferred working in shorter bursts.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37And that evening here at Gad's Hill, which is now a school.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39He came down to the dining room
0:00:39 > 0:00:42to have dinner with his sister-in-law, Miss Hogarth.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44Almost as soon as he entered,
0:00:44 > 0:00:46he started complaining of a toothache,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50and immediately, he collapsed and lost consciousness and never recovered.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53He died shortly afterwards, and he'd never complete his final novel,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56even though the first three instalments already being published,
0:00:56 > 0:01:01gripping the nation, leaving his audience with this unquenchable thirst for resolution.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04The Mystery Of Edwin Drood is one of the most perplexing
0:01:04 > 0:01:08and celebrated unfinished masterpieces in English literature.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13It's a story that continues to haunt us and entice us.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17I'm going to try and prize open our fascination with this
0:01:17 > 0:01:19and other unfinished masterpieces
0:01:19 > 0:01:23that some of our greatest authors and artists have left behind.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34Dickens' death before he got to complete his final masterpiece
0:01:34 > 0:01:37is one of the great frustrations of British literature.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41And more than 100 years later with a new drama adaptation on the BBC,
0:01:41 > 0:01:43we're still trying to solve his riddle
0:01:43 > 0:01:46and find the right ending for this tantalising tale.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48KNOCKING AT DOOR
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Rosa! To your room this minute!
0:01:55 > 0:01:59- What is it?- When did you last see Edwin?- Yesterday afternoon. Why?
0:01:59 > 0:02:01You saw or heard nothing of him last night?
0:02:01 > 0:02:04What has happened to Eddie?
0:02:04 > 0:02:07He departed my house last night with Neville Landless
0:02:07 > 0:02:08and he never came home.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Neville left at first light to walk by the coast.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15Thank you, Miss Twinkleton.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28What Dickens left us in the few chapters he had completed
0:02:28 > 0:02:32was a cast of brilliant characters, and a riveting mystery to solve.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Edwin Drood is the nephew of John Jasper, a choirmaster
0:02:40 > 0:02:44who becomes obsessed with Drood's fiancee, Rosa.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47Jasper seems respectable, but he has secrets.
0:02:47 > 0:02:52He's addicted to opium, and he has designs on the underage Rosa.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56So when his nephew disappears, the finger points at him.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01There's a certain irony to the fact that
0:03:01 > 0:03:03of all the works he could have left unfinished,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06Dickens managed to die in the middle of a murder mystery,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09leaving behind a whodunnit that could never be solved.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12It's fiendishly frustrating.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22The full title is The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25We don't know what's happened to Edwin,
0:03:25 > 0:03:27whether Jasper has killed him
0:03:27 > 0:03:30and he's buried under the cloisters in the cathedral.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33The Mystery Of Edwin Drood is a special case, I think,
0:03:33 > 0:03:37of an excitement to want to complete on the part of the reader
0:03:37 > 0:03:42because we know that Dickens had a plan for it, cos he always did.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44We know that he had a plot
0:03:44 > 0:03:46and its incompletion is like
0:03:46 > 0:03:50the incompletion one might imagine of an Agatha Christie novel
0:03:50 > 0:03:52or a John le Carre novel.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56It was designed as a puzzle and it's the perfect puzzle.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59We'll never know, I mean, everyone who's tried to - as it were -
0:03:59 > 0:04:03complete it, it's like completing an incomplete game of chess,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07after two or three moves you don't know where the game is going to go.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17One question is whether Dickens himself
0:04:17 > 0:04:19knew where this story was going.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24The actual manuscript that Dickens left behind still exists,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26here at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29so I'm going to take a look at it.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32Volume Two.
0:04:34 > 0:04:35And we turn to the end.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41This is the manuscript of Edwin Drood.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47- It looks very...- This is bizarre, looking at this!
0:04:47 > 0:04:52Here is this kind of cacophonous page of writing with crossings-out
0:04:52 > 0:04:56and different coloured ink and messy bits and neater passages.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00So there's a real sense of a mind at work here.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02Cacophonous is a very good word, actually.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05Dickens is always working at a frenetic pace, as you know.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08One's feeling is when you see this that he's throwing the words down.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13Some passages come out totally clear, others he has to revise.
0:05:13 > 0:05:14I'm very glad to have seen this
0:05:14 > 0:05:17because Dickens has such a teeming, fertile imagination,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20it would have been an immense disappointment to find
0:05:20 > 0:05:22a very crabbed, precise handwriting style
0:05:22 > 0:05:25that he was writing in his original manuscript.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27So this is the very last page?
0:05:27 > 0:05:29It's the last page.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33"And then falls to with an appetite."
0:05:33 > 0:05:36And then there's this kind of spiralling flourish.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39Of course, this was written within hours of him collapsing
0:05:39 > 0:05:42- and having a stroke at Gad's Hill, shortly before he died.- Yes.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45I mean, this was in the final 24 to 48 hours of his life.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48He's not supposing that he won't start with renewed energy
0:05:48 > 0:05:51the next time he sits down to produce the next chapter.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53Don't you love that the last word he wrote was appetite?
0:05:53 > 0:05:55There couldn't be a more Dickensian word.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59But the thing that's so, in a sense, moving but also slightly frustrating
0:05:59 > 0:06:01about looking at the manuscript
0:06:01 > 0:06:04is this idea that because you look at it in his own hand,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07it feels so intimate and close to him and to the workings of his mind
0:06:07 > 0:06:10that this reminds us that we're all locked inside
0:06:10 > 0:06:14the fortress of our own solitude, of our own identity and individuality.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17This doesn't reveal anything about Dickens, does it,
0:06:17 > 0:06:19in terms of what he was going to do with the story?
0:06:19 > 0:06:21It FEELS like it must, there must be a clue here
0:06:21 > 0:06:25but what we're left with is just this fainter and fainter line
0:06:25 > 0:06:27going down the page.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40o, no clues in the manuscript, but back at Gad's Hill,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44Dickens' ancestor - the biographer Lucinda Hawksley -
0:06:44 > 0:06:46might be able to help.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Could we talk a little bit about the whole sort of make-up
0:06:50 > 0:06:52of Dickens' imagination?
0:06:52 > 0:06:55Do we know where Dickens got the plot for Edwin Drood from?
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Was it a figment of his imagination or inspired by real-life events or what?
0:06:59 > 0:07:01It was a little bit of both and he started off,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03he wrote to John Forster and...
0:07:03 > 0:07:06- Who was Forster?- Sorry, his best friend and his first biographer.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10And Dickens wrote to him and said that he was going to do a story
0:07:10 > 0:07:14of a young couple who'd been intended for each other from childhood by their families,
0:07:14 > 0:07:16who go their separate ways in the world.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19A very simple love story is how he almost described it really,
0:07:19 > 0:07:24and at the end of the book they would come to their "impending fate" as he called it - marriage.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Then he wrote to Forster in 1869,
0:07:27 > 0:07:29so just ten months before he died
0:07:29 > 0:07:31and he said that he'd decided to turn it into
0:07:31 > 0:07:33a murder of a nephew by his uncle.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36We know from his time in America
0:07:36 > 0:07:39that Dickens had been very interested in a real-life murder
0:07:39 > 0:07:41that had happened there.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44There was a chap called Parkman who was a moneylender
0:07:44 > 0:07:47and he had a client who was Professor Webster
0:07:47 > 0:07:50who owed him around 2,000, which he just couldn't afford to pay.
