for her brilliant guest post on William Styron’s Darkness Visible last week. Not only that, but earlier today Sarah posted a great explainer on the exact genre of writing we’re looking for here on
: Creative Criticism. In fact, it’s so good I’m going to add the link to her post in the guidance for our guest writers. Please check out her piece here.
Secondly, just want to remind everyone that we have a Reader Referral Scheme running. Share the referral link with new readers to win rewards - all of which relate to getting your writing in front of more readers. More details on that here. (At the moment, the very aptly named
He's artistic, intelligent, and he has great love in his life. But he has a great inner saboteur that makes it hard for him to accept all the good things in his life.
There was a time when I called myself Quixote, identifying myself maybe not so specifically with the character, but with the archetype. I kept filling in gaps with my imagination about people who were mostly unworthy of the heroes I saw in them. But at some point later, I noticed that I no longer saw myself as a Quixote, the spell was gone (thankfully!). I don’t think I particularly identify with a character, by sharing biographical or personality features, but I felt I could empathise so deeply with Saul Bellow’s protagonists, especially Mr Sammler, or Humboldt. And Raskolnikov, since Dostoievski was mentioned above :)
This is such a great question, thanks for setting it!
I don’t know if this is my permanent answer, but I am currently reading The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot and really relating to Maggie in a lot of ways--particularly in the earlier sections where she is a young girl thirsty for knowledge of the world and wanting to be perceived as clever. When she is faced with navigating the choppy waters of strong feelings....ugh I felt that! The fact that emotional regulation is entirely learned (not an innate human ability) is endlessly fascinating to me. I’ll be posting my long form review of The Mill on the Floss later this week (Friday) for anyone who’s interested in checking it out :)
Anne Elliot from Persuasion. Like her, I was an older (old by Greek standards hahaha) bride and like her, I was also persuaded to not marry. And like her, I have interesting characters in my family tree. It's my favorite novel! I love to reread it over and over again.
I see myself as some combination of Alyosha Karamazov - with a childlike capability for wonder and sometimes a little too soft for this gruff world, and The Hound from A Song of Ice and Fire - disappointed and disgruntled with he world’s failures, but still believing in a higher calling.
Too very nice choices. When I first read Brothers Karamazov I identified with Ivan, but now I’m older I realise it’s Alyosha one should want to be. He’s the one worthy of emulation. Even with all his intellect and brilliance, Ivan has fallen into a pit of nihilism. Alyosha wins because he believes in something.
Right! Alyosha is the GOAT. And I loved Ivan, I think he’s one of the greatest philosophers in all of fiction, but I wouldn’t want to be stuck with his worldview even for a day.
Honestly, I think Dimitry was my favourite character. He’s the one I kept reading for, even though the book was so bleak. I just wanted to see what happened to him.
Slightly nervous saying this, considering where the book goes, but probably Janina from Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. The chronic illness, the astrology, the anger at the systems crushing the world, the love for animals. Runner up, Isabel Archer, The Portrait of a Lady. Wants to be free, makes bad choices. Yeah, that's familiar lol
It’s fascinating seeing ourselves reflected back out of the page. Heartening to know that we’re not alone in our struggles/flaws/problems when a part of ourselves we thought was ours to bear alone is captured in literature.
“I want adventure in the great wide somehere, I want it more than I can tell!
And for once it might be grand, to have someone understand, I want so much more than they’ve got planned...” I was 23 when I saw it and my inner 13yo sat up and asked what the heck happened.
This is a good question... but I don't really know. There's been quotes that have identified with me. Something about Anakin Skywalker’s redemption story always sticks with me. If SW was based on the universal Hero's Journey then maybe I relate to that
First, it really is one of the great psychological novels, one I really love (and recommend!).
Causaubon is a tragicomic character, a spoof of someone with a vast ambition to make connections between all forms of myth and folklore. I guess it’s the desire to put all of knowledge into one book that I see in myself. In his case, he’s so overcome with his own potential greatness that he hardly even starts.
In my case, I have instead chosen more modest goals.
You're not alone! Casaubon also haunts me every time I think about the manuscript I'll probably never get published but tinker with in my free time, and the very enthusiastic and supportive spouse who wants to help but inadvertently makes me feel that much more anxious/insecure about wasting time on it.
