It's always a strange experience to read one's own writings again after an interval. They so rarely fail to impress.I certainly wouldn't say that's true of my own writing--cringing is surely my response at least as often--but when you've written more than 1,000 blog posts, you're bound to occasionally come across something you'd forgotten writing and are glad to rediscover.
Such was the case with this post from 2007 about, among other things, Sei Shonagon, Iris Murdoch, and Achilles, which ended with a topic I thought was well worth revisiting today: prompted by Murdoch's nomination of Achilles as one of her two favorite characters, I put together an off-the-top-of-my-head list of my favorites. Here's how I described my thinking then:
Unlike her, I think if I put together a list it won't consist of characters with whom I particularly identify; rather--like Odysseus--they'd be characters who I can't stop thinking about, who seem forever capable of revealing new surprises.And, after Odysseus, here's who I came up with:
Bjartur from Independent PeopleNearly four years on, who would I add? Again, off the top of my head:
Tess from Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Lieutenant Amanda Turck from James Gould Cozzens's Guard of Honor
Bartleby the Scrivener
Jayber Crow, from Wendell Berry's books about the Port William Membership
King David
Barnby, Uncle Giles, and Tuffy Weedon from A Dance to the Music of Time
First Sergeant Milt Warden from From Here to Eternity
Lyra from the His Dark Materials trilogy
Sir Lancelot
Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky from Anna Karenina
Huckleberry Finn
Philip Marlowe
Mrs. Aubrey from Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows
Rose Ryder from John Crowley's Aegypt series
Niccolo, Dr. Tobie, and Katelijne Sersanders from Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo seriesAnd you?
Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer
Roberto Bolano's Arturo Belano
David Gately from Infinite Jest
Trollope's Madame Max Goesler
{An administrative note to close: Work and travel have finally caught me out, and I'm taking next week off from blogging, which I don't think I've done in . . . three years? The annex will still be active, though, and you can follow that either through Tumblr itself or through your Google Reader. See you all in a week.}
Guard of Honor was full of memorable characters; I suspect most readers would have singled out "the Judge."
ReplyDeleteFrom Thomas Perry's suspense fiction, Jane Whitefield.
And who would leave out Dr. Stephen Maturin, from the Aubrey-Maturin sea novels?
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head (not including classics). . .
ReplyDeletePnin from Pnin
Gus, Call, Loren from Lonesome Dove
Jernigan from Jernigan
Loved Stephen Maturin. Felt he was a friend, a living being. Felt the same, but to a lesser extent about Jack Aubrey.
ReplyDeleteI've always felt like I could get along with Tom Ripley, and that I would, too, right up until he killed me and made it look like an accident. But really and truly? Diotallevi from Foucault's Pendulum and I would have gotten on famously.
ReplyDeleteJW
I see that I'm going to have to give the Aubrey/Maturin series a try. I've got Master and Commander on my shelf; maybe it can be the methadone that helps me recover from the fact that I'm about to run out of Dorothy Dunnett.
ReplyDeleteAnd Lonesome Dove has been on my list so long that I'm going to the bookstore tomorrowto get a copy, and I promise to read it before the leaves turn. I've only ever read the first page, and even that was wonderful and convincing.
Finally, jw, it's important to remember that Tom Ripley didn't kill most people in his life. You'd probably be fine. Probably.