0:07:50 > 0:07:55It was known that Parkman was going to expose Webster.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Parkman went to Harvard to meet the professor and was never seen again.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03From that moment on, Webster kept his laboratory locked
0:08:03 > 0:08:07and eventually the body or parts of the body were discovered
0:08:07 > 0:08:10when the janitor - who'd become very curious by all this -
0:08:10 > 0:08:15actually broke through the brickwork to enter the laboratory that way
0:08:15 > 0:08:17and found human remains.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20It's known that Webster had burned Dr Parkman's clothing
0:08:20 > 0:08:24and he'd also thrown the doctor's watch into the river, in the hope...
0:08:24 > 0:08:27- That's what happened in the novel! - Yes.- The watch appears in the river.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30- Absolutely. - Is the conclusion of this then,
0:08:30 > 0:08:34Dickens had killed off Edwin Drood by the time of his death?
0:08:34 > 0:08:35I don't know if we can.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38That was his intention originally in August of 1869
0:08:38 > 0:08:40but I don't know if we can say for certain
0:08:40 > 0:08:44because Dickens liked to change and keep his readers guessing.
0:08:44 > 0:08:46Part of the reason the mystery is so tantalising
0:08:46 > 0:08:49is that it is unresolved, we don't know whether he has been murdered.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52Exactly and he does say in the same letter to Forster
0:08:52 > 0:08:55that it's a very good plot but it's difficult to bring about.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58So, he says he doesn't want to give away all of the plot
0:08:58 > 0:09:00because that would make the book unreadable.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03So actually, he was even having double thoughts at the time.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13For months after his death,
0:09:13 > 0:09:15the obituaries mourned Dickens's characters
0:09:15 > 0:09:17as much as the man himself.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21It's as if the vivacity of the characters
0:09:21 > 0:09:24that sprung from Dickens's fertile imagination,
0:09:24 > 0:09:26gave them a life off the page
0:09:26 > 0:09:29that almost demanded further attention.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33This, coupled with the murder mystery format of Drood
0:09:33 > 0:09:36was just too much for a clamorous public.
0:09:36 > 0:09:40The desire for a finished Edwin Drood became like an itch
0:09:40 > 0:09:42that needed to be scratched.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45There have been all manner of attempts
0:09:45 > 0:09:47to complete The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49Already in 1873, for example,
0:09:49 > 0:09:51which is only three years after Dickens' death,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54an American writer called Thomas James
0:09:54 > 0:09:55attempted to finish the novel
0:09:55 > 0:09:58claiming that he'd been possessed by Dickens's ghost
0:09:58 > 0:10:02and the books enjoyed afterlives in a number of different media as well.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05I mean, there was a film, a gothic horror movie in 1935
0:10:05 > 0:10:08with Claude Rains, who starred in Casablanca,
0:10:08 > 0:10:10and my favourite I think,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13in the '80s there was a Broadway musical version.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16It won five Tony awards. It was the first musical ever
0:10:16 > 0:10:21to invite the audience to decide on the ending, every single night.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35And certainly for the latest person to finish the tale,
0:10:35 > 0:10:36this time for the BBC,
0:10:36 > 0:10:40reviving the characters that Dickens so brilliantly sketched
0:10:40 > 0:10:44has been the key to completing The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51I started off looking at the clues that he left behind
0:10:51 > 0:10:55and I soon found they were quite self-contradictory.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57And some of them didn't work,
0:10:57 > 0:11:00and some got in the way of the story, particularly in this book,
0:11:00 > 0:11:07where he was writing in such a dark and almost Gothic new style for him.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09The characters just spring out of the page at you.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12They are the reason people love this book.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15In fact, I was helped very much in my wanderings
0:11:15 > 0:11:18by Dickens' favourite daughter, Katie,
0:11:18 > 0:11:20who counselled everybody at the time.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22She said, "Don't get too hung-up..."
0:11:22 > 0:11:23I'm paraphrasing!
0:11:23 > 0:11:26"Don't get too hung-up on the mystery.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29"Remember what my father loved and was good at,
0:11:29 > 0:11:30"which was his fantastic
0:11:30 > 0:11:34"and strange insight into the mysteries of the human heart."
0:11:34 > 0:11:37Fortified by Katie the favourite daughter,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40I felt emboldened to go with the characters,
0:11:40 > 0:11:42to go where I felt they were going to take me.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44In the end, the person whose desires
0:11:44 > 0:11:47I most wanted to follow to the end of the story
0:11:47 > 0:11:50was John Jasper, the hero of the story.
0:11:50 > 0:11:56The dark, controlling, mad figure right at the heart of this story.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59I always knew where I wanted to end up with John Jasper,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01this wonderful anti-hero.
0:12:01 > 0:12:02I always knew where he would end up.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07And if you've seen the thing already, you'll know that he ends up dead.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10He sort of... He's a tragic hero. He needs to die.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14It needs to go so horribly wrong for him that the only outcome is death.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18And I hope the nation weeps at the loss of him,
0:12:18 > 0:12:19even though he's a really horrible person.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26'Choose the light. Our Father, who art in heaven...
0:12:26 > 0:12:28'Jasper, won't you join me?
0:12:28 > 0:12:30'Our Father, who art in heaven...'
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Hallowed be Thy name...
0:12:33 > 0:12:38- 'Hallowed be Thy name...' - Jack!- 'Thy kingdom come...'
0:12:38 > 0:12:39Thy will be done...
0:12:39 > 0:12:40No!
0:12:42 > 0:12:44When you talked about your process,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48it sounded like you left Dickens behind altogether
0:12:48 > 0:12:49and you imagined John Jasper.
0:12:49 > 0:12:54Were there ever times when you're sitting at your desk in the room next door
0:12:54 > 0:12:55where you would suddenly think,
0:12:55 > 0:12:58"This is quite an enormous thing I'm taking on.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02"Dickens is one of a handful of the greatest geniuses in English literature
0:13:02 > 0:13:05"and I'm now trying to complete the novel
0:13:05 > 0:13:06"and in a different medium.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09"Is that right? Is it wrong?"
0:13:09 > 0:13:13Those questions must have troubled you at points.
0:13:13 > 0:13:14Yes, there were points when I felt,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17"Oh, Lord, I'll never scale this mountain.
0:13:17 > 0:13:18"This is just too difficult.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22"I'm just little me and he's Charles Dickens..."
0:13:22 > 0:13:26A giant in every way, a man I love and respect.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30But I think, because I love and respect him, it's OK.
0:13:30 > 0:13:31I think it's OK.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35I just sat on his lap and listened to what he said,
0:13:35 > 0:13:37and sometimes he did object, so I took it out!
0:13:37 > 0:13:40And just tried to do something he would have liked,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43but not worrying about what he wanted to do.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46I did what I wanted to do with the story, with his characters,
0:13:46 > 0:13:48in a respectful and loving way.
0:13:58 > 0:14:04I'm sure Gwyneth is ultra-meticulous in reviving Dickens's characters,
0:14:04 > 0:14:05but she's aided by the fact
0:14:05 > 0:14:07that she's adapting something for TV,
0:14:07 > 0:14:10something that was originally designed to be read.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12It's an important point to remember,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15because when you're making a drama adaptation,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17in a sense, you bypass the voice of the author altogether -
0:14:17 > 0:14:19his or her distinctive prose style -
0:14:19 > 0:14:22and concentrate instead on the words of the characters.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27I wonder whether if you're commissioned to complete an unfinished novel
0:14:27 > 0:14:30that means in fact you face a tougher challenge altogether?