Here's the thing, though: his project may have been impossible, but I don't think the ambition to complete it was his real flaw. His real flaw was how he treated Dorothea when she tried to help him make it possible. Caveat that it's been many years since I read (and also loved) Middlemarch, but I remember thinking his real flaw was that Dorothea genuinely wanted to help him with his project, but he was so insecure, he would become completely dismissive and condescending if she asked him real questions about it or tried to suggest ways to make it more feasible. And he'd just isolate himself more as he dug further and further into the weeds of his doomed project.
The point is, I think if you think you might be Casaubon, admitting it is the first step. All we can do is keep it from * totally * taking over our lives and be kind to and grateful for the people who love and support us in our projects, whatever happens with them.
Have never read Middlemarch, but it seems funny that Jonathan Franzen has started a trilogy called A Key to All Mythologies last year. Maybe he never means to finish it?
Oh you Must read A Little Life. You'll never be the same again. I agree, I don't identify with his life but can identify with how deeply painful life can be. Remarkable story.
I think the fiction character I have most related with is Margaret Hale from North and South. I feel like I am usually reading about characters who struggle with different tendencies than mine, or have different principles, but when I read North and South I felt like I was reading a book about myself. I have never related so much with a character before! She was incredibly well-written, in my opinion. It's not often that we get a look into a character who tries so hard to live by her ideals, sometimes to a fault. Usually we get characters who are learning how to form or stay true to noble ideals, not ones who need to learn how to integrate their good and noble ideals with their actual experience.
Not an actual fictional character, but I do identify with David Sedaris' stories. Our lives might look different from the outside, but his stream of consciousness is very familiar to me!
Paul Atreides, a mysterious soul veiled in enigma, concealing depths of wisdom and strength beyond the mere surface—a person destined to unravel the universe's secrets and reshape the very fabric of fate.
Marian Halcombe from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. Please watch Jesse Buckley play her in the BBC adaptation if you haven't (the less said about Andrew Lloyd Weber's version, the better). I'd never WANT to be in some 19thc Gothic nightmare where my sister gets forced into marriage to an evil Italian count who's trying to murder us both and gaslighting the hell out of us along the way. But if I HAD to be, I'd choose to be Marian---in most mysteries or thrillers, I'm yelling at the pages, "X is obvious!" "Why aren't you doing Y?" Not so with Marian. She was smart and resourceful as hell, and a character I felt I understood why she did or didn't do X in a given situation.
Another contender has to be Beezus Quimby, specifically, "Beezus and Ramona," which is told from her POV. I loved Ramona, but I'm also the oldest of six, and I felt Beezus' eldest-child resentment SO MUCH as a kid---being expected to follow all your parents' rules your younger sibling breaks with seemingly no consequences. I like to think I find a healthy outlet for the resentment. My sister said in her toast at my wedding that I read "Beezus and Ramona" aloud to her when she was little, and I'd do voices for each character and it always made her laugh. I personally kept waiting for her to say that my portrayal of Beezus's angst made her appreciate my Eldest Child Suffering. She didn't; it's fine. I'm posting on Substack about it, clearly over it, and also can I parlay this into an audiobook for "Beezus and Ramona"?
I've been thinking about this all day. I don't identify with any of the known characters, because for the most part, the reason they are known is because they fit some sort of binary the majority sees in themselves. I am not Jane Eyre any more than I am Holden Caulfield. But the one character that has always resonated with me is Trudi Montag in Ursula Hegi's "Stones from the River." Trudi is a dwarf. And the book starts at the end of WWI, when her father comes back limping. It shows us, in no uncertain terms, how the German people were poised for Hitler - by how Trudi is treated. Her stature makes her an outsider. And she therefore sees the rot that is poised to spread. I read this book maybe 25 years ago. I read it again maybe 15 years ago. I most definitely identify with this character. And that was Hegi's intent. To give us a protagonist who sees the underside of humanity, because she doesn't belong to the mainstream.
I don't think this counts but I find myself more fascinated by the authors who crafted these characters that seem to take on a life of their own. There is a strange kinship at work here that has managed to transcend space and time. I've been reading "Through the Looking Glass" by our Lord and Savior, Lewis Carrol who has managed to capture gentle child-like curiosity while also infusing such deeply philosophical questions that I am in awe of him. The references to chess, commentaries on language, imagining the unimaginable, bridging maths and literature in very subtle ways, pondering the significance of names and identity. It often happens that authors who are long gone become characters too in our everyday lives and language. Lewis Carrol is the very real character companion in my explorations of the world. There is comfort in knowing he existed.
Sort of identified with the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory. Because I felt like a person who wanted to be good but was too flawed.
