These words from Zoe Heller, as brought to us by Patricia Cohen, in yesterday's New York Times: "The point of fiction is not to offer up moral avatars, but to engage with people whose politics or points of view are unpleasant or contradictory."
I do a quick mental count against books I've written and books I've dreamed. Hmmm. The early polling suggests that I may have missed the point. I've been tripping behind Henry James instead, who instructed us that the "only obligation...of a novel...is that it be interesting." (Hey, I'm trying.) And I've stumbled after Denise Levertov, too: "One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language." I've cherished the Camusian notion (though of course I make zero claims), that "the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."
But unpleasantness? Politics? Have I been going about this all wrong? Should I have been hanging out, in my head, with far more characters I don't like, characters I wouldn't expect my readers to like, so as to make my work more engaging? Every book needs a villain. Every story hinges on conflict. But just how unredemptively unpleasant do we wish our characters to be?
It's the question I pose to you, oh careful readers, on this day.
new posts in all blogs
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 2/27/2009
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Zoe Heller, Patricia Cohen, the purpose of writing, New York Times, Add a tag
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: the purpose of writing, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 1 of 1
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 2/27/2009
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Zoe Heller, Patricia Cohen, the purpose of writing, New York Times, Add a tag
13 Comments on Unpleasant Characters, last added: 3/9/2009
Display Comments
Add a Comment
There are enough unpleasant characters in the real world, without adding them to the fictional ones as well!
I was one of the readers who put down Zoe's novel because of her unlikeable characters. Maybe I will go back to it one day, but most of the time I'm just not in the mood to hang out with unlikable people real or fictional.
Hmm I don't know. Yes, a little conflict is good but there is a fine line between good conflict and I cannot stand this anymore and will stop reading it now, like Lenore says.
I think it's necessary to have a mix. A good story should have unpleasant characters as well as good ones. It is interesting to read about unpleasant characters, but too many will make the book unappealing.
Hmm...I engage with enough unpleasant characters in real life...I don't go looking for them in fiction!
But having said that, I'm impressed with the author who can make me sympathetic to a character I wouldn't normally like.
I think Priya has the gist of it. It's nice (and often important) to have unsavory side characters. But wouldn't it be hard to write a book if you didn't even like the main character? It's so hard to read books that purposely have an unlikeable main character (I'm thinking EMMA here but I know there are others out there.) On the flip side, it's quite creepy when an author actually makes you enjoy the unsavory main character (LOLITA, for example).
But my all time favorite characters from my all time favorite books are always the ones that I'd like to meet, to have lunch with, to get to know.
People read for many different reasons: entertainment, escape, enlightenment, etc. I don't think there is any one formula that can be applied to all books.
That said, I prefer characters in the books I read to be a reflection of some kind of reality; it doesn't have to be real, just realistic. (Science fiction and fantasy can still reflect the real world.) I'm not going to be entertained or enlightened if I'm not convinced by the possibility for realness of the characters and their world.
So that might mean some characters are unpleasant and make me uncomfortable, but as long as they are balanced by more appealing characters (both exist in the real world), I will not object.
Fiction is an amazing vehicle for truth. Really, that's why we read it, right? To see ourselves, our best friend, our neighbor, our enemy, our hopes, our sorrows; to know that we are not alone?
Oh, how I love all your responses here. Thank you. I think there's unpleasant, and then there's unpleasant. One doesn't need the scatological in one's face all the time, for example, or the sort of endless, ruthless ugliness recently reported in Michiko Kakutani's review of John Littell's The Kindly Ones. But complexity is essential, human, telling, and memorable.
The balance, as you have said, is essential.
While it isn't very pleasant to have unpleasant characters, they are essential to every story. Perhaps one or two...or more, if necessary.
Just how unpleasant can they be? It would entirely depend on the story itself -- in most cases, unlikable characters are so crucial to the story that it would fall apart without them. So I think it depends on the story -- but there is a point where the writer needs to stop throwing in unfriendly characters, otherwise it becomes too much.
Think of legendary villains like Iago or Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov. Complex, intellectual characters who didn't necessarily turn off the reader. They are not likeable characters, but they are engaging. I think there is too much violence and gore in many contemporary books. Modeling after some of the classical villains in literature, a creative author may be able to spark even some commercial buzz with an intellectual villain.
Argh - that is (in my opinion) what newspapers are for.
My take on it is thus (and I cannot remember the attribution, unfortunately, but it's not mine): the purpose of writing is to give the reader an experience that is superior to everyday life.
I can sink my teeth into that.
XO
A.
I was at a Critiquenic not long ago and one of the people in my group read us a chapter from inside the mind of the killer of a young girl. It creeped me out and I didn't want to read any more. The writing was good, but I read for entertainment or education. Killers don't entertain me and I certainly don't want to learn what they have to teach...