0:14:32 > 0:14:34In most cases, for an ordinary reader,
0:14:34 > 0:14:38we feel a connection with the writer of the book.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42As in, famously, Catcher In The Rye, where the narrator says,
0:14:42 > 0:14:43if you read a really good book,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46you want to ring up the author and talk to them.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49And all readers recognise that emotion.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55And so it becomes very strange if you're ringing up somebody else.
0:14:55 > 0:14:59What we expect when we read a novel by Austen or Dickens,
0:14:59 > 0:15:04or Laurence Sterne or whoever, is actually a certain voice, really.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07And it may be the voice of a character
0:15:07 > 0:15:09rather than the voice of the author,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12but that's terribly difficult to bring off.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15And, in a sense, even if somebody brings it off,
0:15:15 > 0:15:17the reader won't read it as the genuine thing -
0:15:17 > 0:15:19they'll read it as burlesque or pastiche.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22And that already kind of undermines it.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37A whole industry has grown up around the unfinished novel,
0:15:37 > 0:15:39of so-called "continuators" -
0:15:39 > 0:15:43authors who attempt new endings to old stories.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46But honestly, how successful can they really be?
0:15:52 > 0:15:55There's another great author who left behind an unfinished work.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59'Jane Austen also died in the middle of writing her last novel,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03'and I wonder whether her fans really care to have it "continued"?'
0:16:08 > 0:16:10It was against the blustery backdrop
0:16:10 > 0:16:14of a seaside resort in Sussex called Sanditon
0:16:14 > 0:16:17that the characters of Jane Austen's last and unfinished novel
0:16:17 > 0:16:20lived their brief and aborted lives.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27'When Austen began writing Sanditon in January 1817,
0:16:27 > 0:16:29'she was already in delicate health.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32'She died six months later,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34'with just 11 chapters complete.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39'But the scene was already set.'
0:16:41 > 0:16:45So Sanditon is a new coastal resort with very grand ambitions,
0:16:45 > 0:16:47because its inhabitants
0:16:47 > 0:16:49are determined to put the town on the map,
0:16:49 > 0:16:51and cash in on this recent vogue
0:16:51 > 0:16:54for holidaying by the British seaside.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57It's quite a claustrophobic community,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00but under Austen's expert eye, it offers an opportunity
0:17:00 > 0:17:06for whip-smart social satire about hypochondria, commercial greed,
0:17:06 > 0:17:12and what happens when a fresh-faced singleton suddenly arrives in town.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16I was hoping to read you a bit of description about the town,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19but we're enjoying such a blustery British seaside weather
0:17:19 > 0:17:24that I'm a bit worried the book's going to blow away!
0:17:26 > 0:17:28You'll just have to take it from me
0:17:28 > 0:17:31that the book's actually a very good read.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38I was going to say that we've come to Sanditon, but we haven't -
0:17:38 > 0:17:40- it's Eastbourne!- Eastbourne.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45Because Sanditon is supposed to be an up-and-coming seaside resort.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47It's all a terrific joke.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49There's this foolish Parker family.
0:17:49 > 0:17:54Mr Tom Parker, who actually owns the village, the estate of Sanditon,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57is trying to turn it into the best seaside resort.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00And we can see that Sanditon
0:18:00 > 0:18:04is going to turn into a cold turkey, a dead duck.
0:18:04 > 0:18:05All Mr Parker's great ideas
0:18:05 > 0:18:09are probably going to fall flat on their face.
0:18:09 > 0:18:10We know it's unfinished.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13There are 12 chapters, but there may have been up to 30.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15But what about the actual quality of the prose?
0:18:15 > 0:18:18Are we looking at something which is a final draft up to that point?
0:18:18 > 0:18:21Or would this have been revised had she lived?
0:18:21 > 0:18:24Well, people do comment that despite the fact she was so ill,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28there's no sense of illness in the story.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31It's very funny. It rushes along.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35And this is part of the sadness of why it's unfinished,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39because it was obviously going to be very long and very funny.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43How do you feel about the idea of other authors attempting to complete it?
0:18:43 > 0:18:47Well, I mean, would you want to copy Jane Austen's style?
0:18:47 > 0:18:48COULD you copy her style?
0:18:48 > 0:18:52People now and then do try, and it's so obvious that it's not hers.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56And they'd have to know an awful lot about the social history of the period,
0:18:56 > 0:19:02which all too many of the people who do try and write completions and sequels and continuations,
0:19:02 > 0:19:04they just don't, and it's so obvious.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10So, to finish, or not to finish? That is the question.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14Is it better to have half an original Austen,
0:19:14 > 0:19:17or a full story completed by a more recent writer?
0:19:17 > 0:19:21'I thought I'd do a bit of a straw poll.'
0:19:21 > 0:19:25- Excuse me, hello, I'm Alastair. - Hi, Alastair.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28Excuse me, sir. Hello. I'd like to give you a book.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32By Jane Austen - her last novel, called Sanditon,
0:19:32 > 0:19:35possibly partly inspired by Eastbourne.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37- Are you a Jane Austen fan?- No!
0:19:37 > 0:19:40The only catch is that she died before she completed it.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42- You want us to finish it off for you?- If you could!
0:19:42 > 0:19:44You haven't heard of it?
0:19:44 > 0:19:45Not that many people have.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48- It's partly because she never finished it.- Ah!
0:19:48 > 0:19:50What I would love would be for you
0:19:50 > 0:19:54to choose either to take away a copy of the incomplete novel -
0:19:54 > 0:19:56just her words -
0:19:56 > 0:19:59or there are some people who got to it before you did,
0:19:59 > 0:20:00and tried to complete it.
0:20:00 > 0:20:06So you get the whole story with this one, but not necessarily the whole story that Austen herself imagined.
0:20:06 > 0:20:08The choice is yours, Barry!
0:20:08 > 0:20:13I don't mind reading the unfinished one, because you can put your own ending to it.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17You'd rather have the incomplete, would you? Because it's shorter?
0:20:17 > 0:20:20Yeah, I can see me reading that. It's not going to take me too long, is it?
0:20:20 > 0:20:22I would go for the half-finished one.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27Half-finished? Right, that's one for you. Can I ask why?
0:20:27 > 0:20:29Because the inspiration and the character
0:20:29 > 0:20:31came from an original author,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34and I don't see how someone else can pick it up and do the same thing.
0:20:34 > 0:20:39So the idea of the complete one is a bit of a turn-off because it's not her original...?
0:20:39 > 0:20:41It's not her writing. Yes.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44You don't think that if the writer was sufficiently brilliant
0:20:44 > 0:20:48they could get into the mindset of the original author, and complete it?
0:20:48 > 0:20:52If they were that brilliant, why would they want to? Why not just do their own thing?
0:20:52 > 0:20:54You're going to give this to me?
0:20:54 > 0:20:57It's a gift from me to you, Barry!
0:20:57 > 0:20:59- Thank you very much.- Not at all!
0:20:59 > 0:21:02It's lovely in Eastbourne, normally!
0:21:02 > 0:21:05- Do I get to keep this? - Yes. Enjoy it! Bye-bye.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10I'll tell you what puzzles me.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14If attempting to complete a Dickens is so controversial
0:21:14 > 0:21:17or finishing an Austen is always going to be seen as second best,
0:21:17 > 0:21:20then, in a sense, why bother in the first place?