I oddly identified with a lot of Graham Greene characters though I am nothing like them except maybe have the trait of sentimentality and can't always pull myself together but will get an idea of what I should do and find myself unable to resist it even when there's likely no point.
I think I finally collected all of Greene’s books. As someone with a longtime connection to Haiti, one of my favorites is The Comedians. I also really like Travel Without Maps.
Isabel Archer comes first to mind. But there are parts of Scarlett O'Hara - the fierceness, the striving for independence - and Stephen Daedalus - the wandering and dreaming.
“Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”
So wrote Robert E. Howard in his 1932 short story 'The Phoenix on the Sword', sparing me the bother of separating the topography of my mighty back from the carpet of the spare room, in order to consult my mirror image. It is from this kingly vantage that I broodingly contemplate the deteriorating geopolitical relations among the house spider kingdoms overhead, that threaten to balkanise the entire ceiling.
Am I of Cimmerian stock? As I have been repeatedly told by those companies that will analyse your genetic ancestry, and that will one day use this data to enact (in the words of Mr Tesla) “man-made Horrors beyond your comprehension”: “Dear Mr Samuel Conan Redlark. For the last time, you are not Cimmerian. Please stop contacting our staff at their homes.”
If that is not the case, then how do these companies explain the circumstantial archaeological evidence that points towards my home-town of Southend-on-Sea as having been built on the ruins of ancient Cimmeria? Touché, and furthermore, je ne sais quoi. I think that I have used both of those expressions correctly.
Ordinarily at this point, I would mic drop and go back to working on my 12 by 12-foot oil canvas depicting Lana Del Rey as a shepherdess. However, this matter is too important to let slide, and so I will continue:
Do I have black hair? Well, dark brown, and admittedly less of it than I used to. It looks black in the dark.
Am I sullen-eyed? You bet, like a teenager who has just been told been told that he's been grounded for the entire summer, and will not be going to see Avenged Sevenfold support The Cure.
Sword in hand? Well. some have disparagingly referred to it as a small dagger, but I can assure you that it is a sword, and of sufficient length and girth to support the weight of a fully-grown adult phoenix. I am just putting that out there.
A thief a reaver and a slayer? Read my business card again, and don't make me repeat myself. I am on a strict word count.
My melancholies are so gigantic, I am forced the keep the excess in lock-up garages. One time, on one of those shows where people bid for the unsighted contents of storage lockers, somebody purchased a unit containing a small percentage of my gigantic melancholy. When they opened the door, it rolled out, trapping everyone in its path underneath several tons of ennui. By the time they were all freed, every last one of them had been tragically compressed into the form of a French existentialist philosopher.
My mirth is so unfathomably vast that it turned the comedian, Louis CK's red hair grey, after I laughed at one of his routines. He claimed that it was like being laughed at by the mouth of God.
Have I ever drunkenly punched a camel in the face, as occurred in the classic 1982 film – 'Conan the Barbarian'? No, but I have wanted to. Those animals kick from from the ankle. Pro-tip: Never stand next to a camel, even one that you think likes you. On a side-note, the word 'barbarian' carries many negative connotations. We inhabitants of Cimmeria-on-Sea prefer to be referred to as 'people of the high southern steppe lands'.
It is not so much that I identify with Conan, but that I am Conan, and I know what is best in life.
Found Guam library copy of Lord Hormbloer novel stashed in pilot house
aboard makeshift abandoned raft adrift in Sea of Japan. (Summer-1967)
Scrawled inside front cover was name “Danny Blaylock” ,,,
>> If you read the “Horatio Hornblower” series in the order of creation, you will follow the story as the writer penned it, starting with world creation (background context) and character introductions.
Here is the order of creation, which may be the easiest way to read them: <<
Do children’s books count? This beautiful little book is out of print but Caretakers of Wonder by Cooper Eden’s had a merry cast of characters who are charged with buttoning up the night against the cold, mending old clouds and hanging up stars while we sleep. I can’t claim to have such magical gifts but i certainly identify with the task of caretaking wonder in my own, simple ways.
I suspect it’s more I WANTED to be like them as opposed to identified with them but Elizabeth Bennet (“Pride and Prejudice”) and Jo March (“Little Women) for being independent thinkers and generally clever.
I think it's because I've written about them in recent posts, but I think of:
1. A girl named Carol in a picture book called "We Like Kindergarten" - boy did she teach me to love school, and thank goodness! (Sidebar: Is it funny that most of the time we talk about books we identify with, we choose the teen or adult stuff? Does that mean the kid stuff is, well, kid stuff?)
