Unlikable characters. Does it bother you when you are reading a book when you come across unlikable characters? Or not necessarily unlikable but characters who are difficult to warm up to? It's nice, of course when you like the protagonist, or feel sympathetic towards them. It's nice feeling a connection with someone you spend so much time, and often I feel like I am inhabiting their heads or their lives. So what happens when the person you are reading about feels a little inexplicable. When they are unlikable or you don't quite understand their motivations?
I actually don't mind unlikable characters (well, most of the time anyway). As a matter of fact it often makes for an interesting read when the protagonist is unlike myself, or even not especially nice. I then tend to feel as though I am on the outside looking in and the person is a little bit of a curiosity. It can make, too, for an unsettling read. It's been on my mind, these 'unlikable' characters, because I seem to be reading a string of books at the moment where I am not entirely sure how I feel about them. Depsite my uncertainty I find I am enjoying these books very much. Maybe the characters just have a complexity about them that makes me think about them more?
I've been slowly making my way through Honoré de Balzac's Pere Goriot. Now there are characters that are unlikable because they are or verge on the villainous. And then there are characters like Eugene de Rastignac who I think is just weak of character. He succumbs to his longings for money and position in Society, using what little money his family has in order to attempt to achieve a better position. Now there are other characters in the book who are even more unworthy than Eugene, though only one who seems to embody true goodness or selflessness. I'm only at about the halfway mark, however, so perhaps Eugene will surprise me? I know Balzac writes in the Realist vein and this book is just one in a vast cycle of novels of the 'panorama of French Society', so, 'uplifting'--this story might not be. A morality tale, perhaps? I'm nearly midway through and have very mixed feelings about our young law student.
And then there is Elinor Brooke in Pat Barker's Toby's Room, which I am nearly finished reading and hope I can still write about this week even though I will be mostly offline until the weekend. I'm not sure what I think about Elinor. She's a little opaque to me at the moment. It's not that she's self-absorbed. She seems a little cold and emotionless. The story is set during WWI, so she has reason to be acting the way she does--which is for her own interest really. Hmm. This is a little vague I realize, but I want to write about it, so I will save my thoughts for later.
I really like Simone St. James, you know. And I am very much enjoying her most recent book, Silence fot the Dead. I don't dislike Kitty Weekes, the main character, at all. I am not even sure I would call her unlikable, but she is most certainly prickly. And secretive. As a matter of fact whatever she is hiding is likely to be at the heart of the story. She comes to Portis House, a convalescent home for soldiers of the Great War, under false pretenses. She pretends to be a nurse and is only allowed to remain (her nursing skills leave much to be desired) as the home is so far out of the way and it is difficult keeping staff. If Kitty has something to hide, then so, too, does Portis House. There are strange noises and unexplained occurrances involving mold coming up in the pipes and awful smells. It's a darker, moodier story than St. James's previous books--darker in tone and atmosphere. It does make for compelling reading, I must say. Though St. James tends to write stories of a Gothic persuasion and with similar set-ups, her heroines have all been very different
And one more. I've been struggling a little with Josephine Tey's The Man in the Queue. This is the first Inspector Grant mystery and I find him a very interesting character. He's intriguing, intelligent, and maybe even a little bit of a snob? What I am finding a little off-putting is, in a way, perhaps unfair. The book, like so many others written in a different era when different (and sometimes mis-or un-informed) attitudes were prevalent, is really a product of its times. And so, too, is Inspector Grant. The thing is, he has formed in his mind who the murderer is, and he assumes, based on the sort of weapon used to kill 'the man in the queue' that the killer is a foreigner. Someone of Latin origin. And he keeps referring to him as 'the Dago'. Normally I can look past these sorts of references considering the context. But for some reason this has been a little grating. I want to finish and I will finish reading, and I like Inspector Grant otherwise, and most particularly this won't stop me from picking up the next book (I've read Tey before and like her very much), but I do wish Inspector Grant would stop referring to the murderer this way. Maybe in the end, Grant will be proved wrong and the killer will be a proper English gentleman? Well, if I could just focus and finish reading I could tell you for sure!
If all characters were upstanding and forthright and nice, it would probably make for boring-going sometimes, don't you think? Flawed characters seem much more real and complex, though lots of them seem to be peppering my reading at the moment.