0:21:20 > 0:21:23Surely it's the literary equivalent of a suicide mission?
0:21:23 > 0:21:25Or perhaps our desire as readers
0:21:25 > 0:21:27to keep characters alive and here to the end
0:21:27 > 0:21:31is so strong that, after all, we don't really mind?
0:21:37 > 0:21:40Frank Kermode wrote a book called Sense Of An Ending.
0:21:40 > 0:21:46And one of the bases of what he was saying in that book is that
0:21:46 > 0:21:49all our ideologies in the West are teleological.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52They're going somewhere - the final judgement,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55the withering away of the State if you're a Marxist.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59And so, to some extent, we're all wired for conclusions.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Very famously, Kermode came up with the observation that
0:22:03 > 0:22:06when we hear a clock go "tick tick tick",
0:22:06 > 0:22:10what we hear is "tick tock", because we like beginnings and endings.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15"Every tick," he said, "is a genesis. Every tock is a feeble apocalypse."
0:22:15 > 0:22:19That is, to some extent, how we frame our universe.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23So, we're, as it were, motivated like lemmings going over a cliff.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26We're motivated to look for endings.
0:22:26 > 0:22:31One of the principles of any art is that it's unified.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35And so they expect that all the elements in the work somehow
0:22:35 > 0:22:37thematically or structurally relate
0:22:37 > 0:22:39to all the other elements in the work.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43And that it'll all be tied with closure.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47- I have a plan, sir...- Really, Baldrick? A cunning and subtle one?
0:22:47 > 0:22:49Yes, sir.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed
0:22:51 > 0:22:54- Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?- Yes, sir.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59A work of literature takes its meaning from the ending.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan
0:23:02 > 0:23:05to get out of this by pretending to be mad.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Who would've noticed another madman around here?
0:23:09 > 0:23:10Blackadder Goes Forth
0:23:10 > 0:23:14is perhaps the darkest sitcom there's ever been,
0:23:14 > 0:23:16because they all die at the end of it.
0:23:16 > 0:23:21And if you took that scene off it, it becomes a comedy,
0:23:21 > 0:23:23a lighter comedy, in which they might have survived.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25And this is important.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28So if you have an unfinished story,
0:23:28 > 0:23:32then, at quite an important level, it's meaningless.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35- Good luck, everyone. - WHISTLES BLOW - Go!
0:23:49 > 0:23:53So we're culturally hardwired to want an ending.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56We expect closure and we desire the meaning
0:23:56 > 0:23:57that only endings can deliver.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59Fair enough.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02But can it ever be the case that all these ingredients are contained
0:24:02 > 0:24:05WITHIN an unfinished novel or a painting?
0:24:09 > 0:24:13For instance, there's the case of the famous unfinished portrait
0:24:13 > 0:24:15of one of America's greatest presidents.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20This is a reproduction of the portrait
0:24:20 > 0:24:24of the first American president, George Washington.
0:24:24 > 0:24:25It was begun in 1796
0:24:25 > 0:24:30by the charming, fashionable portrait painter, Gilbert Stuart.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33And it went on to become quite a famous image.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37It didn't have very auspicious beginnings, for two reasons.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41Firstly, the president recently had acquired a new set of false teeth,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44which meant that his jaw line bulged in a disturbing way,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47which wasn't very flattering, and Stuart had to negotiate that.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50Secondly, Stuart normally tried to liven up his sitters
0:24:50 > 0:24:53by engaging them with repartee and banter,
0:24:53 > 0:24:55but Washington proved to be quite a dry old stick.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59He wouldn't really liven up at all until Stuart eventually
0:24:59 > 0:25:02engaged him on the president's favourite subject of horses.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14But in spite of Stuart's efforts, the painting remained unfinished.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17In fact, at some stage, the painter just stopped trying to complete it,
0:25:17 > 0:25:22and instead put his efforts into reproducing it almost a hundred times
0:25:22 > 0:25:25and selling it in its unfinished state.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27I'm curious as to why he did this,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31and why the portrait was so desirable nevertheless.
0:25:31 > 0:25:37So I've come to a patch of the US in the UK to find out more.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39Thank you for inviting me into your office.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42I feel like I'm in an episode of The West Wing, but we're in Edinburgh.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45The first thing that's obvious when you come into the office
0:25:45 > 0:25:50is there is a replica of Gilbert Stuart's famous portrait of George Washington.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54And you can see at once, even though it's cropped, the thing was never finished.
0:25:54 > 0:25:55Why do you think it was incomplete?
0:25:55 > 0:26:00I have a theory that he didn't finish it on purpose,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03because it did generate buzz,
0:26:03 > 0:26:05it did generate enthusiasm.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09People did pay a lot of money at that time for replicas of that painting,
0:26:09 > 0:26:15so I think it was his way of creating a commercial interest in it.
0:26:15 > 0:26:20What does that portrait mean, if you like, to most Americans?
0:26:20 > 0:26:24I think most people who look at portraits of George Washington,
0:26:24 > 0:26:27especially this one, because it's one of the best-known,
0:26:27 > 0:26:32probably feel a sense of pride and affection for their first president.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36And not just in an abstract or historic context, either.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington
0:26:39 > 0:26:41has been copied on to the one-dollar bill,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45which has been in circulation in the United States for over a century.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47As a result,
0:26:47 > 0:26:51it's now one of the most recognisable symbols of America.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56The US one-dollar bill is the most widely circulated note in America
0:26:56 > 0:27:01and a lot of gentlemanly bets get done with that one-dollar note.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05People with their first business frame that first note they got from their first customer.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09Do you think most Americans realise the image of George Washington
0:27:09 > 0:27:13on the one-dollar bill is based upon a portrait that was never finished?
0:27:13 > 0:27:19I would guess most people don't know it's an unfinished portrait, that they haven't seen the whole thing.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24- You are American - right?- Yes.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28- So I'd like to give you this dollar bill.- Thank you!
0:27:30 > 0:27:32What does that image mean to you?
0:27:32 > 0:27:35That's George Washington, first president of the US.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38This is quite a famous image. Do you know what it's based on?
0:27:38 > 0:27:40I believe it's a portrait.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44This is a reproduction of the portrait. What are your first impressions?
0:27:44 > 0:27:47I guess I assumed it would've been a finished portrait.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50Does it seem strange that here's this iconic image,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52which is very complete on the dollar bill,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56and actually, here's this clearly incomplete sorcery?
0:27:56 > 0:28:00I think George Washington is such a major figure in American history,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04you can fill in the gaps, even if the portrait painter didn't have time.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07There are a lot of artistic works throughout history
0:28:07 > 0:28:09that are incomplete.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11It's one of those unique things.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15Maybe you wish it was finished, or want to know why it wasn't, but it doesn't bother me at all.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Now, thanks to it being used in a different context
0:28:20 > 0:28:24on the dollar bill, it has a whole set of associations,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27a new narrative, if you like, which feels much more finished,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31even though Stuart never had any control over that whatsoever.
