World Book Day?

What? No Hallmark Card?

In honor of this austere day (I’m sorry – isn’t every day BOOK day?!?) The Independent asked 100 Literary Lumineries (most of which I’ve never heard of) to name their favorite literary characters. [link from bookslut]

So, I’ll play:

Robert Jordan
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway

I’m actually not a big Hemingway fan – but I love this book. First off, best.love.scene.ever starts Chapter 13 (that’s right, run out RIGHT NOW to read it!) – it’s beyond moving and beautiful and there’s a romantic desperateness that can only be born from living in a cave during the Spanish American War. Oh, Robert Jordan, you had me at rabbit.

Speaking of which…

Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom
Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest
John Updike

I spent a summer alternating between loving and hating this guy – not a hard feat at all. But in the end, I was so sad to leave him. I mean, really sad. I missed the fucker like all get out. He’s a bastard to be sure, but you can’t help but feel for the guy as he wanders through the decades.

Melanie Wilkes
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell

I was eleven when I read Gone With the Wind and it’s stayed with me forever – I am and forever will be a hopeless romantic, so there’s not much more to say except the emotion I felt when I read Melanie had died will stay with me forever. I was sprawled across my parent’s bed one afternoon after school. I remember my friend called to invite me out for a bike ride and I couldn’t understand how she could want to “play” when the sweetest, most understanding, most gentle, most moral human being ever to live was DYING. Dying I say, all because babies were the miracles that make life worth living. Sniff, sniff. Damn that Margaret Mitchell! Oh yeah and I loved Rhett too.

Louisa
“Carried Away,” Selected Stories
Alice Munro

Okay, so it helps that she’s a librarian and a pathetic one at that, but the way this story winds together is breathtaking. And Louisa, the way she falls for the boy that writes to her from the war, while pathetic, also fits that romantic sensibility I was talking about earlier. And the scene with her and Arthur in the library during the storm, well, it just stabs at your heart like only Alice’s pen can.

That’s all I got right now. I’m sure I could come up with more if I tried. This little exercise was harder than I thought – I realize now that while I attach an emotional response to books I love (or hate, for that matter), I don’t necessarily form an emotional attachment to character – in fact sometimes it’s hard to really remember characters at all. Hmmm. Very interesting. I do remenber all the characters I’ve writen though. They are tattoed on my soul. Maybe because they’re all really me.

Okay. Enough maudlin sentimentality. Don’t forget to wish Wendy a happy birthday today. What a coincidence: The Bookish Girl‘s birthday is World Book Day! Hossana!

And can I just say, that Alison is one popular girl! She linked to me on her blog yesterday and I got twice as many hits! All from her blog. Wow. I guess there was good reason to stalk her…. 😉

Oh and one last thing – thanks for all your feel betters yesterday – they worked. And thanks for all the compliments on my color choices for Short Rows. I’m sorry if I didn’t email you back – something’s weird with MT and I didn’t get the emails. Appreciate it though. 🙂

Thursday is class day, so it’s off to work. They were nice to me this week though – everybody wrote short.

Comments

  1. What about Zuckerman? He’s one of my multi-book faves.

  2. I (heart) books.
    I don’t do this as much now, but for a long time I would daydream of meeting various characters in the books I was reading – of how I’d impress the tough women, or how the dashing hero of the novel would find me sexy, or how I would outwit the bad guy. *grins* Seriously. Probably why I loved fantasy novels so much when I was younger (and still do, though not to the same extent).
    A few off the top of my head are:
    *Claire and Jaime, from the Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon
    *Lord Sylvester, from Minerva, by Marion Chesney
    *Seabiscuit (after reading the book, I never wanted a horse so bad)
    *F’lar, from Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
    *Henry, from The Time Traveler’s Wife

  3. all three sound wonderful ~ i’ve heard of them all before, of course, but your description definitely makes me want to start reading all three tonight all at the same time. thanks 😉
    and books are grrrrrrrreat all 365 days of the year, ahem ‘book day’..
    😉

  4. Well, I know this is the worst English major cliche ever, but Eliza from Pride and Prejudice is my girl.
    I had a conversation with a student I was working with a few years ago and she, with great trepidation, confessed that she was totally put off by the idea of Jane Austen – that she must be terrible, dull and mannered. This girl had a vision of something like a cross between “Pamela” and Charles Dickens, I think. I looked at her and said – read P & P – it isn’t JA best book technically, but you love it and it will surprise you.
    A week later she’s back in my office IN LOVE – she said to me, “Eliza is one of US – she could hang out!”
    Which is, I suppose, what I like about her myself.

  5. Everyday is book day around here… unfortunately not always the books I want to be reading that day (school work) but always book day. Have a great one, Cara!

  6. Can I just say that the following words surround a sentence about me…
    Hossana, Maudlin
    What more could a girl ask for?
    😉 (am I the only one who finds combinations of words, even if just in proximity, to be fun?!)
    Thanks for the Birthday wish!!!

  7. I adore Alice Munro!