Books on the Nightstand discussion

Over on the blog, I wrote a post (http://www.booksonthenightstand.com/2...) about NPR's series In Character, where folks write in and nominate a favorite character from a book, film or TV show.

Along those lines, let's start a similar conversation here. Old, new, loved or loathed, which literary character stuck with you?

Check out the above post to see my favorite(s)!

So many --

My inner life tended to hold onto a number of Louisa May Alcott characters:

Jo, Beth, Amy, Meg, Marmee, and the rest of the cast from Little Women

Rose and Mac from Eight Cousins and Rose In Bloom

Polly from An-Old-Fashioned Girl

My very favorite from early childhood has to be Slappy the Duck from the book of that title.

Huck Finn from Twain's works

I loved Jane and Rochester the first time I met them.


Hmmmm -- too many I think.

Oh my God -- FAGIN! And Oliver.

And David Copperfield and well, Dickens alone is a goldmine of great ones.

Certainly Scout from to Kill a Mockingbird ... Harriet the Spy and Trixie Belden were other favorite characters from childhood.

I have a much harder time thinking of characters that have stuck with me when I "met" them as an adult. I'm sure there are some, but I'm coming up empty right now. Even the characters in my favorite books kind of fade away.

Scout and Harriet the Spy are great picks! My favorite childhood character was Annabel Andrews. She is best known from Freaky Friday but one of my all time favorite books was its little known sequel A Billion For Boris. Annabel was smart, funny, and independent but flawed and real in a way that made me feel like she could have been my coolest friend. Many years later I still go back to A Billion for Boris for a comfort read - a literary "mac and cheese".

Adult picks would have to include the one and only Bertie Wooster! How I wish that I had an English country estate where he could come steal my cow creamer while playing the banjolele....

Scout is another of mine, as well.

Two sets of boys from two books are adult reading characters who have stayed very vividly in my mind.

Jim and Doyler in James O'Neil's At Swim, Two Boys are one set.

The other and earlier set are Anton and David in On the Water by H. M. van den Brink, Paul Vincent.

Mrs. Dalloway

Dottie, I agree that Louisa May Alcott's characters were easy favorites. I loved Jo March and Rose Campbell. Another character from my youth was Donna Parker in books written by Marcia Martin. I could buy the hardbacks for 88 cents!! at Woolsworths. Donna was a kind of Nancy Drew type character. Oddly enough, I never did read a Nancy Drew book.

As an adult I found Robinton, the Masterharper in Anne McCaffrey's Pern books felt like a favorite uncle to me. Belgarath in David Eddings series The Belgariad and The Mallorean was a more irreverent Merlin.

I was always fond of Celie from Color Purple... She retained her sweetness and gentleness despite her life circumstances.

As a kid, I was addicted to Ramona (Beverly Cleary). She was such a twit!!! I was also a huge fan of Claudia from the Babysitter's Club. Neither is perhaps a literary hero, but they were characters who sung to me as a young reader. Their existence kept me plowing through book after book after book.

Perhaps the character that has stuck the longest- I discovered him as a child and still LOVE to read about him to my daughter- is not a person at all. I love FERDINAND the bull. He marches to the beat of his own drummer. Accepted by his mother, and misunderstood by his peers. He does what feels right.

FERDINAND!!!

Yes! thanks for reminding me about him Leah! I need to get a copy of that to read to the kid!

Glad you found us here on Goodreads!

mgk

Leah -- I loved Ferdinand also -- and he and my Slappy the Duck would get along famously. Slappy's journey was about not wishing he were a "'pusson' (human) but being contented with being himself -- his best self.

As an adult reader, I haven’t found too many characters stick with me enough to make me re-read. The great trinity of my childhood was Anne Shirley, Laura Ingalls, and Jo March. I read and read and re-read their stories again. I also was a fan of Perrine of Hector Malot’s En Famille and Polly Brewster of Lillian Elizabeth Roy’s Polly series. Perrine is a plucky orphan making her way on her own. The novel is set in France, partly in a textile mill during the industrial age. If you are interested in reading it, it has been published as Nobody’s Girl, Adventures of Perrine and En Famille. Polly Brewster is a modern young woman who grows up on a ranch and takes up interior design. Polly of Pebbly Pit is now available through Project Gutenberg if anyone would like to read it. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6001

Summer,
En Famille (well, Nobody's Girl) sounds like something that my daughter would like. I will definitely check it out. Thanks!

Ann, if you can get a hold of a copy, please let me know what she thinks of it. (If you can't get a hold of a copy, pm me. I might be able to help you.)

Adventures of Perrine was my grandmother's book. My mother and grandmother are the only folks I know who have read it. Well, I guess my father read it, but he only read it to me when I was too small to read, so I won't count him. Before I discovered it on the web, I thought we were a little odd for spending so much time with a book no one knew.

My first copy of Little Women was a movie tie in with the movie in which Jo is played by Kate Hepburn. It was also handed down from my grandmother. My first Polly books were given to me by an elderly neighbor lady whos lawn I cut when I was twelve. Maybe there's something with this pattern I developed of being introduced to a character by loved one.

Wow... there are plenty of them!

But the first that popped to mind was Inigo Montoya in PRINCESS BRIDE (I loved this story!)

He is a noble minded reformed (sort of) drunk who lives to avenge the death of his father by a six-fingered swordsman.

