I don’t want to lose momentum and I feel I might be… I’m on a reading streak like I’ve never been on in my life. I just finished my first Stephen King novel, the shining… And while it was good, it was a page-turner… The story seem to be overdone. I hadn’t watched the movie prior to reading, and maybe King was the original. But I felt like the characters were two dimensional at best. I didn’t feel any real sense of grief or empathize with any of them. I suppose I liked Dick Holleran best, but even his character was…. stereotypical? I think King did an excellent job describing alcoholism, which I’ve struggled with personally. But the book has kind of awakened desire to truly fall in love with characters like I did reading Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. Lee is writing style and the story that spans generations develop characters that I suppose could be also considered “stereotypical” but the reader walks in their shoes, feels their feelings and becomes them.
So I’m curious who are your favorite fictional characters? What makes them your favorite? Is it possible to truly develop characters without a narrative that spans generations??
by CorrectRestaurant936
6 Comments
Raskolnikov and Alyosha Fyodorovich Karamazov are 2 of my favorites. Paul Atreides as well. The Jackal from the day of the jackal is terrifying also, pure sociopath. Frodo is up there as well.
Eleanor Vance from The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson just does such a good job of writing isolated lonely women at the cusp of insanity. She also just does such a good job of giving Eleanor an inner life and inner thoughts with the first part of the novel.
Maedhros from the Silmarillion is one of my favorite characters of all time
I like the Mitch Rapp character from the late Vince Flynn. He’s probably my favorite.
Jack Ryan Sr and his wife Cathy from the Clancy novels and Jake Brigance from Grisham’s triology
Hobbie from The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.