2. Fools Crow, protagonist of an eponymous novel, who could be crushed by the disasters all around, but miraculously he stays grounded and hopeful.
This is such a difficult question! I feel like I see myself in at least a small way in every character I read. Usually, I relate with the worst parts of the characters haha.
I’m not sure I could come up with one specific character, but the Whiskey Priest in Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” is one. I wish I was more like Samuel Hamilton from “Easy of Eden”, but perhaps I’m more like Cal Trask.
Once upon a time it was Richard Larch from Arnold Bennett's 'Man from the North'
"There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching the exit of the London train from the railway station. He stands by the hot engine and envies the very stoker. Gazing curiously into the carriages, he wonders that men and women who in a few hours will be treading streets called Piccadilly and the Strand can contemplate the immediate future with so much apparent calmness; some of them even have the audacity to look bored. He finds it difficult to keep from throwing himself in the guard's van as it glides past him; and not until the last coach is a speck upon the distance does he turn away and, nodding absently to the ticket-clerk, who knows him well, go home to nurse a vague ambition and dream of Town."
Now I'm back in the northeast as a prodigal Geordie....
Just spent the last few days back in London. Currently drinking a beer in a pub just off the Pentonville Road. Now that's an area that's changed out of all recognition since the mid-1970s. Still remember evenings after night school, having a coffee, in the dingy cafe in St Pancras as I waited for the last train home, with some of the 'girls' who worked the corners as they took a break. A side of life many never see other than through the media yet twenty minutes conversation with them offered me an understanding of life that influenced my views more than any book. Great personal piece yesterday by the way. I've not been in the same life threatening situation but as a sixteen year old I did have a knife pulled on me and pointed at my chest. We never know how we might react. Flight or fight. As you did I swung (in hindsight stupidly) a punch. It caught my assailant by surprise and he dropped the knife giving me enough time to run. That night I would have outpaced Usain Bolt....
Yep, I was taught by my father (and I don't offer this as encouragement) that you throw your punch at the person's nose. Won't break your hand but might break their nose and if not it will certainly stun them and make their eyes water. I think I just got lucky and on the other two occasions I've had a knife pulled on me (life in London in the 1970s) I surrendered to my assailant's request. One was to agree that they won a darts game not me and the second was they wanted my half eaten kebab. Yep surreal. Maybe I should write it up as one of my meanderings ....
My life isn't as horrible, but I sadly really related to Jude from A Little Life lol
I don’t know this one, what is it about this character that you relate to?
He's artistic, intelligent, and he has great love in his life. But he has a great inner saboteur that makes it hard for him to accept all the good things in his life.
Ah yes, the inner saboteur. I know him well
My husband and a dear friend have read “A Little Life” and said it was devastating and remarkable... not sure I can do it.
There was a time when I called myself Quixote, identifying myself maybe not so specifically with the character, but with the archetype. I kept filling in gaps with my imagination about people who were mostly unworthy of the heroes I saw in them. But at some point later, I noticed that I no longer saw myself as a Quixote, the spell was gone (thankfully!). I don’t think I particularly identify with a character, by sharing biographical or personality features, but I felt I could empathise so deeply with Saul Bellow’s protagonists, especially Mr Sammler, or Humboldt. And Raskolnikov, since Dostoievski was mentioned above :)
This is such a great question, thanks for setting it!
I think the genius of Dostoyevsky was how all of his characters seemed like real people that we either see in friends/family or in ourselves
Raskolnikov is another one for me too!
I don’t know if this is my permanent answer, but I am currently reading The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot and really relating to Maggie in a lot of ways--particularly in the earlier sections where she is a young girl thirsty for knowledge of the world and wanting to be perceived as clever. When she is faced with navigating the choppy waters of strong feelings....ugh I felt that! The fact that emotional regulation is entirely learned (not an innate human ability) is endlessly fascinating to me. I’ll be posting my long form review of The Mill on the Floss later this week (Friday) for anyone who’s interested in checking it out :)
‘Wanting to be perceived as clever’ - hello mirror my old friend
Anne Elliot from Persuasion. Like her, I was an older (old by Greek standards hahaha) bride and like her, I was also persuaded to not marry. And like her, I have interesting characters in my family tree. It's my favorite novel! I love to reread it over and over again.
The books we reread and reread and reread are the best
The best Austen!
