5 More Awesome Fictional Characters

Following on from my Top 5 Fictional Characters, here is a second lot of made-up people who are incredibly entertaining.  I'd be happy to sit down and have a drink with each and every one of them.





5. Holly Golightly
(Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote)
Whether you're watching Audrey Hepburn charm her way through life on-screen or reading Truman Capote's source novel, there's no denying that Miss Holiday Golightly is no average gal.  Born Lula Mae Barnes in a backwood town in Texas, Holly is constantly reinventing herself, shaping her own destiny and cheerily hopping from romance to disaster to adventure.  One could also interpret the character as a manic, selfish strumpet, but let's not be mean-spirited.

4. Marquis de Carabas
(Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman)
I know, I know.  I seem incapable of composing any sort of book list without including one of Neil Gaiman's creations.  But seriously, read Neverwhere and try not to fall in love with the Marquis de Carabas, the protagonist's enigmatic guide to a fantastical London underworld.  Paterson Joseph's portrayal of him in the BBC miniseries is pitch-perfect in its wicked playfulness.  You might not trust the Marquis, but it is impossible not to like him.

3. Belle de Jour
(The Secret Adventures of a London Call Girl)
Technically, this one isn't fictional.  But while the anonymous nature of her numerous explicit memoirs lend her an almost mythic quality, Belle is at her most beguiling when she drops her seductive facade and addresses the reader honestly.  The ins and outs of her personal life are bared for all to see on the page, and though some (or most) readers may enjoy her adventures as mere titillation, there is a level of humour and intelligence in Belle's storytelling that make her genuinely likeable.

2. Tyrion Lannister
(A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin)
I have a confession to make.  I have never been within a hundred miles of George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice & Fire novels.  But Peter Dinklage's performance as "The Imp" in HBO's Game of Thrones has been so full of arrogance, sly wit and genuine emotion that I feel as if I know him well.  Everyone in my house agrees that he is by far their favourite character in this sprawling epic of scheming villains, noble heroes and bare-chested everyone else.

1. Jackson Brodie
(Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson)
The world-weary private investigator has now featured in four novels, each of which finds him dragged into a fateful web of interlocking yet seemingly unrelated mysteries.  His quest in life, it seems, is finding people who are lost, a self-imposed mission which stems from the murder of his sister years before.  Her killer was never found, a fact that haunts Jackson more potently than any ghost.  He also seems to be a magnet for a series of disasters that become comical and Job-like in their frequency - a blown up house here, a train crash there.  Atkinson's novels are full to the brim with wry humour, but at his core Jackson is a deeply troubled soul.  Despite this, the reader cannot help but hope that in the next instalment, or the one after that, he will find peace.

Who is your favourite fictional character? I'm thinking about mining the wealths of JK Rowling's world in a future post and coming up with my Top 5 Harry Potter characters.  Or maybe a themed post: Top 5 spies, witches, adventurers, lovers.  Thoughts?

Last year in books

So here we are.  The obligatory first post, in which I am required to charm the pants off the blogosphere with my wit and intelligence.  I thought that, as this blog is going to be centred on my reading and writing habits, I might begin with a brief chat about the last couple of books I've devoured.


2010 was a pretty excellent year for reading.  I didn't so much as touch "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen, or any of the Booker shortlist.  I always intend to, but fiction fashion is fickle, and it always seems that as soon as I've shelled out on half a dozen pristine paperbacks, a new wave of authors are in and my new purchases are obsolete.  The literary high brow don't seem to have much time for many of my tastes, either.  You won't find a decent horror novel being nominated for the Orange prize, or any decent thrillers on the same shelf as Ian McEwan.


That said, I couldn't bring myself to read any more than a hundred pages of Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".  Either Quercus need to hire better literary translators, or the late Larsson had a talent that is invisible to the naked eye.


I took the time this last year to make a start on my extensive To-Be-Read list.

"The Shining" by Stephen King.  This book has been around since before I was born, and even though I've been a massive fan of King for the last ten years, the only image "The Shining" brought to mind was the iconic moment from the film of the same name, in which Jack Nicholson leers through a broken doorway and shouts: "Here's Johnny!"


The novel itself was a pleasant surprise.  The character of Jack Torrance, off-season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, is not a two-dimensional psychopath-in-the-making as the film had let me to believe, but rather a recovering alcoholic who is desperate to mend his relationships with his wife Wendy and precociously intelligent son Danny.


Danny has second sight, and when the family move into the hotel, moments from its chequered past begin to surface.  As winter sets in, Jack develops an unhealthy obsession with the hotel and its previous guests.  The reader is left in the dark for much of the novel as to whether Jack's visions are as real as Danny's, or simply a product of cabin fever, and while the story's climax is so well-known that you can't help but predict some of the inevitable plot twists, that doesn't prevent King from producing moments of pure terror.  A few hints: hedge animals, bathtub, dog suit.


"Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman.  I've loved Gaiman's prose since I first picked up "American Gods" in 2005.  "Neverwhere" is the story of two cities: London Above, the city of Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral, and London Below, a mythical underworld.  In this alternate city, Knightsbridge is the Knight's Bridge, Earl's Court is a literal royal court, the Black Friars are a religious order and Islington is a bona fide angel.


Stumbling into this world is Richard Mayhew, a Scot living in London with his fiance.  When he stops one night to help an injured girl in the street, she draws him into London Below on a quest to save the city from the evil Messrs Croup and Vandemar.  Joining them is the fantastically imagined Marquis de Carabas, and the enigmatic Hunter.


Next on my Gaiman TBR List - The Graveyard Book.  I would also highly recommend Anansi Boys.

"Let The Right One In" by John Ajvide Lindqvist hardly needs an introduction these days.  Adapted into a chiller in the author's native Sweden, it's since been remade for English-speaking audiences under the slightly underwhelming title "Let Me In".


It's Blackeberg, it's the Eighties, and twelve year old Oskar is enduring the living hell that is adolescence.  Bullied at school, more or less ignored by his mother, he finds companionship in his mysterious new neighbour, Eli.  The twist in this tale is not a huge one: Eli is a centuries old vampire in the body of a young girl, and is forced to go to extreme lengths to feed her bloodlust when she is left without her sinister guardian.


Horror elements aside, this novel also packs an emotional punch.  While the misery of a lonely pre-teen would make for dull reading in itself, the relationship that develops between Oskar and Eli is truly moving, and the story's climax had me with my heart in my mouth.


"Horns" by Joe Hill.  Iggy wakes up one morning with a raging hangover and demonic horns protuding from his forehead.  As a premise, this doesn't suck - but I was worried that the explanation wouldn't live up to it.  I needn't have, as Hill delivers thrills and chills in equal measure just as in his previous novel "Heart Shaped Box".


As Iggy tries to find out how he got his horns, he finds that people react to them in odd ways.  They feel suddenly compelled to confess their darkest thoughts and impulses to him.  Iggy decides to use this knowledge, not just to solve the mystery of the horns, but to find the man that killed his girlfriend one year before.


Not quite a simple revenge story, not a straightforward horror, "Horns" is a clever and complex contemporary novel.


I can't wait to read more of King and Gaiman this year.  I'm also hoping to discover some brand new talented author who can claim hours of my time.  And when I'm not reading, I'll be writing.  And occasionally drinking.