who is the best at describing people and their minds?

[leonthepupil]

who is the best at describing people and their minds?

A friend of mine asked me the question today.i feel a little stunned as i can't put my mind together on it.I first think of Dostoevsky and Zweig( spell right?)?

what do you guys think of this question?

[crisaor]

I've heard some people (and some authors too) mentioning that Dostoievsky possessed this attribute, but I've never read him, so I can't confirm. I like the way Gaiman and Salinger treat and develop their characters.

[IWilKikU]

Shakespeare is the undisputed heavyweight champ of human nature. Almost every soliliquey he EVER wrote is a self-psychological evaluation. For more info on this, read,Shakespeare, Inventing the Human by Harold Blume.

[AbdoRinbo]

Erm, James Joyce (I mean, c'mon, who here doesn't think so?). Who here doesn't think that James Joyce was best at describing the mind?

He has brought pleasure to millions . . . and what a sweet äss.

[Dick Diver]

Originally posted by AbdoRinbo
Erm, James Joyce (I mean, c'mon, who here doesn't think so?). Who here doesn't think that James Joyce was best at describing the mind?

He has brought pleasure to millions . . . and what a sweet äss. :D

[sloegin]

Joyce is king. Chekhov and Kafka also come to mind.

[leonthepupil]

Yeah....how can i forget Joyce:o)

[crisaor]

Originally posted by AbdoRinbo
Erm, James Joyce (I mean, c'mon, who here doesn't think so?). Who here doesn't think that James Joyce was best at describing the mind?
Me. I don't think so, but that's because I haven't read anything of him yet. I have Ulysses gaining dust in my bookcase, but I haven't had time to read it yet, and I have 2 or 3 other books to read first. I'll let you know when I start (I'm guessing that it won't be easy to read...)

[David J]

What about Freud?

[Koa]

I first thought of Dostoevsky too... the depth of the idea of his characters is absolutely amazing.
I also founf amazing one of the last chapters of Anna Karenina, I loved the way Tolstoy was able to describe her feelings. (Though I don't like most characters in War and Peace).
I must admit I also thought of Dickens, but maybe he didn't go very deep in psychological charcterization, though he's considered great in the description of real charateristics (physical, habits...). Maybe it's a bit caricatural, but I enjoy his descriptions.

[Koa]

Originally posted by David J
What about Freud?

I don't think he wrote fiction...does that count? :confused:

[subterranean]

I noticed someone mentioned Kafka. I read one of his short stories and I think Kafka did had special ability in minds describtion.

I don't know whether Freud is in or not, since the thread starter didn't mention that the works should be fiction only! But I don't think Freud is in since it was his job to do so

[Zooey]

Virginia Woolf. End of discussion.

But if I was forced to expand on my thoughts, I'd agree with Dostoyevsky, particularly in Notes from the Underground, and Kafka.

[piquant]

Freud!? With him, everything was a phallis--even things that weren't.

Dostoevsky is up there, alhtough sometimes I think he goes deep and then hits a wall of religion and happy endings (i.e. Crime and Punishment). Although, aside from talking to "gentleman" the whole time, Notes from the underground kicks ***.

James Joyce--honestly, I wasn't impressed (I just finished one of his about two weeks ago). His character is jumping and changing so much that I never felt like I could settle in and go deep. Also, the action is difficult to follow. I was trying so hard to figure out where I was that who the character was lost its effect.

I think Virginia Wolf (read Mrs. Dalloway just before joyce) does a much better job. She connects all her jumping with an image that sticks, so I don't like I'm floating somewhere out there in joyce's nowhere land. Also, I feel the mind works more how Woolf showed it than how joyce did. I think joyce tried to cover too much ground--his entire youth, while Woolf focused on one day, and did it right. Maybe I just need to read more Joyce to get a broader idea of his work. Joyce does beat out myriads of other authors though.

Kafka-- I don;t know why, but Kafka's characters have never cought me and held me. I don't know why though.

[David J]

I'd have to disagree with you there Piquant. Woolf dismissed Ulysses but I think she took a lot of ideas from it to write Mrs Dalloway, ideas which Joyce did a better job with. I think Joyce gives more access to the world of private thought, nothing is held back whereas Woolf seems to give us a world of poetic imagination which is more coherent and easy to read but less closer to the truth. Joyce gives a better representation of the rhythms of thought and its wanderings. He's harder to read but more rewarding for what you get.

Mrs Dalloway is a brilliant novel though

[crisaor]

Originally posted by piquant
Kafka-- I don;t know why, but Kafka's characters have never cought me and held me. I don't know why though.
Kafka's characters (or more precisely, the protagonists of his stories) are all very much alike, so there's not a lot of diversity to go around with.

[Smae]

Victor Hugo-wise man
Shakespeare- yeah

[sam1]

Tolstoy, particularly War and Peace.

The feelings of Dostoevsky's characters are very exaggerated, so it is hard to relate them to real people, even though they are realistic.

[Koa]

I don't think Dostoevskij's characters are too exagerated: some people are like that...maybe they don't go to the point of killing old women, but their internal torment is believable.

I detest most characters of War and Peace- except Andrey, Pierre and maybe Maria, the others all seem nothing but puppets.

[KSI]

Woolf did not take her ideas from Joyce, but rather from Marcel Proust. And she reads perfectly today, while Joyce is dated - you need a commentary just to 'get' what he's talking about. I love Woolf, and second Piquant and Zooey. I also think Nabokov is great - he even gets you to sympathize with characters not at all 'good'.

[AbdoRinbo]

I couldn't disagree more.

[piquant]

...maybe if I was irish?

[Zooey]

Originally posted by sam1
The feelings of Dostoevsky's characters are very exaggerated, so it is hard to relate them to real people, even though they are realistic. Haven't read much Dostoevsky (*hiding my face in shame*), but I think the Underground Man in Notes from the Underground paints a remarkably realistic portrait of the human mind, or at least one that's beginning to fray around the edges...

I'll also throw out Alain Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy, where a husband suspecting his wife of having an affair with their neighbor that he begins to fall apart mentally, and his sense of chronology begins to disinigrate... it makes for fascinating reading, though it's not for everybody.