I think so too! :)
I see myself as some combination of Alyosha Karamazov - with a childlike capability for wonder and sometimes a little too soft for this gruff world, and The Hound from A Song of Ice and Fire - disappointed and disgruntled with he world’s failures, but still believing in a higher calling.
Too very nice choices. When I first read Brothers Karamazov I identified with Ivan, but now I’m older I realise it’s Alyosha one should want to be. He’s the one worthy of emulation. Even with all his intellect and brilliance, Ivan has fallen into a pit of nihilism. Alyosha wins because he believes in something.
Right! Alyosha is the GOAT. And I loved Ivan, I think he’s one of the greatest philosophers in all of fiction, but I wouldn’t want to be stuck with his worldview even for a day.
I always related with Dmitry in a weird way. His passion and emotion, while foolish, sometimes seemed to be incredibly profound.
Honestly, I think Dimitry was my favourite character. He’s the one I kept reading for, even though the book was so bleak. I just wanted to see what happened to him.
Slightly nervous saying this, considering where the book goes, but probably Janina from Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. The chronic illness, the astrology, the anger at the systems crushing the world, the love for animals. Runner up, Isabel Archer, The Portrait of a Lady. Wants to be free, makes bad choices. Yeah, that's familiar lol
It’s fascinating seeing ourselves reflected back out of the page. Heartening to know that we’re not alone in our struggles/flaws/problems when a part of ourselves we thought was ours to bear alone is captured in literature.
in time i was:
sam from uncle's sam cabin
friar tuck from robin hood (the guy who didn't give a "care" about anything and hated the system)
old shutterhand from winnetou (the adventurous who tried to make peace with everybody)
Ahhh Friar Tuck. One of the good ones. Haven’t thought about Robin Hood in ages.
sorry, that was tom not sam
Morticia Addams and Belle from Beauty & the Beast, in equal parts (apparently I don’t do middle ground)
“I want adventure in the great wide somehere, I want it more than I can tell!
And for once it might be grand, to have someone understand, I want so much more than they’ve got planned...” I was 23 when I saw it and my inner 13yo sat up and asked what the heck happened.
This has been in my head aaaaaall day today. And I am not complaining 💗
You've reminded me how badly in need I am of a rewatch...
This is a good question... but I don't really know. There's been quotes that have identified with me. Something about Anakin Skywalker’s redemption story always sticks with me. If SW was based on the universal Hero's Journey then maybe I relate to that
Surely you’re not in need of redemption though, Harvey! I can’t imagine you doing anything Darth Vadar level evil!
Thanks. Though maybe I'm in my Padawan stage
It is with some chagrin that I name Casaubon from Middlemarch, with his impossible and perpetually unfinished “Key to All Mythologies.”
I must confess I have never gotten to Middlemarch. Do you identify with that character because his project is never finished? Always putting it off?
First, it really is one of the great psychological novels, one I really love (and recommend!).
Causaubon is a tragicomic character, a spoof of someone with a vast ambition to make connections between all forms of myth and folklore. I guess it’s the desire to put all of knowledge into one book that I see in myself. In his case, he’s so overcome with his own potential greatness that he hardly even starts.
In my case, I have instead chosen more modest goals.
You're not alone! Casaubon also haunts me every time I think about the manuscript I'll probably never get published but tinker with in my free time, and the very enthusiastic and supportive spouse who wants to help but inadvertently makes me feel that much more anxious/insecure about wasting time on it.
Here's the thing, though: his project may have been impossible, but I don't think the ambition to complete it was his real flaw. His real flaw was how he treated Dorothea when she tried to help him make it possible. Caveat that it's been many years since I read (and also loved) Middlemarch, but I remember thinking his real flaw was that Dorothea genuinely wanted to help him with his project, but he was so insecure, he would become completely dismissive and condescending if she asked him real questions about it or tried to suggest ways to make it more feasible. And he'd just isolate himself more as he dug further and further into the weeds of his doomed project.
The point is, I think if you think you might be Casaubon, admitting it is the first step. All we can do is keep it from * totally * taking over our lives and be kind to and grateful for the people who love and support us in our projects, whatever happens with them.
Have never read Middlemarch, but it seems funny that Jonathan Franzen has started a trilogy called A Key to All Mythologies last year. Maybe he never means to finish it?
Oh you Must read A Little Life. You'll never be the same again. I agree, I don't identify with his life but can identify with how deeply painful life can be. Remarkable story.
Lucy Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia Series. I read the whole series growing up. She was a brave, bold traveller.
