Favorite fictional characters
The Independent asked 100 British literati to name their favorite fictional characters. (Link from Bookslut.) Jane Austen’s heroines did very well. I also smiled to see two of my childhood favorites, Anne of Green Gables and Enid Blyton’s George.
If I had to pick one favorite fictional character, though, it wouldn’t be a female. It’s Billy Prior, from Pat Barker’s trilogy that included Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road.
What fictional character means the most to you?
March 4th, 2005 at 9:35 am
Isn’t it hard to keep from picking little-known characters just to prove how well read (geeky) you are?
Okay, I can’t limit it to one. But I will limit it to just books, and not movies (so I can eliminate Fast Eddie Felson and Tom Reagan, as well as the obligatory Han Solo. Oops, I guess I listed them anyway.)
Hmm. Seems that one author was over-represented, so I had to limit him to three characters.
Athos
Bobby Shaftoe
Felix
Gandalf
Heathcliff
Ingold Inglorion
Jake Barnes
Miles Vorkosigan
Randy Waterhouse
Sangamon Taylor
March 4th, 2005 at 10:07 am
Is it totally wrong that I came up completely blank for a day? Thank goodness GG reminded me of the characters from Cryptonomicon. Funny, how one author’s characters can “pop” in a way others might not. I suspect it’s partly the author’s skill, and partly the reader’s level of investment. With that in mind I’ll add Jack Knight, from the Starman series, possibly the most character-driven superhero book I’ve read. On a slightly higher plane, among the myriad of vivid characters from Gaiman’s Sandman, I’ll go with Hob Gadling (maybe an all-time favorite for me) and the idelible, ludicrous, ultimately hopeful interpretation of Death.
True story: each of the handful of times I’ve found myself escorting a recently-deceased person from my workplace to the Medical Examiner’s, the most respectful and comforting thing I’ve been able to think of is her. A character that can resonate outside of its story and into real life, and yet not seem artificial and cheap, is a very powerful thing.
March 4th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
Switters. Easy. So wish I knew him.
March 4th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
If I had to pick one… hmmm. I’m quite fond of Harriet Vane. Peter Wimsey, too, of course, but Harriet — educated, self-made, rising above the mistakes of her youth — I love her.
Second up, Jo March from Little Women.
I must have a thing for scribbling women.
And on the subject of Anne, I saw a car with a PEI license plate go past the other day — it has Green Gables on it, and a silhouette of Anne, and I bounced very excitedly in my car as I pointed it out to my daughter. (She’s two, so she just laughed at me being excited.)
March 6th, 2005 at 9:51 am
this one took me a moment…but i think i’m going to have to go with Sherlock Holmes and Pippi Longstocking.
both were a large part of my upbringing — Pippi from my Mom, Holmes from my Dad.
March 6th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
You know, I almost put Holmes. I suppose if I was going to be really honest and serious about it, he would have to be among the top three, just because he’s been so influential in everything that came since. Warren Ellis recently posted some thoughts on him.
March 6th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
I’m not sure if it’s more fun to recognize characters that people pick, or not to know them and have to look them up. And most amusing, the unknown characters were posted by my husband (He posted so darn many that how could any of us know them all, right? Still, he and I share a library, and all.) and my sister. I’d never even heard of that Tom Robbins novel.
Erik, I agree that Starman was a character driven series, but quibble at the superlative. Did you ever read the excellent Sandman Mystery Theater, with Wesley and Diane? Those are two fascinating characters. And Darice, Diane was a scribbling woman, so I bet you would like her too.
I’ve only read on Wimsey novel, Strong Poison. It was a book of the month at http://www.chicklit.com and I think it was chosen because it was the first appearance of Harriet. I thought about reading more in the series, but got sidetracked, and am only now recalling that resolve years later.
If I had to name a detective, it wouldn’t be Sherlock. It would be Trixie Belden, whose most excellent adventures are once again in print and available at a bookstore (and even a Target) near you!
March 7th, 2005 at 9:16 am
Hmm… more strangeness over here, in that I also thought of Holmes, as well as Wesley Dodds. I left Holmes off because as much as I enjoy him (and Detective Goren on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” and Dr. House, and Darryl Zero, and other modern descendants of his)… he’s more influential than meaningful, to me. Inductive logic is sort of my own assembly language, and I try my best to practice deduction. So I’d enjoy meeting Holmes, possibly working with him… but wouldn’t want to take a road trip with him. Dinner might be too much, in fact.
And yes indeed, I read “Sandman Mystery Theater” for its first couple of years. Wonderful stuff. However, I found the ‘character bits’ to be a little muddy, or even soap opera-ish, for my own comics tastes at the time. I think from a writing point of view, a big part of poor Mr. Dodds’ problem was that he would have been quite all right if he’d not been driven to a life of superhero-ing (by nightmares, yet!). Thus, it must have been harder for Matt Wagner as a writer to show us his (and as an actor, I hate using this word) motivation. Actually, the times I liked Wesley the most just being Wesley were in the issues of “Starman” where young Jack finally gets to meet his hero… Diane Belmont. That was a satisfying character moment, all around.