0:28:31 > 0:28:32Yeah, I think so.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35I think you could probably ask millions of Americans
0:28:35 > 0:28:39what that portrait means to them, what the dollar bill means to them
0:28:39 > 0:28:41or what George Washington means to them
0:28:41 > 0:28:43and you would get a million different answers.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47But yeah, I think sometimes you don't have to finish something
0:28:47 > 0:28:49for there to be a complete story.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59With his portrait of Washington,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02Gilbert Stuart had told the story his audience needed
0:29:02 > 0:29:05without actually finishing.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09Perhaps the very unfinished nature of the work reflected the fact
0:29:09 > 0:29:13that all Americans knew their own story was only just beginning,
0:29:13 > 0:29:18and that, like the painting itself, their nation had a way to go.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24This sense of what constitutes the story of a work of art
0:29:24 > 0:29:27must therefore be essential.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29Sometimes it seems that powerful meaning
0:29:29 > 0:29:32can even trump polish and finesse.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41But how does this work with the written word?
0:29:41 > 0:29:45Is there ever a time where a novel or a poem can feel complete
0:29:45 > 0:29:46without being finished?
0:29:48 > 0:29:50In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
0:29:50 > 0:29:52A stately pleasure dome decree
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
0:29:55 > 0:29:56Through caverns measureless to man
0:29:56 > 0:29:59Down to a sunless sea
0:30:01 > 0:30:04So twice five miles of fertile ground
0:30:04 > 0:30:08With walls and towers were girdled round:
0:30:08 > 0:30:11And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
0:30:11 > 0:30:14Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
0:30:14 > 0:30:17And here were forests ancient as the hills,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36Kubla Khan is one of the most famous poems in the English language,
0:30:36 > 0:30:40memorable not just for its pulsing, musical originality,
0:30:40 > 0:30:44but for the opium-induced reverie in which it was conceived.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48According to Coleridge, Kubla Khan isn't actually finished at all.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50The story goes, that the entire work,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52some two or three hundred lines,
0:30:52 > 0:30:57came to him, unbidden, fully formed, in a dream, and upon awaking,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00flashing with inspiration, he sat down
0:31:00 > 0:31:02and began transcribing this poem.
0:31:02 > 0:31:06But he only managed to get through a tantalising 54 lines
0:31:06 > 0:31:11before he was interupted by a person on business from Porlock, he says.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13By the time that he returned to his desk,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16his majestic vision had evaporated.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20"Passed away," he wrote, "like images on the surface of a stream
0:31:20 > 0:31:24"into which a stone is being cast." At least that's his line.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26The thing is, the whole story about this humdrum
0:31:26 > 0:31:30mystery visitor from Porlock might just be the biggest tease
0:31:30 > 0:31:32in English literary history.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41At the time, Coleridge considered Kubla Kahan a mere fragment
0:31:41 > 0:31:42and not a serious work.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49It was only published about 20 years later at the request of his friend,
0:31:49 > 0:31:50the poet, Lord Byron.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56Andrew, Kubla Khan is such a beautiful poem,
0:31:56 > 0:32:00such a well-known poem, but this idea of its fragmentariness,
0:32:00 > 0:32:02if we take his word,
0:32:02 > 0:32:05then he was interrupted by this fabled man from Porlock.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08I think someone once said that if anyone in the history of literature
0:32:08 > 0:32:11deserves to be shot, it's this bloke from Porlock!
0:32:11 > 0:32:14I mean, do you buy that story?
0:32:14 > 0:32:16Perhaps it is an invention, but, actually, I have to say,
0:32:16 > 0:32:18it doesn't really bother me very much.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22It must be one of the best-known, best-loved poems in the entire English language,
0:32:22 > 0:32:26so people can't be feeling too cheesed off not getting what they paid for!
0:32:26 > 0:32:31I guess the thing that intrigues me about Kubla Khan is this idea that,
0:32:31 > 0:32:34maybe it's not literally unfinished, maybe it is finished,
0:32:34 > 0:32:37- but it's masquerading as an unfinished poem.- Yeah.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39By advertising it as an unfinished poem,
0:32:39 > 0:32:40which he goes to some lengths to do,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43he appears to want to get out of being responsible
0:32:43 > 0:32:46for producing a more finished thing. "The dog ate my homework."
0:32:46 > 0:32:48That would be one way of reading it.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53I think the other way of reading it, and this seems to me more important,
0:32:53 > 0:32:58and certainly more powerfully to do with the purposes of the poem,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01is to regard it as something which, in completeness,
0:33:01 > 0:33:03is something IS the point of the poem,
0:33:03 > 0:33:08that what Coleridge is writing about is how our reach exceeds our grasp,
0:33:08 > 0:33:11how our creative visions can never be realised entirely,
0:33:11 > 0:33:13and so on, and so forth.
0:33:13 > 0:33:17In other words, the fragmentary nature of it is the subject,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21it's not a failure, it is the subject.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33The shadow of the dome of pleasure floated midway on the waves.
0:33:33 > 0:33:39Where was heard the mingled measure, from the fountain and the caves.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43It was a miracle of rare device,
0:33:43 > 0:33:47A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
0:33:51 > 0:33:54For the Romantics, the creative process was something
0:33:54 > 0:33:58mystical and elusive, it was sublime, it was almost God-like,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02so, it wasn't all that surprising if things couldn't be finished.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05In fact, it was testament to the power of imagination,
0:34:05 > 0:34:09that shadowy realm of make-believe inside all our minds,
0:34:09 > 0:34:13our heads, that you can never really tame, or transcribe, because,
0:34:13 > 0:34:17ultimately, it remains forever measureless to man.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26Another famous author left fragments behind him.
0:34:26 > 0:34:31By the time that the modernist writer Franz Kafka died in 1924,
0:34:31 > 0:34:34he's produced manuscripts of 3 novels,
0:34:34 > 0:34:38The Castle, The Trial and Amerika, and not one of them complete.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45He left the manuscripts in the hands of his friend Max Brod,
0:34:45 > 0:34:48with instructions to burn them, which Brod ignored.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52They're now regarded as masterpieces of 20th-century fiction,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55their fragmentary nature a reflection of an anxious
0:34:55 > 0:34:59and uncertain modern world, where neat endings, or resolutions,
0:34:59 > 0:35:01no longer had a place.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05Obviously I'm relieved, for the sake of literary history,
0:35:05 > 0:35:07that Brod disobeyed his instructions,
0:35:07 > 0:35:10isn't there a bigger issue here? Coleridge and Gilbert Stuart,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13they knowingly published their unfinished, fragmentary works,
0:35:13 > 0:35:18but Kafka himself never intended his novels to be read.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28It's pretty clear from everything we know about Kafka's life
0:35:28 > 0:35:32that he wanted to have a career as a writer,
0:35:32 > 0:35:37I suspect, and it was denied him. So, in those cases it's OK.
0:35:37 > 0:35:43I think it is very different from, a writer dies inconveniently
0:35:43 > 0:35:48to their family and their publisher, and so they just carry on,
0:35:48 > 0:35:50in whatever way they possibly can.
0:35:50 > 0:35:52I think with The Trial we have something different,
0:35:52 > 0:36:00because I think Kafka was, in some sense, deluded,
0:36:00 > 0:36:04or at least hugely over-pessimistic about whether this thing
0:36:04 > 0:36:08deserved to survive. I mean, that's the point,
0:36:08 > 0:36:10he didn't think it deserved to survive,
0:36:10 > 0:36:12and I think he's simply wrong about that.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15So, that's OK then, Kafka just got it wrong,
0:36:15 > 0:36:18we're all the beneficiaries of his misjudgement,
0:36:18 > 0:36:20but what happens when artists or writers
0:36:20 > 0:36:23suppress works that just aren't worthy of publication?
