Book review

I was just reading a review/comment from the author of
When the War Was Over, Elizabeth Becker.

The larger story is of "how Pol Pot came to power and ruined Cambodia".

But she comments on her surprise when one of the minor characters takes on a larger role in the real world.

"Every novelist knows that minor characters have a way of taking over the narrative. But in the years since I first told her story in my 1986 book, ''When the War Was Over,'' a history of modern Cambodia, Bophana has taken on a life of her own and shown me the same thing can happen in nonfiction."

They made a movie,

"''Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy'' was the first Cambodian-language film about the Khmer Rouge massacres, and won several international awards."

Why do I bring this up?

I kept thinking how we are all "Minor Characters".
Like Bophana, we write our love letters, hope and live.
Hopefully, we all won't be tortured and died in the end... well, at least not the torture part. In the end we all die.

This minor character has become hugely popular in Cambodian. Why?
Her story is romantic. It resonates with other minor characters.

To connect to my recent read of Midnights Children.
Saleem, the main character, (but truely a minor character in India's history) writes himself in as a major player in India's history. Why?

He escapes his minor role with romantic stories involving major events in India's history.

Is this an inherent dichotomy in Minor Characters?
A longing to be Major while viscerally connected to other Minors?

hmm... something to think about.