Baddies in books: Robert Wringhim, a great sinner

The anti-hero of James Hogg’s Private Memoirs of a Justified Sinner is a magnetic study of a good man gone bad

More Guardian writers’ favourite baddies in books

It was an odd delight to have to choose a favourite villain in literature. Reading the choices made by fellow contributors has, to an extent, brilliantly confused rather than dully clarified my thoughts. Are we talking about the scope of their megalomania – a Sauron or an Ahab? Or is it the nastiness of their behaviour – a Patrick Bateman or a Humbert Humbert? Or is it the slyness of their villainy – Bertha from Jane Eyre or Mrs Danvers from Rebecca? Henry de Montherlant observed that “happiness writes in white ink on white paper”, and it’s certainly true that villainy thrills on the page in a manner decency struggles to realise.

The best villains, to my mind, are the ones most like us. Personally, I have no deep desire to dispatch with Sherlock Holmes, like Moriarty; bend the Universe to my will like Star Trek’s Khan Noonien Singh, the AntiMonitor, or oh-so-many others. So instead of inscrutable wickedness, personal vendetta, simple cruelty or being the Adversary of God, I choose Robert Wringhim from James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. It’s only a slight cheat since whether or not his friend Gil-Martin is the Devil is the book’s horrific, troubling aporia.

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