0:36:23 > 0:36:26What should we do when we come across those?
0:36:39 > 0:36:43I'm on my way to meet Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46an academic who recently made an important discovery -
0:36:46 > 0:36:49seven previously unpublished poems,
0:36:49 > 0:36:52that could completely alter our understanding
0:36:52 > 0:36:56of the First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01Sassoon, like his contemporary, Wilfred Owen,
0:37:01 > 0:37:03has always been regarded as someone
0:37:03 > 0:37:06who was against the glorification of war.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09Instead, he felt compelled to present
0:37:09 > 0:37:11its bleak truth to the world.
0:37:15 > 0:37:20Sassoon arrived in the trenches in November 1915.
0:37:20 > 0:37:22His first poem, The Redeemer,
0:37:22 > 0:37:26gives a particularly unsparing account of life on the front line.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might along the trench.
0:37:36 > 0:37:38Sometimes a bullet sang,
0:37:38 > 0:37:42and droning shells burst with a hollow bang.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49Darkness, the distant wink of a huge gun.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58Dr Moorcroft Wilson's discovery was of a series of Sassoon's
0:37:58 > 0:38:01unfinished poems that were out of character, to say the least.
0:38:01 > 0:38:06One in particular, in contrast to his other work of the time,
0:38:06 > 0:38:09depicts war very differently.
0:38:09 > 0:38:13This one, Glory 1916, I think, was unpublished
0:38:13 > 0:38:15partly because it was unfinished.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Certain decisions hadn't been made,
0:38:17 > 0:38:22and certain lines have been duplicated with different versions.
0:38:22 > 0:38:27But also because, he perhaps didn't want to be viewed as a man
0:38:27 > 0:38:32who hadn't been firm in his movement towards anti-war poetry.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34When you say they hadn't been published,
0:38:34 > 0:38:36this is his own self-censorship, effectively?
0:38:36 > 0:38:38He'd written these poems during the war,
0:38:38 > 0:38:42and he'd deliberately decided to suppress the poems you've discovered?
0:38:42 > 0:38:45That's all I can conclude. I don't know.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47I can't... I'm not in Sassoon's mind.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50But I would assume that that is the case, yes.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54Because it's not a bad poem, in fact, it's a rather nice poem.
0:38:54 > 0:38:56Can we have a look at it?
0:38:56 > 0:38:58Yes, of course we can.
0:38:58 > 0:39:00So this is a facsimile of the diary itself?
0:39:00 > 0:39:01Yes.
0:39:01 > 0:39:08This is a facsimile and the poem is opposite the entry for Jan 25th.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11You and the winds ride out together.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Your company the world's great weather.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16The clouds your plume.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19The glittering sky a host of swords in harmony,
0:39:19 > 0:39:21with the whole loveliness of light,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25flung forth to lead you through the fight.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27So he's been in the trenches at this point...
0:39:27 > 0:39:29Yes, he's been in the trenches.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32..And he's written about the experience as in a poem,
0:39:32 > 0:39:34like The Redeemer, which feels quite nightmarish,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37and he's suddenly writing glorified war poems?
0:39:37 > 0:39:40Yes, and he's comparing himself and his young companion,
0:39:40 > 0:39:43who happens to be the man he's in love with in real life,
0:39:43 > 0:39:46his young companion, to Sir Galahad.
0:39:46 > 0:39:52So, here he is writing Glory 1916. I could hardly believe it!
0:39:52 > 0:39:55I had imagined, in my simplicity, that the line
0:39:55 > 0:39:58went from glorying war to criticising war, but it doesn't.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02It goes backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards.
0:40:02 > 0:40:04You're a far cry from a tabloid journalist
0:40:04 > 0:40:08rummaging around in someone's bins, but in literary biography,
0:40:08 > 0:40:09is this in any way similar?
0:40:09 > 0:40:12Essentially, you've found these private notes and diaries
0:40:12 > 0:40:16and poems which Sassoon didn't want to see the light of day,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19and effectively you are championing them and bringing them out,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22and allowing people to engage with them, read them, know them.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25That's going to change our understanding of Sassoon.
0:40:25 > 0:40:27Is that a morally right thing to do?
0:40:27 > 0:40:32I think you're assuming that because he didn't want them published
0:40:32 > 0:40:34means that he didn't want them seen.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38I don't think he thought they were worthy of publication
0:40:38 > 0:40:40because the others were perhaps better.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44I think we're really only adding to our knowledge of Sassoon
0:40:44 > 0:40:47when we publish this.
0:40:47 > 0:40:52And don't forget we only do so with the permission of his family.
0:40:52 > 0:40:53We like to think of our artists
0:40:53 > 0:40:57and writers as following career trajectories as they develop.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59But this suggests something very different.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03As a biographer, I love the fact that it suggests something very different.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06I much prefer it if he gives me a surprise.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10And this gives me the sense that I don't know Sassoon
0:41:10 > 0:41:13as thoroughly as I thought I did.
0:41:13 > 0:41:15Good. I'm glad about that.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20It means I can go on indefinitely writing biographies of Siegfried Sassoon.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32You know, thinking about Siegfried Sassoon has made me reconsider
0:41:32 > 0:41:35our whole attitude to unfinished works of art and literature.
0:41:35 > 0:41:40Because the poem Glory 1916 to me, just seems to creak a bit.
0:41:40 > 0:41:43All that Arthurian rhetoric just feels false
0:41:43 > 0:41:46and fanciful compared to the blunt and much earthier power
0:41:46 > 0:41:50of other poems from the same period like The Redeemer.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53So perhaps Sassoon didn't want to publish it for a reason.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56And perhaps we should respect those wishes?
0:41:56 > 0:41:59Perhaps we don't automatically have the right to publish
0:41:59 > 0:42:01an author's unfinished work after all.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14I always argue for publishing art
0:42:14 > 0:42:16even when it isn't as good as it might be.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18There are two alternatives.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20One is that we destroy it,
0:42:20 > 0:42:23that we actually burn the manuscript ourselves,
0:42:23 > 0:42:25in which case I think we're basically Nazis.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Or we lock it away in an archive
0:42:28 > 0:42:31and what we say is only scholars can have access to it,
0:42:31 > 0:42:32only the rich can have access to it
0:42:32 > 0:42:36because they can get on a plane and fly across the world to the archive.
0:42:36 > 0:42:38Or even if the archive becomes for sale,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42then private collectors can have it and really lock it away.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45So, actually publishing is a far more democratic mode
0:42:45 > 0:42:49that says this will be available to anyone that can come up with a tenner
0:42:49 > 0:42:52and then again we can make distinctions,
0:42:52 > 0:42:57we can make judgement calls about what its value might be.
0:42:57 > 0:43:02There is a tendency to think that the dead person would have wanted what most suits us.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05For example, Ernest Hemingway.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08Books have appeared posthumously
0:43:08 > 0:43:11which he would never have imagined existing.
0:43:11 > 0:43:16They come from collections of notes or things that he left unfinished
0:43:16 > 0:43:20and somebody else has shaped them into a book.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23I think you have to be so, so careful with that.
0:43:23 > 0:43:25In fact, I think it is wrong
0:43:25 > 0:43:28because that is a form of literary necrophilia
0:43:28 > 0:43:35in which you are completely altering the shape of an artist's life.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43Literary necrophilia could also describe the phenomenon
0:43:43 > 0:43:46of extending a writer's body of work after their death.