So many people in this community love Narnia!
I think the fiction character I have most related with is Margaret Hale from North and South. I feel like I am usually reading about characters who struggle with different tendencies than mine, or have different principles, but when I read North and South I felt like I was reading a book about myself. I have never related so much with a character before! She was incredibly well-written, in my opinion. It's not often that we get a look into a character who tries so hard to live by her ideals, sometimes to a fault. Usually we get characters who are learning how to form or stay true to noble ideals, not ones who need to learn how to integrate their good and noble ideals with their actual experience.
Not an actual fictional character, but I do identify with David Sedaris' stories. Our lives might look different from the outside, but his stream of consciousness is very familiar to me!
Paul Atreides.
Big and bold - I like it
Paul Atreides, a mysterious soul veiled in enigma, concealing depths of wisdom and strength beyond the mere surface—a person destined to unravel the universe's secrets and reshape the very fabric of fate.
Big shoes to fill Nenad!
Marian Halcombe from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. Please watch Jesse Buckley play her in the BBC adaptation if you haven't (the less said about Andrew Lloyd Weber's version, the better). I'd never WANT to be in some 19thc Gothic nightmare where my sister gets forced into marriage to an evil Italian count who's trying to murder us both and gaslighting the hell out of us along the way. But if I HAD to be, I'd choose to be Marian---in most mysteries or thrillers, I'm yelling at the pages, "X is obvious!" "Why aren't you doing Y?" Not so with Marian. She was smart and resourceful as hell, and a character I felt I understood why she did or didn't do X in a given situation.
Another contender has to be Beezus Quimby, specifically, "Beezus and Ramona," which is told from her POV. I loved Ramona, but I'm also the oldest of six, and I felt Beezus' eldest-child resentment SO MUCH as a kid---being expected to follow all your parents' rules your younger sibling breaks with seemingly no consequences. I like to think I find a healthy outlet for the resentment. My sister said in her toast at my wedding that I read "Beezus and Ramona" aloud to her when she was little, and I'd do voices for each character and it always made her laugh. I personally kept waiting for her to say that my portrayal of Beezus's angst made her appreciate my Eldest Child Suffering. She didn't; it's fine. I'm posting on Substack about it, clearly over it, and also can I parlay this into an audiobook for "Beezus and Ramona"?
Love all of this
I identified so strongly with Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment that it changed my life. Probably for the better!
Also, on a less serious note: I would like to say I was like Troy Barnes from Community but I think I'm most often Britta Perry.
Raskolnikov is such a well written character that I think in some sense we can all see ourselves in him
Oh I also did! How can you not?
I've been thinking about this all day. I don't identify with any of the known characters, because for the most part, the reason they are known is because they fit some sort of binary the majority sees in themselves. I am not Jane Eyre any more than I am Holden Caulfield. But the one character that has always resonated with me is Trudi Montag in Ursula Hegi's "Stones from the River." Trudi is a dwarf. And the book starts at the end of WWI, when her father comes back limping. It shows us, in no uncertain terms, how the German people were poised for Hitler - by how Trudi is treated. Her stature makes her an outsider. And she therefore sees the rot that is poised to spread. I read this book maybe 25 years ago. I read it again maybe 15 years ago. I most definitely identify with this character. And that was Hegi's intent. To give us a protagonist who sees the underside of humanity, because she doesn't belong to the mainstream.
I don’t know that book but it’s sounds brilliant, “sees the underside of humanity” is an incredible way of putting it
I can say the character in fiction I wish I were most alike is Pug Henry from WINDS OF WAR. Incisive. Even-mannered. Measured in speech.
I don’t know this book but Pug Henry is a badass name
Herman Wouk is the author. Later made into a 10-part miniseries. Phenomenal both.
One of my favourite reads. The second one WAR AND REMEBERANCE takes it even farther. One of the best books about WWII ever written.
Claude Page from A Case of Curiosities
I don't think this counts but I find myself more fascinated by the authors who crafted these characters that seem to take on a life of their own. There is a strange kinship at work here that has managed to transcend space and time. I've been reading "Through the Looking Glass" by our Lord and Savior, Lewis Carrol who has managed to capture gentle child-like curiosity while also infusing such deeply philosophical questions that I am in awe of him. The references to chess, commentaries on language, imagining the unimaginable, bridging maths and literature in very subtle ways, pondering the significance of names and identity. It often happens that authors who are long gone become characters too in our everyday lives and language. Lewis Carrol is the very real character companion in my explorations of the world. There is comfort in knowing he existed.
