GG's-12! Pulitzers-14! So, I finished The Dark Weaver Tuesday afternoon in an oblivion of frantic reading because it was good, but because it's also due at the library today and I have several other books piled up on my end table that need to be attacked. I must say that all in all it was a very decent read, yet another of these award-winners that I probably never would have picked up on my own(especially since it has been out-of-print for years!), but was glad I did. It did make me ponder a few things, though...What makes an author start threads of story but decide to discontinue them? Why, in the case of a saga does one choose to follow a certain character's path over another? In The Dark Weaver, Salverson develops a storyline that includes the possibility of two middle-aged people thwarted in young love a chance to rekindle what was never lost, but that storyline is tossed aside to focus instead on the progeny of one of the characters and their interactions with another prominent family in the area. The young people's story is interesting as well, and fills out at least the second half of the book, but I would have liked to see two older people finally find happiness...There is implication on the author's part that this will happen, due to tragedy that opens doors for this tentative couple, but it is only as an aside while revealing another plot angle. Hmmm...the ending was also slightly confusing, which I will talk about because I'm pretty sure that no one who reads this will ever read The Dark Weaver unless they choose to pursue a similar project to mine. I wasn't sure if Greta, the female protagonist actually died in the end, or was massively scarred, etc. The nurses give her terribly worrisome looks when she awakens after the bombing, but it didn't seem clear to me whether or not she was alive...News is given to Manfred that she has been in a horrible accident, but I'm not entirely sure that they reveal whether or not she is dead. I think that perhaps he perceives she is dead, and then in a Romeo and Juliet sort of way perishes himself, because he cannot live without her...That is so romantic, but stupid as hell if she was still alive...Oh well. And to end that way! With no afterthought or closure from other characters...I, as a reader, would have loved to find out what all the other characters which I had learned to care about and relate to for the other 400-some pages, thought about the situation and where they were at. But, as it appears with most novels, the reader is dropped into these people's lives just as quickly as she is whisked out of it. Well, another day, another novel.:)