I can’t believe all this talk of detectives didn’t spur me to say “Spenser” before now. Here’s a guy who stands out in the 1970s and ’80s as being a sort of cross between Philip Marlowe and Hawkeye Pierce. He may not have aged well, but for teen guys, reading about a man who (in between punching guys in the face and getting shot at) is a gourmet cook, snappy dresser, and honest in his dealings with women is no small thing. Spenser was metrosexual before there was any such thing.
March 7th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
My current favorite character is Precious Ramotswe of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith.
I like her method of sleuthing!
March 7th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
You probably knew these but:
- Christopher Chant-Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones
- Jamie Hamilton-Homeward Bounders, DWJ
- Janet Chant-Charmed Life, DWJ
- Tom Long-Tom’s Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce
- Pauline Fossil-Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfield
- Polly Whittaker-Fire and Hemlock, DWJ
- Tannaqui Weaver-Spellcoats, DWJ
- Alice
- Christoper Robin
- Dinah Slade-The Rich are Different, Susan Howatch
- Margaret Thursday-Thursday’s Child and Far to Go, Noel Streatfield
- Jonas-The Giver, Lois Lowry
- Bilbo Baggins
March 7th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
good choice. i think pat barker’s a genius. did you read her latest book? LOVED it.
mine is Kim, from the eponymous Kipling novel, which I happen to have written my master’s thesis on.
March 7th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
I have edited Emily’s comment to add titles and authors (since I didn’t know all of them, even one–The Giver–that I should have). For those others of you who didn’t (ahem, G. Grod and Ruthie) please add them, not only for my own edification, but for that of the other readers. Won’t you please think of the readers?
March 8th, 2005 at 9:15 am
It’s the “favorite” part that makes it hard to narrow down. “Favorite,” how?
I suppose I could tell you where they come from, since my brother won’t read this and he’s the only person who would know all of them.
As Erik recognized, Randy Waterhouse and Bobby Shaftoe come from Cryptonomicon. It’s a really close choice between Randy and Daniel Waterhouse (of The Baroque Cycle), but I did want to limit Stephenson to three characters. The third was Sangamon Taylor, the protagonist of Zodiac. Miles Vorkosigan is a fantastic character for the first half dozen or so of his series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Gandalf is self-evident, as should be Athos.
My nods to actual classic literature are Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) and Jake Barnes (The Sun Also Rises).
And if anyone out there recognized Ingold Inglorion from Barbara Hambly’s Darwath Trilogy (The Time of the Dark, The Walls of Air, and The Armies of Daylight), well, I guess I’m not the only 80’s fantasy geek around.
And if you were to tell me you knew I meant Felix from Armor (and arguably Vampire$), I’d call you a liar.
Unfortunately, to explain WHY these are favorite characters, I’d need a lot more time.
March 8th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
My sister Ruthie says that the character she mentioned in comment #3, Switters, is from Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins.
March 8th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Ooooooh, Trixie Belden! I love her!
I haven’t read Sandman Mystery Theatre but I think now I want to. *adds it to the staggering list*
Strong Poison is the introduction of Harriet, but my favorite is Gaudy Night which (in addition to being a mystery) is about women, academia, the tradeoffs between the thinking life and the married/family life (for women) and whether a balance can be achieved. It’s marvelous. A bit dated, of course, but still marvelous.
March 9th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Darice, I hesitate to add other suggestions to your staggering list, since I know the feeling of “oh, cool, oh crap,” but did you (or any of the folks who mentioned Holmes) read the Laurie R. King novels The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and A Letter of Mary? They have a strong, educated female protagonist. I didn’t like the later novels in the series so much, but I very much enjoyed the first three and their feminist extension of the Holmes mythos.
March 9th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
I have read the first three King novels, and greatly enjoyed them. (Like you, I abandoned ship on the later ones — I think I made it through The Moor and gave up.) I might reread the first one again; it’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten the details, but I did enjoy it.
March 10th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Darice, my experience of Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell books was what you described: Liked the first three lots, read the fourth and then stopped, and have been thinking about re-reading the first again. (I own her three of the Kate Martinelli books, but have not yet dived in. First one is about a dead kid. Too scary.)
Also, when I was at the library yesterday, I saw a poster of recommended books by professors at the U of MN, and one of them was Gaudy Night! They only had a combo book on the shelf (3 of the Wimsey novels) so I didn’t check it out, but GN has definitely moved to the forefront of my consciousness now.
March 11th, 2005 at 12:49 am
Once you read Gaudy Night, then there’s Busman’s Honeymoon — which is all about negotiating marriage between the intelligent.
I’m a Sayers pusher. *stands on street corner, handing out paperbacks*
I haven’t read King’s modern series either. And you know, I just cleaned off my bookshelves in the past year. I wonder if I even still have Beekeeper’s. Hmmmm. Ah well, if I don’t have it the library will.