“When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams.”
— H.P. Lovecraft
Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, Lennie Small. Yup, that’s me
@ALLFACTSMATTER sent me
I have two that i identify with strongly, off the top of my head.
Sumner Kagan from A.A. Attanasio's Radix Tetrad
and
Casaubon from Eco Umberto's Focault's Pendulum
Good to have you hear Bacon Commander. The world needs you now more than ever 🫡
Sort of identified with the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory. Because I felt like a person who wanted to be good but was too flawed.
I oddly identified with a lot of Graham Greene characters though I am nothing like them except maybe have the trait of sentimentality and can't always pull myself together but will get an idea of what I should do and find myself unable to resist it even when there's likely no point.
I think I finally collected all of Greene’s books. As someone with a longtime connection to Haiti, one of my favorites is The Comedians. I also really like Travel Without Maps.
Isabel Archer comes first to mind. But there are parts of Scarlett O'Hara - the fierceness, the striving for independence - and Stephen Daedalus - the wandering and dreaming.
Tanish Half- elven from the Dragonlance series. I feel as if I'm straddling two world's and often feel as if I don't belong in either of them.
“Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”
So wrote Robert E. Howard in his 1932 short story 'The Phoenix on the Sword', sparing me the bother of separating the topography of my mighty back from the carpet of the spare room, in order to consult my mirror image. It is from this kingly vantage that I broodingly contemplate the deteriorating geopolitical relations among the house spider kingdoms overhead, that threaten to balkanise the entire ceiling.
Am I of Cimmerian stock? As I have been repeatedly told by those companies that will analyse your genetic ancestry, and that will one day use this data to enact (in the words of Mr Tesla) “man-made Horrors beyond your comprehension”: “Dear Mr Samuel Conan Redlark. For the last time, you are not Cimmerian. Please stop contacting our staff at their homes.”
If that is not the case, then how do these companies explain the circumstantial archaeological evidence that points towards my home-town of Southend-on-Sea as having been built on the ruins of ancient Cimmeria? Touché, and furthermore, je ne sais quoi. I think that I have used both of those expressions correctly.
Ordinarily at this point, I would mic drop and go back to working on my 12 by 12-foot oil canvas depicting Lana Del Rey as a shepherdess. However, this matter is too important to let slide, and so I will continue:
Do I have black hair? Well, dark brown, and admittedly less of it than I used to. It looks black in the dark.
Am I sullen-eyed? You bet, like a teenager who has just been told been told that he's been grounded for the entire summer, and will not be going to see Avenged Sevenfold support The Cure.
Sword in hand? Well. some have disparagingly referred to it as a small dagger, but I can assure you that it is a sword, and of sufficient length and girth to support the weight of a fully-grown adult phoenix. I am just putting that out there.
A thief a reaver and a slayer? Read my business card again, and don't make me repeat myself. I am on a strict word count.
My melancholies are so gigantic, I am forced the keep the excess in lock-up garages. One time, on one of those shows where people bid for the unsighted contents of storage lockers, somebody purchased a unit containing a small percentage of my gigantic melancholy. When they opened the door, it rolled out, trapping everyone in its path underneath several tons of ennui. By the time they were all freed, every last one of them had been tragically compressed into the form of a French existentialist philosopher.
My mirth is so unfathomably vast that it turned the comedian, Louis CK's red hair grey, after I laughed at one of his routines. He claimed that it was like being laughed at by the mouth of God.
Have I ever drunkenly punched a camel in the face, as occurred in the classic 1982 film – 'Conan the Barbarian'? No, but I have wanted to. Those animals kick from from the ankle. Pro-tip: Never stand next to a camel, even one that you think likes you. On a side-note, the word 'barbarian' carries many negative connotations. We inhabitants of Cimmeria-on-Sea prefer to be referred to as 'people of the high southern steppe lands'.
It is not so much that I identify with Conan, but that I am Conan, and I know what is best in life.
Found Guam library copy of Lord Hormbloer novel stashed in pilot house
aboard makeshift abandoned raft adrift in Sea of Japan. (Summer-1967)
Scrawled inside front cover was name “Danny Blaylock” ,,,
>> If you read the “Horatio Hornblower” series in the order of creation, you will follow the story as the writer penned it, starting with world creation (background context) and character introductions.
Here is the order of creation, which may be the easiest way to read them: <<
https://www.thoughtco.com/horatio-hornblower-novels-1221111
That’s cool
After stripping abandoned raft of personnel effects, out ship’s CO decided it was a hazard to navigation.
XO ordered having Mount 52 just forward of USS Cimarron (AO-22) to sink target under local control.
After firing about twenty (20) 5”/38 caliber rounds before sunset,
the raft’s platform remained adrift with its 55 gallon drum floatation intact!
Strafing from bow position with BAR small arms also proved ineffective.
So CPO Mess penned note to XO via Gunnery Officer/PAO.
Note delivered with spud (potato) read:
“When all else fails, throw this”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cimarron_(AO-22)?wprov=sfti1
Do children’s books count? This beautiful little book is out of print but Caretakers of Wonder by Cooper Eden’s had a merry cast of characters who are charged with buttoning up the night against the cold, mending old clouds and hanging up stars while we sleep. I can’t claim to have such magical gifts but i certainly identify with the task of caretaking wonder in my own, simple ways.
Children’s books always count!
I suspect it’s more I WANTED to be like them as opposed to identified with them but Elizabeth Bennet (“Pride and Prejudice”) and Jo March (“Little Women) for being independent thinkers and generally clever.
An excellent aspiration to have!
I think it's because I've written about them in recent posts, but I think of:
1. A girl named Carol in a picture book called "We Like Kindergarten" - boy did she teach me to love school, and thank goodness! (Sidebar: Is it funny that most of the time we talk about books we identify with, we choose the teen or adult stuff? Does that mean the kid stuff is, well, kid stuff?)
2. Fools Crow, protagonist of an eponymous novel, who could be crushed by the disasters all around, but miraculously he stays grounded and hopeful.
I think it’s because kid/teen books are just what we happen to read during those formative years
I hope I'm still in my formative years. 😉 🤓
This is such a difficult question! I feel like I see myself in at least a small way in every character I read. Usually, I relate with the worst parts of the characters haha.
I’m not sure I could come up with one specific character, but the Whiskey Priest in Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” is one. I wish I was more like Samuel Hamilton from “Easy of Eden”, but perhaps I’m more like Cal Trask.
It’s been a while since I read East of Eden, is Samuel the father?
No Samuel is the older man they meet when they move to California who’s very wise!
Once upon a time it was Richard Larch from Arnold Bennett's 'Man from the North'
"There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis, and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching the exit of the London train from the railway station. He stands by the hot engine and envies the very stoker. Gazing curiously into the carriages, he wonders that men and women who in a few hours will be treading streets called Piccadilly and the Strand can contemplate the immediate future with so much apparent calmness; some of them even have the audacity to look bored. He finds it difficult to keep from throwing himself in the guard's van as it glides past him; and not until the last coach is a speck upon the distance does he turn away and, nodding absently to the ticket-clerk, who knows him well, go home to nurse a vague ambition and dream of Town."
Now I'm back in the northeast as a prodigal Geordie....
Ah yes I recognise the beginning of that quote from the London piece you shared with me the other day. Such an evocative line
Just spent the last few days back in London. Currently drinking a beer in a pub just off the Pentonville Road. Now that's an area that's changed out of all recognition since the mid-1970s. Still remember evenings after night school, having a coffee, in the dingy cafe in St Pancras as I waited for the last train home, with some of the 'girls' who worked the corners as they took a break. A side of life many never see other than through the media yet twenty minutes conversation with them offered me an understanding of life that influenced my views more than any book. Great personal piece yesterday by the way. I've not been in the same life threatening situation but as a sixteen year old I did have a knife pulled on me and pointed at my chest. We never know how we might react. Flight or fight. As you did I swung (in hindsight stupidly) a punch. It caught my assailant by surprise and he dropped the knife giving me enough time to run. That night I would have outpaced Usain Bolt....
Thanks, Harry. Threatened with a knife at 16 must have been terrifying! Was your punch good? (Mine were terrible! 😅)
Yep, I was taught by my father (and I don't offer this as encouragement) that you throw your punch at the person's nose. Won't break your hand but might break their nose and if not it will certainly stun them and make their eyes water. I think I just got lucky and on the other two occasions I've had a knife pulled on me (life in London in the 1970s) I surrendered to my assailant's request. One was to agree that they won a darts game not me and the second was they wanted my half eaten kebab. Yep surreal. Maybe I should write it up as one of my meanderings ....
😂😂 I can’t work out which of those two scenarios is more ridiculous, the kebab or darts honour. You absolutely should write those up