A very interesting exploration of some of the greatest characters in literature. Able to give me further insights into some of my favourites, as well as introduce me to some I haven't read yet.
There were, of course, characters I felt were missing, but this would be inevitable.
(Faulks wanted to name the book Novel People)
I thought I would get down some of the most interesting sections for future reference, with page numbers for further detail.
P.11 -
Faulks claims that in the novel, there is no such thing as the 'hero' any more. It now simply means protagonist, and these always seem to be flawed, dark, or just incredibly un-heroic.
Says that the villain is also a little out of place in the novel on P. 285
Sherlock Holmes
P.55 - Conan Doyle essentially invented the crime story, with perhaps the precursor of Edgar Allen Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
P.59 - Too much of Conan Doyle's writing delivered in dialogue and speech? Certainly it seems a departure from traditional styles, but seems to work, in its own way.
P.62 - Holmes and Freud coinciding.
Winston Smith, 1984
P.72 to 78 (and chapter opening) - Winston is clearly not a hero, but performs a very simple deed of remarkable bravery. Everyman hero. A man who still has a small spark of hope, in a world where there is no hope, as he eventually realises, when the state wins.
P.91 -
Jim Dixon, Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis vs. Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers, John Self
Father had a more simplistic, traditional writing style, whereas the son was "a writer whose every sentence seemed pressurised by the tensions of its improbable juxtapositions."
P.92 - Fantastic section of language style analysis of Martin Amis's work.
Jeeves
Various humourous sections speculating about Jeeves' life, or quoting brilliant passages of Wodehouse
P.241 - Jeeves usually absent for a large middle part of the stories
Bond
Mainly explores the character of Bond by describing how he went about writing his own Bond novel. Tried to write with 80% of Fleming's style so that it was not a parody or pastiche.
P 268 - Fleming's reasons for specifying brand names. Keeps an otherwise fantastical story grounded in reality.
Fagin
P.303 - Only Dickens' second novel, and because of periodical publishing, was able to influence his first novel!
P.304 - Dickens' obsession with describing Fagin as The Jew is most probably not anti-semitic, but a result of a strong image of the character in his mind. Debateable.
P.307 - Juxtaposition between kindliness and cruelty
Steerpike, The Gormenghast Trilogy
P.327 - Interesting comparison between Tolkein and Peake
Jack Merridew, The Lord of the Flies
P.349 (and throughout chapter) - The idea of this novel as a parable, describing what people are like, rather than what this individual group of people are like. The characters are not given too much back-story or psychological motivation, because they are meant to represent everyone. They could be replaced by another group and would behave in the same way.
Other potentially useful books:
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D-Urbervilles
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
>>The style of lover is compared and contrasted in the 4 books above
Jane Austen, Emma
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
And all the others, of course
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