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Thread: Characters of fascination.

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    Registered User Zee.'s Avatar
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    Characters of fascination.

    I know there have been a few "what are your favourite characters" threads but they've all gotten quite long and I really want to know what characters really fascinate you and why. They don't have to be your favourite, although I have found the ones that fascinate me usually are

    Mine, and in order

    Joe Christmas
    Alex - A Clockwork Orange
    Hailey and Sam - Only Revolutions
    Navy - House of Leaves
    Romeo and Juliet - they died, ultimately, for love. Through everything love prevailed, even through their deaths.

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    Registered User Stargazer86's Avatar
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    A few of mine would be:

    Lady MacBeth
    O-lan (The Good Earth...though on one hand she seemed simple, I think she may have had some real depth to her and I always wondered what was really going on in her mind)
    Beowulf
    The Narrarator as well as many other characters in Cantebury Tales (Wife of Bath, The Pardoner, the Summoner, etc etc)

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    Boromir, in The Fellowship of the Ring.

    He was greedy at first, but ultimately he sacrificed his life to protect his people. He changed, and when people change, the change speaks for a good heart.

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    Registered User Desolation's Avatar
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    Raskolnikov from 'Crime and Punishment' immediately comes to mind. I love the depth and psychology of the character.

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    Josef K. from The Trial and Meursault from The Stranger. They both express an individual who lives in a beaurocratic society and has to deal with an absurd world.

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    Registered User sixsmith's Avatar
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    Darl from 'As i lay dying' - For reasons i can't possibly make clear now as i am still reading the novel.

    Suttree from Cormac McCarthy's 'Suttree' - Though the novel centres around him, Suttree's pride and resolve means we never learn much about what makes him tick or why he lives in squalor.

    The Colonel in Denis Johnson's 'Tree of Smoke' - A Kurtz-esque character and key to Johnson's brilliantly disorientating novel

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    Faromir, Boromir's brother for his detachment to worldly things;
    Maggie Tulliver for her deep love of people around her.
    Walk, meditate, forget - Victor Hugo
    Life is bigger than literature - Michael Cunningham

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    ignoramus et ignorabimus Mr Endon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Desolation View Post
    Raskolnikov from 'Crime and Punishment' immediately comes to mind. I love the depth and psychology of the character.
    I second that. Larger than life he is.
    I am still alive then. That may come in useful.
    Molloy

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    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    That must be Rochester (up until now).

    Waw, such a character... So much to say about him. Likeable yet bad.
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

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    Ataraxia bazarov's Avatar
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    Bazarov - his nihilism and intellectual domination above others are impressive!
    At thunder and tempest, At the world's coldheartedness,
    During times of heavy loss And when you're sad
    The greatest art on earth Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.

    To get things clear, they have to firstly be very unclear. But if you get them too quickly, you probably got them wrong.
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    Skol'er of Thinkery The Comedian's Avatar
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    Edward Abbey -- in his nonfiction, in which he himself is the main character is one of the most amusing, complex, and thought provoking characters that I've read. Books of note: Desert Solitaire & Down the River.

    Lately, I've enjoyed Hellboy, from Mike Mignola's comics of the same Hellboy title.
    “Oh crap”
    -- Hellboy

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    Literary Superstar Pryderi Agni's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stargazer86 View Post
    A few of mine would be:

    Lady MacBeth

    Beowulf
    Quote Originally Posted by Maximilianus View Post
    Boromir, in The Fellowship of the Ring.
    ...Besides a host of others: Julius Caesar, Cesare Borgia, Virgil (Dante's guide), Ghosts of Christmas, Gulliver, Roland (of Roland de Chanson fame) and so on...

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    Okay this is all off the top of my head; there are probably many more.

    Loads of characters from Shakespeare. Including: Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet; Prince Hal from Henry IV (parts i and ii) and Henry V; Hamlet and Ophelia from Hamlet; Othello from Othello; Kate from The Taming of the Shrew; Malvolio from Twelfth Night. Plus the 'Dark Lady' and 'Young Man' from his sonnets and even the narrator (Shakespeare himself?) from the sonnets.

    Moving on from Shakespeare a few that spring to mind are Humbert Humbert (and to a lesser extent Lolita) from Lolita. Also by Nabokov, Kinbote from Pale Fire.

    Also there's Nancy from Oliver Twist; most of the characters from Catch 22; a lot of characters from Blake's poetry; Satan from Paradise Lost; Prufrock from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock...

    That'll do for now.

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    Ivan Karamazov!

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    Don Quixote
    Proust's Swann and Albertine

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