0:43:49 > 0:43:55I'm not talking about cobbling together notebooks or unfinished works.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59I'm talking about hiring writers to create entirely new stories.
0:44:01 > 0:44:02Recently, both Sherlock Holmes
0:44:02 > 0:44:07and James Bond have been reincarnated to die another day.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21Call me cynical but I'm assuming the reasons for extending franchises like that
0:44:21 > 0:44:23are ultimately financial, commercial.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25The man I want to ask about this is Jonny Geller,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28a literary agent who works here in central London.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31He looks after on of the biggest estates of them all,
0:44:31 > 0:44:33that of Ian Fleming, author of James Bond.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36MUSIC: "James Bond" by Scouting For Girls
0:44:36 > 0:44:40# 007, Britain's finest secret agent, licensed to kill
0:44:40 > 0:44:44# Mixing business with girls and thrills
0:44:47 > 0:44:51# I've seen you walk the screen It's you that I adore
0:44:51 > 0:44:56# Since I was a boy I've wanted to be like Roger Moore
0:44:56 > 0:45:01# A girl in every port And gadgets up my sleeve
0:45:01 > 0:45:06# The world is not enough For the both of us it seems
0:45:06 > 0:45:11# So I wish I was James Bond Just for the day
0:45:11 > 0:45:15# Kissing all the girls Blow the bad guys away... #
0:45:17 > 0:45:20There's a tradition of inviting great writers to carry on the character
0:45:20 > 0:45:23and the role of the estate and my help
0:45:23 > 0:45:26is to try and keep the integrity of the character alive
0:45:26 > 0:45:29with really the intention that people go back
0:45:29 > 0:45:32to those great novels that he wrote.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed
0:45:38 > 0:45:42or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued.
0:45:42 > 0:45:47But he was honest enough that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or women.
0:45:49 > 0:45:51One day, he accepted the fact
0:45:51 > 0:45:55he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck.
0:45:57 > 0:45:59When you say "integrity of the character", do you mean
0:45:59 > 0:46:02literally how we think about James Bond
0:46:02 > 0:46:06or Ian Fleming's prose style? Because they could be slightly different things.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09It's mixture of both. Ian Fleming's prose style -
0:46:09 > 0:46:12so that it's not written in a completely different way
0:46:12 > 0:46:16because modern thrillers have a completely different tone and pace.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18And the other side of it is would James Bond,
0:46:18 > 0:46:23in the way Ian Fleming wrote it, have done this thing?
0:46:23 > 0:46:26How consistent is that with the character?
0:46:26 > 0:46:30How do you go about choosing the writers who become Ian Fleming?
0:46:30 > 0:46:33Actually, fundamentally a love of Ian Fleming's writing.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37There's no point just hiring someone who just thinks it'll be a good opportunity
0:46:37 > 0:46:38because it will show through.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42And every writer who has done the Ian Fleming continuation
0:46:42 > 0:46:46including Charlie Higson who had a very successful series of Young Bond,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48they grew up reading Ian Fleming and they love it.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51That is genuine and it comes through in the writing.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53You can't do this cynically, strangely.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02Very often authors finish a work
0:47:02 > 0:47:04and then find that their audiences,
0:47:04 > 0:47:07their readerships won't let them finish it.
0:47:07 > 0:47:10So, for instance, Conan Doyle kills Sherlock Holmes,
0:47:10 > 0:47:18has him fall in a fatal embrace into the Reichenbach Falls with Professor Moriarty
0:47:18 > 0:47:22But then of course the readership, the Holmesians,
0:47:22 > 0:47:25those who feel that life is meaningless
0:47:25 > 0:47:31unless they have the sleuth of 221B Baker Street, demand that he comes back.
0:47:31 > 0:47:33So he's brought back from the dead.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44Sherlock is another character who seems to resist endings.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47Having survived his own fictional death,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50and that of his creator Conan Doyle, he's back.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53After almost a century, he's here again,
0:47:53 > 0:47:57re-born in Anthony Horowitz's new Sherlock mystery, The House of Silk.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01"Indeed, Watson. But there is one thing
0:48:01 > 0:48:03"I would particularly like to know,
0:48:03 > 0:48:06"for I am beginning to see great danger in this situation."
0:48:06 > 0:48:10He glanced at the fountain of the stone figures in the frozen circle of water.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14"I wonder if Mrs Catherine Carstairs is able to swim?"
0:48:14 > 0:48:19It's interesting that Holmes, Bond, they're genre fiction.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23Genre fiction, even more than literary fiction,
0:48:23 > 0:48:25depends on the construction of believable characters.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28It's always character-driven.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32That means we get to know and like the characters.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36We do not want them killed off. We are cross if they are killed off.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38So, there's a kind of Houdini-like thing.
0:48:38 > 0:48:43What does Conan Doyle have to do to kill Sherlock Holmes?
0:48:43 > 0:48:48How deep an abyss does he have to fall into not to be able to crawl out again?
0:48:48 > 0:48:50It's absolutely fascinating.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54However completed a story be, we imagine what happens after it.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Imagining what happens after it
0:49:00 > 0:49:06is one of our most important responses to a story that has really gripped us.
0:49:06 > 0:49:12You get to the end of The Odyssey and Odysseus is home
0:49:12 > 0:49:15and he kills his rivals and he's back with his wife.
0:49:15 > 0:49:19End of story. Perhaps the greatest story even told.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21But for many people over the centuries,
0:49:21 > 0:49:24it's not necessarily the end.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27Tennyson wrote a wonderful poem, Ulysses.
0:49:27 > 0:49:33Imagine what it would then be like for this epic hero after the end.
0:49:33 > 0:49:39Because how could such a person settle down to suburban existence in Ithaca?
0:49:40 > 0:49:43I feel quite nostalgic looking at these books in front of me.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46I didn't actually own these precise copies when I was little
0:49:46 > 0:49:51but they're representative of a particular genre I enjoyed.
0:49:51 > 0:49:56Adventure books in which you, as a kid reading the book, shaped the narrative.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58So here are several examples.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03And one of the big things about these books is that they have many different endings.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06Loads of different endings, tens of different endings.
0:50:06 > 0:50:10This one says choose from 28 endings. There's one here that has 39 endings.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14There are as many as 42 endings. Look how small that book is.
0:50:14 > 0:50:16It must be nothing but endings, in a sense.
0:50:16 > 0:50:20I think part of the reason these appealed to me so much
0:50:20 > 0:50:24is that... I'm trying to think of the purest,
0:50:24 > 0:50:28most innocent aesthetic response you could have ever
0:50:28 > 0:50:31and it would have been when you're reading a book as a kid
0:50:31 > 0:50:36and you're utterly immersed in that imaginary world that the author has created
0:50:36 > 0:50:37and you don't want it to end.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41The beauty of these adventure books is that they never really did have to end.
0:50:41 > 0:50:46You could almost anticipate when the narrative was trying to shape your response
0:50:46 > 0:50:48and create an ending and you could defer it.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51You could deliberately complicate the narrative
0:50:51 > 0:50:53so that it would never come to a conclusion.