He practices what he will say when he finds the man...over and over again...

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father prepare to die!"

And, eventually, he does find his man.

Susanne

Susanne,
I'm laughing here.
I loved The Princess Bride, but I have a foggy memory about movies. I somehow thought that my daughter would love the movie, so I ordered it from Netflix. Oops. Not appropriate for an 8 year old.

I did the same with Ghost Busters.

Why I think these are kids movies, I have no idea. I'm definitely no candidate for Parent of the Year award. I'd better just stick to the book.

Everyone's mentioned several of my favorites from Scout to Jo March. As an adult, I think my favorite character is Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair series. Oh how I wish I could "jump" into books and hang out with all the characters I've considered my friends over the years!

The Trask brothers from East of Eden stuck with me for a LONG time after finishing the book.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been a serious Agatha Christie-phile and Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are two characters I never get tired of.

Edmond Dantes from Count of Monte Christo

Stevens from Remans of the Day continues to fascinate me.

As a kid I was a big fan of Scout and Encyclopedia Brown. I also went through a phase of loving Scarlett O'Hara - I loved how strong willed she was. Always wished that Margaret Mitchell had written a sequel to it. The four main characters of C.S. Lewis' Narnia series: Peter, Edmond, Susan and Lucy were big on my list also.

As an adult, like most everyone here, I also find it difficult to pin down one that has stuck with me. But I would say that Morrie from Tuesdays with Morrie is one. Also Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. And lastly, Ishmael from the book of the same name. Oddly I can't remember if I liked the actual book but the character (he was an ape) has stuck in my mind. And I suppose that counts.

From my childhood, I would have to say Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn . I revisit that book every couple of years and I still love her! I also find that the more I read this book, the more I sympathize with her father.

Anne Shirley was definitely another character who holds a special place in my heart. I also loved Ramona (her sister Beezus and her doll Chevrolet)--- she had gumption.

As an adult, I have read a ton of books with great characters but none of them stay with me like those of my childhood. Working at Random House and now Macmillan --- I have met too many characters to list here!

I am catching up on older topics. This one is great. Herriot the spy is one for me, I actually carried around a notebook and scribbled in it. I still had some vision then. Scarlet is definitely one also. One that jumped out at me while I was reading all the posts is Pipi Longstocking, how great to have a horse living in your house.Of course I love Claire from the Outlander series as well. Like everyone else, just too many.
Carla
oh, yes, Ralph from the mouse and the motorcycle.

All of the Oz characters from the Baum books. The Shaggy Man stands out.

Tarzan

John Carter of Mars

Doc Savage

Ben Grimm

Jim Casy from The Grapes of Wrath

Dr. Dolittle

francie nolan from a tree grows in brooklyn. this is one i read as an adult, and her character struck me as one that is resilient and noble.

george and lennie from of mice and men

charlotte from charlotte's web

ferdinand (i love him)

Jo March from


Scout from
and Nancy Drew

Ramona Quimby was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I always felt a little bit like her, though I didn't have a sister and wished I did.

Also, Anne Frank (although unfortunately not literary) still sticks with me and haunts me as an adult.

Ramona Quimby and Anne Shirley were two that stuck out at me from childhood as well. I think it was just something about their free-spiritedness and imagination that I related to. I was very shy as a child but felt like in my mind I could be like those characters, although I wasn't anything like them outwardly in life.

As a child I read every Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on. So, Nancy would have to be one of my favorite characters. I didn't read the Anne of Green Gables series until I was an adult, but when I did I absolutely fell in love with Anne. Her spunk and attitude always bring a smile to my face.

Great topic! Here are a few of mine:

Jane Eyre

Remus Lupin and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series

Elphaba from Wicked

And I'm currently finishing up Les Miserables, so I'm going to have to add Jean Valjean to the list.

Wow. The first book that came to mind was Gone With the Wind - the only book I've read twice. But I can't choose which character stood out most to me - Scarlett, Rhett or Melanie. The virtuous side of me likes Melanie best. But oh, how delicious Scarlett could be. One of the best developed characters in literary history, I think.

I'm in love with Lin from Shantaram (by Gregory David Roberts);
My heart is still on a hill in Vietnam with Bravo Company (Matterhorn (by Karl Marlantes)) and;
I'm in awe of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (by Lee Harper.)

All of these people are so "real" to me that they have a stronger presence in my memory than many IRL people I know!

Door from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

What a fun topic!

Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn will always be in my heart.

Flavia de Luce from Alan Bradley's series sticks with me as well, I often imagine her snarky remarks and scientific musings as I go through my day.

Renee from Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Tub the Horse from The Sisters Brothers.

I could go on and on.....I am so thankful for my literary friends!

Nancy Drew
Anne Shirley
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Jane Eyre
Elizabeth Bennet
Sherlock Holmes
Scout
Macbeth
Othello
Henry V
Bertie Wooster and Jeeves
Spock
Tarzan
Batman
Spiderman
Frodo and Bilbo
Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy

There are so many characters that come to mind. One is Count Fusco in Wilkie Collins "Woman in White", such an unctious charmer! Also, remember "Esme" in J.D. Salinger's "From Esme, With Love and Squalor"? I always wondered what kind of woman she grew into...

"Nine Stories" might be a good short story challenge book.