Day 3: Your favorite characters and which books they’re from.
I kind of accidentally skipped this yesterday…
Holden Caulfield - Catcher in the Rye: Salinger’s portrayal of Holden makes him relatable in a way that’s been unmatched as far as I’ve read. I first read the book when I was in sixth grade and in my little sixth grade mind I remember his coming-of-age story resonating with me so significantly. From issues with girls and school to just growing up and trying to find his place in a world that was really just changing too fast sometimes, I was so captivated and entertained throughout the book by the way he went about thinking of and describing his life.
The Invisible Man - The Invisible Man: This book could have been one with an amazing premise that ended in failure if it were not for the completely intense and arresting personality given to this character. Such a wide range of emotions are expressed by him as he begins the story only slightly deranged and progresses to become a lonely, broken, vengeful psychopath.
Patrick Bateman - American Psycho: Even though he was a serial killer and just the most fucked-up character I’ve ever read, his style of narration and portrayal of the world and his life is fascinating and gripping enough to challenge that from Holden Caulfield I mean here:
“…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing….”
quakers