0:51:03 > 0:51:08But, actually, as an adult these days it's no different.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10Perhaps now the idea of never finishing,
0:51:10 > 0:51:13never letting go of our favourite characters
0:51:13 > 0:51:16is as hard-wired into our narrative expectations
0:51:16 > 0:51:20as the need for endings and closure was in Dickens' time.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27In fact, you begin to wonder if Dickens were alive today,
0:51:27 > 0:51:29whether he would be allowed to finish ANYTHING
0:51:29 > 0:51:32or, like the writers of the Archers or EastEnders,
0:51:32 > 0:51:38he'd be forever delivering endings that set up new beginnings.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40One of the great unfinished works of art,
0:51:40 > 0:51:43and obviously I would claim it as this, is Coronation Street.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46That sense that you get the feeling it's never going to end.
0:51:46 > 0:51:51Corrie, EastEnders, Brookside in its day
0:51:51 > 0:51:56or Frasier, Friends, whatever it is.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59The point about these are that they're people.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01They become part of our lives,
0:52:01 > 0:52:06we want them back and we won't let them go.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11The television series promises the most,
0:52:11 > 0:52:18I believe, remarkable expansion of the storytelling arts ever in history
0:52:18 > 0:52:24and this ability to get it in a book or a box and download it
0:52:24 > 0:52:26and watch at your convenience
0:52:26 > 0:52:34and watch it season after season, hundreds of hours of material.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39If the writers can create characters that are fascinating
0:52:39 > 0:52:44and empathetic over a long period of years like that,
0:52:44 > 0:52:48then the complexity of story will rival life.
0:52:52 > 0:52:57Arguably the most influential TV drama series of the noughties,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01described as the greatest pop culture masterpiece of its day,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05The Sopranos was a story of everyday mafia folk.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09Tony Soprano wrestled with the conflicting demands
0:53:09 > 0:53:12of being a mobster as well as an ordinary family man.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17The series lasted almost a decade before it ran out of steam.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24Tony Soprano keeps fascinating us over and over
0:53:24 > 0:53:28cos he's got relationships with his family, his professional family,
0:53:28 > 0:53:33the FBI, the ducks on his pond, his psychiatrist, all of his mistresses.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36And because of this incredible cast of characters,
0:53:36 > 0:53:39Tony Soprano is endlessly surprising,
0:53:39 > 0:53:41endlessly revealing.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44And just when you think you know Tony Soprano, you really don't.
0:53:44 > 0:53:45Until you do.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48And when they reached that point after eight years,
0:53:48 > 0:53:54he was exhausted. There was nothing left in Tony to expose.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59The series conclusion was feverishly anticipated.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02Would Tony finally get clipped?
0:54:02 > 0:54:04A mafia assassination seemed on the cards
0:54:04 > 0:54:08but it was a show that continually defied expectations.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10So what did happen to Tony Soprano?
0:54:10 > 0:54:13Strangely, even after the final credits rolled,
0:54:13 > 0:54:17many felt that the story was left unfinished.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21Those craving some kind of conclusion,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25which they felt they deserved after eight years of watching this particular programme.
0:54:25 > 0:54:27They thought they didn't get it.
0:54:27 > 0:54:31For those of us weaned on Twin Peaks and The Prisoner,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34programmes like this that ended without ending
0:54:34 > 0:54:38but in a funny sort of way opened up all sorts of possibilities,
0:54:38 > 0:54:40it was the perfect happy ending.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44I'm on my way to meet the British film director Mike Figgis
0:54:44 > 0:54:48just to have a chat about that famously controversial ending of The Sopranos
0:54:48 > 0:54:52because he directed a single episode in season five
0:54:52 > 0:54:53and I'd love to hear his take.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57I think he's... Ah, perfect. Thank you. He's just in here.
0:54:59 > 0:55:00Thanks.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04I mean, obviously you didn't direct the final episode,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08but it's famously controversial and I'd love to hear your take on it.
0:55:08 > 0:55:11Press play.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23In the final scene, the Soprano family are due to meet for dinner in their favourite restaurant.
0:55:23 > 0:55:28There's an uneasy sense, as there has been throughout the series,
0:55:28 > 0:55:32that there may be a price to pay for Tony's violent Mafia lifestyle.
0:55:32 > 0:55:37Despite the apparent normality of the diner, the camerawork suggests
0:55:37 > 0:55:42that every character who swims into vision could be an assassin.
0:55:46 > 0:55:47Mm, onion rings...
0:55:47 > 0:55:54Because we'd been brought up on The Godfather and Scorsese's Mean Streets and all the rest of it,
0:55:54 > 0:55:58we understand the film genre called, you know, the Mafia.
0:55:58 > 0:55:59We expect them to get it.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03And actually, given the history of The Sopranos,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06we expect them to get it in the most horrifically bloodthirsty way.
0:56:06 > 0:56:14The minute we see cars having a hard time parking, and backing in,
0:56:14 > 0:56:18we expect a car bomb, or we expect someone to get out and go,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21"Lady, can I give you a hand?" And then bombs through the window.
0:56:21 > 0:56:24You know what the shot will look like. It'll be shattered glass,
0:56:24 > 0:56:25blood sprayed on the glass.
0:56:25 > 0:56:31There's only a small number of cliches about how Mafia killings are depicted in film.
0:56:31 > 0:56:36As if the tension weren't ramped up enough, there's also the knowledge
0:56:36 > 0:56:38that in a matter of minutes, the end must come
0:56:38 > 0:56:41and the show must finish.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44MUSIC: "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey
0:56:44 > 0:56:45Focus on the good times.
0:56:45 > 0:56:46Don't be sarcastic.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50The song that is used at the end of the entire programme
0:56:50 > 0:56:53is Don't Stop Believing, the Journey version.
0:56:53 > 0:56:56And it actually ends on "don't stop".
0:56:56 > 0:57:01You know, "stop" is the last word. And I do love that because it's using the classic example
0:57:01 > 0:57:05of the song that would always be used for a big, joyous, climactic,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08happy ending, closure, resolution.
0:57:08 > 0:57:11But it's using it at the exact moment...well, the exact opposite.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15# Street light people
0:57:15 > 0:57:19# Oh-oh
0:57:19 > 0:57:21# Don't stop... #
0:57:22 > 0:57:23Whoa!
0:57:23 > 0:57:25I've never seen that before.
0:57:25 > 0:57:27But I can see why it's controversial.
0:57:27 > 0:57:31How much more satisfying that was in the long term.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35- Why is it more satisfying?- Because we're still talking about it.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37If you can come up with a device
0:57:37 > 0:57:41where you, the writer, director and so on, the creators of this,
0:57:41 > 0:57:45can take the audience to somewhere where, almost like they close the last minute,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48then your imagination can continue with those characters.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53And somewhere in that virtual film space, we can conjecture ourselves,
0:57:53 > 0:57:58rather like reading a book, what may or may not have happened to all of them.
0:57:58 > 0:58:03# Somewhere in the night... #
0:58:03 > 0:58:05So, is that it?
0:58:05 > 0:58:08Today we have never-endings rather than conclusions.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13I think so. I get the sense that in the 21st century,
0:58:13 > 0:58:18we want to keep the story expanding and keep the conversation going.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22# Don't stop believing
0:58:22 > 0:58:26# Hold on to that feeling
0:58:26 > 0:58:31# Street light people
0:58:34 > 0:58:36# Don't stop... #
0:58:42 > 0:58:45# Street light people
0:58:45 > 0:58:49# Oh-oh
0:58:49 > 0:58:52# Don't stop believing
0:58:52 > 0:58:56# Hold on to that feeling
0:58:56 > 0:59:00# Street light people... #
0:59:00 > 0:59:03Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd