Read the following passage and answerquestions.

A writer creates a world of characters and situations and philosophy that have a life of their own and may have no relation to him. After writing ten novels and a number of short stories. I find that I have created good men, bad men.idiots and saints. Once they have served their purpose. they pass clean out of my memory. I have no time to think of them again, although for months everyone of those characters could have occupied my thoughts obsessively while the story was in progress. Once the last line is written and “The End” is inscribed with a happy flourish. out goes the character. But this is a solution that the readeris not likely to take into account.

A readeris attracted or repelled by a character and expects the writer to offer various explanations and interpretations of the particular character and his or her philosophy. The reader will also have the advantage having gone through the book recently and possibly more than once. But the writeris likely to have forgotten the whole subject, especially if he has had to write a great deal else since then. When people expect
him to say wise or significant things about his own book, they may find him tongue-tied and disappointing. In my viewto find the author less than the book is an excellent situation.