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I really like screwed up characters (Jack Burden Holden Caufeild, all the people from One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest etc etc...
I absolutely hate characters who are a little too normal... or too good. I hate Odysseus, Macduff, superman, etc etc..
Do any characters come to mind who seem a bit too perfect for your taste?
Do any characters come to mind who are gloriously screwed up?
List em.
Odysseus never seemed normal to me. He was too cunning.
P. Bateman, is rather insane. Blicero (and crew), from Gravity's Rainbow, are pretty gone.
Blicero's crew, you hit that one on the nose.
Also, Humbert, was twisted, but compassion will get you in the end.
Blicero's crew, ah that's priceless.
Don Quixote, my favorite insane guy.
Pretty much all of Poe's dead beautiful women were irritatingly perfect.
Abdo: I didn't say Odysseus was normal...
Characters who were too normal or good Odysseus is too superhuman... he has miniscule flaws and is the ultimate good guy.... I hate him.
I always liked Septimus Warren Smith ("Mrs. Dalloway"). I thought he was a good example of the simultaneous terror and exaltation of madness (I'm only guessing at "terror and exaltation", having never been officially diagnosed myself). Speaking of glorious maniacs, Dr. Gull in Alan Moore's "From Hell" is quite a figure. They killed the movie by taking out the view of his interior landscape.
As for irritatingly normal characters, well, I tend not to remember them.
Nora from "A Dolls House" now that woman was screwed up. its a play but oh well.:o
she didn't seem all that emotionally disfigured to me....
The play is alright... but the movie with "hanoi" Jane fonda was TERRIBLE
I`d name Natasha Rostova - too perfect...
*sick and tired*
The guy from Dostoyevski's notes from the underground.
Can you get more messed up? "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man." What better first line could he have come up with?!
Yeah, and just think, Fyodor himself had a terrible spiritually demorialising life. His father was an alcoholic army surgeon, who, upon brutalising his serfs one too many times, strangled him by pouring too much vodka down his throat. What a way to go.
Then, Fyodor spent years in prisons, faced a firing squad, which was called off at last moment, only to be sent to Siberia. Amazing what this man wrote out of his misfortunes. Only when he `settled' and married Anna Snitkina did he stabilise emotionally enough to write Crime and Punishment et al.
Quote:
Originally posted by piquant
The guy from Dostoyevski's notes from the underground.
Can you get more messed up? "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man." What better first line could he have come up with?!
I'd rather be crazy, than a meretricious f*ck like Tolstoy.
I knew the stuff about D.'s life, but eye never heard that about his father. That is incredibly interesting. Like you said, strangling on vodka is a powerful image. Imagine how much that would burn! He probably deserved it for brutalizing his serfs, but it had to be rough on little D. It's amazing that he turned out so religous...which I think is the downfall of C+P.
I absolutely disagree about Odysseus being a good guy but maybe that's because I'm Greek and I had the opportunity to read more things about his character...For those that don't know Odysseus is also one of the main characters in ancient greek tradegy Philoctetes where all the bad aspects of his character are shown...Even in Homer stories though I can say that he had made many bad decisions that led to the death of many of his companions .... He was also very arrogant and that caused the wrath of the gods...The character i really hate because of being too perfect is definitely Bella Swan ( I read half of Twilight and then threw it out of the window disgusted)