Trilogies

Trilogies are like trinities, like triangles. There are a work split into three pieces, and they each contribute to the whole. But it is also defined by what it is not, a single work, and so the three pieces individuate themselves through their distance.

A question:
Is each piece of approximately the same length/volume/object?
An answer:
I see no reason to say yes. A triangle can be isosceles. A trinity operates as one entity represented in three different ways; the three sides would thus just be three different ways of viewing the same side. Properties such as size, shape, or length would thus be insignificant.

A question:
What is a trilogy?
An answer:
This is a difficult question. I can only address it if it's broken up a bit more.

A question:
Why would someone split a single work into three parts?
An answer:
That is not a very helpful question to ask, I think. Commonly, I suppose, the answer is for marketing purposes. By hooking people on the first part, you can ensure the success of the next two. But why three? Why not four, or five, or seven? The answer is because it's traditional. It's the way things have been done. Humans are things of habit, that's all; stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.

Q:
What can be said about the connectedness between the parts of a trilogy?
A:
The only thing that can be said is that there is some common thread of thought to all of them. There is an element of unity. The answer lies in the question, unfortunately... there is nothing more that can be said other than that there is some connectedness.

I am thinking about Beckett's trilogy, specifically. It is hard. I feel... there is a lot of similar thread in all of them, but what bothers me is this recycling of names. The second part makes reference to characters in the first part, and the third part makes reference to chars in the second and first parts.

So in a way, they are chronological. But so is time, and... the way memory works, I suppose, is being mimicked, but what's really interesting, actually, is his reference to chars in novels written long before any of these parts of "the trilogy."