sophiatown

PART 2
          Again, TK’s character is at a crossing that he has been multiple times without   much progress, which depends on retentiveness.  As you will appreciate the truth in the observation that when ‘experience is not retained … infancy is perpetual’. He is never compelled to experience and/or account for consequences of the mistakes.  In a way, he seems to exist in place outside the realities of his life. As Plato said ‘you cannot step twice into the same river’. 
          Of course, I appreciate that this vacillation and ambiguity is a literary tool, which creates a kind of flexibility that allows for various storylines, which you may want to explore in the future.  However, it is at the expense of the internal coherence of the story you are currently writing. In fact, it strips every action taken by any or all the characters of any meaning and/or consequence.
          
          In this last scene, something significant has happened. Indeed, one might say, life has turned eloquent.  As a Polish writer once wrote ‘As such a moment, I think, great care is required, because on such days life is speaking to us in mute signs, everything suddenly makes us alert, everything is a proof and a symbol, all we need to do is understand.’ A reckoning is called for. 
          
          I hope you read my comments as nothing else than an indication that my interest in your story remains unabated.  Again, thank you.

sophiatown

PART 1
          Is the point of the story a ‘choice’ that TK has to make or the arduous task of making a life? If the answer is the former, then maybe the story should end here. The failure to resolve this question will inevitably lead to this sense of ‘groundhog day’ where the reader is left feeling that there is and perhaps, in the circumstances, can never be any progress and/or character growth.  
          
          Clearly TK is the the protagonist of your story and the fact that he does not seem to undergo any or substantial internal change throughout this story is deeply problematic for two reasons: (a) the lack of clear indication of what the role of KN and TS is in story’s plot; and (b) from a character development point of view, this opacity, by implication, renders them one-dimensional , uncomplicated characters.  My reading of the story does not suggest that this is a deliberate and/or intentional decision.  
          
          The point or observation above is founded on a reading of the story that suggests, whether by design or accident, that KC seems to be the sun around whom all the other characters, namely KN and to a lesser extent TS, orbit. As such the retardation of his character development has a disproportionate impact on the development (even choices) of all the other ‘main’ characters.  I would even say, to the point of rendering their actions obsolete. Honestly, from a dynamic point of view there seems to be no difference between TK, Hartley and Scottie.