Reading 1001 discussion

Do the characters seem real and believable? Can you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or someone you know?

How do characters change or evolve throughout the the story? What events trigger change?

The characters are exaggerated forms of people...in my estimation.

Denny shifts and finds a focus as the story goes along. But the characters are too over the top to be real...to me.

I saw Denny and Victor as characters in Breaking Bad you know the friends of Jesse who are always there arguing about Star Trek.

I agree with Lynn they are over the top.

I thought the interactions between Victor and Denny, always calling each other dude, and helping each other with their dysfunctional lives both entertaining and depressingly believable. Victor's description of himself as a naive child are so sad, but also amusing as his mother has such distorted views of good child-rearing practices! Of course, Victor changes when the mad doctor tells him he is the son of Christ. He starts to believe that the way he calmed the inmates by accepting responsibility for their pain was no longer a joke but a manifestation of his Christ-like characteristics. He then asks himself what would Jesus not do, when he has any moral qualms about his actions.

I felt very similarly to Pip in that they were funny but depressing at the same time. I felt very sad for Victor in his inability to truly connect with others.

The characters were all very flawed. At times humorous in the degree of their flaws but also pretty believable to me. Granted perhaps exaggerated but in my work as a psychologist, I see many people with great inner turmoil who turn to substances, sex, risky behavior, etc to cope with lack of meaning in their lives.