Tucson
I have been giving this a lot of thought lately. What writers have been most successful in creating fully realized characters. People who could walk off a page. Ones you come to understand over the course of a book.
And in one book, not a series, which is easier to do, of course.
Memorable characters for me seem to share a common trait: stubbornness. Three recent women who leaped off the page were Mattie Ross in TRUE GRIT; Ree Dolly in WINTER'S BONE and Jane Eyre. All three are negotiating the world at a young age and have to be smart, cagey and determined to survive. They have a mission more important than finding a man or a career. Theirs are life and death issues.
What characters are memorable for you? Who walks off the pages of a book and into your memory?
Chili Palmer 9GET SHORTY) comes to mind right away for me.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with your list, especially Mattie Ross. She came alive so well I debated with myself whether she had Asperger's Syndrome, and had to remind myself she was as Portis wrote her. There's no point in guessing; she's not real.
Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor from his series novels and Richard Matheson's Robert Neville from I AM LEGEND.
ReplyDeleteTravis McGee walks off the page. John D. MacDonald knew how to create characters readers would care about.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Dana. She does seem to overly smart, overly focused and dogged.
ReplyDeleteJack Taylor and Travis jumped off the page from the first book. Loved the character of Robert Neville. And he had the story to himself.
Lou Ford from THE KILLER INSIDE ME on the evil side. Jack Taylor on the good side. Also, Nero Wolfe, as implausible as he is.
ReplyDeleteThe half-breed John Russell in Elmore Leonard's Western HOMBRE stuck with me. Ree Dolly in WINTER'S BONE definitely, especially after we saw the movie. For a series, Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective (actually named Bill) feels real to me.
ReplyDeleteEd Lynskey
Mike Hammer. Sam Spade. Fat Ollie Weeks. Nameless. Amos Walker.
ReplyDeleteI do have to wonder how much I have been influenced by seeing all three of these characters in a movie.
ReplyDeleteTough guys do stick with you.
So many of John D. MacDonald's characters do that for me. More recently, Edward Grainger's "Cash."
ReplyDeleteHuckleberry Finn, Lansdale's Hap & Leonard. Have to disagree with the Cap'n opn Mike Hammer who never struck me as anything but a caricature and a thugish one at that.
ReplyDeleteDenise Mina's Paddy Meehan.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge.
Stewart O'Nan's Emily, more so in Wish You Were Here than in Emily, Alone.
For a character who doesn't give you much of anything about his personal life (which he doesn't have much of), the Continental Op is about as fully realized as an main character in crime fiction.
ReplyDeleteCharlie Williams' Royston Blake.
ReplyDeleteOh, Olive Kitteridge is a great selection. Strout looks at her from every angle. Brilliant. Love Hap and Leonard and even after one book, they jumped off the page. Emily, also brilliant but O'Nan is a master. I have the CONTINENTAL OP but have not read it. Shame.
ReplyDeleteNor Charlie Williams. I am under read despite my best efforts.
Cash is a delight.
In a way none of these characters seems real to me. Travis McGee always struck me as a guy on the lookout for a cheap feel. Possibly Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. The narrator from The Sun Also Rises (can't remember name at the moment). My favorite characters are a little fake, a little crazed: Ahab, Raskolnikov, Garp, Mike Hammer, Stark's Parker. None of them is particularly realistic, but way more intense.
ReplyDeleteHap and Leonard walk off the page alright.
ReplyDeleteLarry Ott in Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, will stay me for a while. He is very well realised and has dignity and strength despite being put upon his whole life.
Emily Tempest in Adrian Hyland's Diamond Dove is a joy to read and bounces off the page - half white, half aboriginal living in the Australian outback.
I found Omar Yussef in Matt Benyon Rees books set in Palanstine a very memorable character - warm, humourous, principalled.
Frost in RD Wingfield - he's refreshingly un-PC, yet a decent copper.
I think the traits that work for me are grittiness, humour, reflexivity, self-deprication, resilience and being a little bit out of place.
Really interesting, Dan. Perhaps literary characters need to be larger than life to make an impression. People from the real world seldom are presented with dilemmas or situations so dire or heightened. Cool!
ReplyDeleteYes, Larry Ott for sure. How about Atticus Finch rather than his kid?
ReplyDeleteOr is he too noble, too perfect.
Ah, Frost. I liked that series but I only saw it on TV.
Are any characters created by Val McDermid more memorable than her? Same with Hemingway, Thompson, Kerouac. How often does the author outdo his/her creation?
Patti, the Op is also the main character in Red Harvest, arguably the best crime novel every written, and the Dain Curse, which is damn good.
ReplyDeleteHammer not only jumps off the page, he sinks his maulie into my breadbasket while he's out there.
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ReplyDeleteTo me, perhaps as much as half the responsibility for realizing a character lies with the reader. Part of the writer's job is to give just enough detail to let the reader's imagination go the rest of the way.
ReplyDeleteOffhand I think of Holden Caulfield (CATCHER IN THE RYE) and Alonso Quijana (DON QUIXOTE) because they resonated with me and my experience when I first read them (in high school and college respectively).
Good point, Gerald. And I don't like too much physical description just for that reason. I almost included Holden. But since I hadn't read it since high school wasn't sure I hadn't embellished him over the years.
ReplyDeleteHave never read Red Harvest. I've got to stop reading things like THE ART OF FIELDING and stick with the bible.
Owen Parry's Abel Jones
ReplyDeleteAlan Bradley's Flavia de Luce
Stuart Kaminsky's Porfiry Rostnikov and Emil Karpo
John Mortimer's Horace Rumpole
Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor
Lee Child's Jack Reacher
Tim Dorsey's Serge A. Storms
In single books, the aforementioned Mattie Ross is one. Can't believe no one mentioned John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius P. Reilly.
Jeff M.
Also Kaminsky's Abe Lieberman, by the way.
ReplyDeleteJeff M.
There are an awful lot of men on this list. Flavia is memorable and the women seem to be children. No memorable femme fatales? What about the Barbara Stanwyck character in Double Indemnity. Can't remember her name.
ReplyDeleteJudith Van Gieson's rare book expert, Claire Reynier.
ReplyDeleteMichel
Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone
ReplyDeleteMargaret Maron's Deborah Knott
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, Grandma Mazur and (especially) Lula
Jeff M.
Phyllis Dietrichson.
ReplyDeleteI'll second Atticus Finch and add Shane.
ReplyDeleteThe most enduring femme fatale for me is Cora Papadakis from James M. Cain's THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.