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Likeable Vs. Unlikeable
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Shannon Noel wrote: "I think the key for me is this: likeable characters should still have flaws (isn't that Writing 101?), and if a character is not likeable, then they need to at least be interesting or sympathetic. Not just a run-of-the-mill boring jerk, you know?"Shannnon, you hit the nail on the head. Perfectly stated!
Interesting topic, Shannon.I thought the novel Engleby was extremely good and worth reading, despite the main character Engleby being someone I found extremely unpleasant. I wouldn't say I enjoyed him as a character though.
Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair is often given as an example of a character people enjoy in spite of the things she does.
Gill wrote: "I thought the novel Engleby was extremely good and worth reading, despite the main character Engleby being someone I found extremely unpleasant. I wouldn't say I enjoyed him as a character though."Oooh, I just read the description and added it to my list. Yes, it sounds like it could definitely be unpleasant, but in a way that should be interesting. Thanks for the suggestion. :)
Lolita is a book that a lot of people point to for a VERY unlikeable character that is still compelling. Just yesterday I discovered the book Tampa, which is basically the reverse-Lolita. Can anyone here vouch for it?
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Like Chrissie said, wonderful statement. I feel you said all I really wanted to. Great topic. :)
Haha thanks. :) I thought there could still be some discussion though! I'd still love to know what people's favorite unlikeable characters are, and what about them made them redeeming. :) Or whether anyone agrees with the critics in the article, that likeability should have no bearing whatsoever.
Or, another question: have you ever found yourself getting hung up on how much you dislike a character? To the point where the quality of the book suffers? I know I certainly have, and I'm wondering now if that was short-sighted of me.
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Yes! And I know for certain we are not the only ones who feel the same way. Although it has been very rare for me .
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I'm with Greg in that I don't need to like/dislike a character. I do need to be able to relate even just one of them; to feel I know them, understand where they're coming from.
Shannon Noel wrote: "Lolita is a book that a lot of people point to for a VERY unlikeable character that is still compelling. Just yesterday I discovered the book Tampa, which is basically t..."Shannon, Lolita is one of my favorite books and Nabokov is my favorite writer, ever. Tampa isn't even fit to lick Lolita's shoes. What makes Lolita great isn't that H. H. is a pedophile, but that Nabokov is a master of the language. Alissa Nutting missed that memo and just piles on the gross in mediocre prose.
I guess I can dislike a main character but at the same time can find reasons to empathize with him/her. In such a case, my negative feelings for that character would have a neutral effect on the book itself. But there are cases where I loathe a main character and find it impossible to empathize (yes, you can call me judgmental here). In such cases, the book would take a beating. Two examples of such cases off the top of my head: The End of the Affair and Thérèse Raquin.
Alice, Bette, Greg - By "relate," does that also include "empathize"? Because I'm sure there are books where I couldn't ever know what it was like to have gone through this or that, but I related to the emotion behind it, and empathized with them. Maybe it's a layered thing, where we can feel compassion for a character or understand where they're coming from, but there's an extra bonus layer if we've experienced the same thing or see ourselves in them. I think I agree with you though. There are lots of things I can relate to in a character, even little things. I might not need to relate to ALL of a character, but I'd like to relate to at least a piece.
You're right Shannon. If there's some aspect, however small, of a character that I can relate to, I should at least give him/her benefit of the doubt and not allow my dislike influence my opinion about the book itself. In fact I do think that I shouldn't have cited The End of the Affair as an example, because I really felt some kind of compassion for all the three main characters.
Sometimes it's really hard to get on board with a character! I imagine we all have our sensitivities, our triggers that make us immediately dislike a book if a character is like this or that. I don't know if we can help it. Isn't that human? If we strongly dislike a character (and they can't be redeemed by sympathy or curiosity), then we're going to have a hard time wanting to be in their head or know what happens to them.
Ok, I am reading The Fountainhead. In this book I love Howard Roark, despise Peter Keating and Dominique Francon completely throws me. I like the mix of the different characters. I like that Peter is there, the guy I detest, b/c I know a person just like him! I mean, talk abut duplicates. A bad character, if properly depicted, will make you admire the ability of an author to perfectly capture a "personality", a particular type of person. A person you dislike, if perfectly mirrored, is a great thing to observe; I like having him in the book. His antics even make me laugh . And I oh so agree about Lolita. Nabokov let me see how Humbert Hubert thought. I didn't despise him at all because I understood his thinking. Of course I despised his actions; don't get me wrong!
Very good point Chrissie! I like strong personalities.
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Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair is often given as an example of a character people enjoy in spite of the things she does. ."
But isn't she great? I love her!
i don't know; sometimes I love books of which I don't like the main characters - one for all Middlemarch: isn't Dodo unsufferable?
But some other times I find difficoult to go on - or even start - a novel with women I really don't agree with, like Madame Bovary who I'd love to slap every oher day, or Anna Karenina which I've not even started knowing how she behaves...
Probably it's more a matter of how the writer puts things down ...
We are discussing a book's characters, and for me too they play a central role, BUT a book can be good for other things too. The language employed, the humor and what you can learn from a book are three things that are also important to me.
I actually quite enjoy disliking a character. For example, in many of the dickens novels I have read I tend to find the villains much more entertaining than the heroes. For me a good character can be very unlikeable as long as they are realistic and the book as written and interesting.
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You're right. VIllans, especally Dickens' but not only, are ften much more interesting! That's why I love Rebecca and can't stand Amelia in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair
Yes Laura! Another 2 excellent examples. And in Anna Karenina, I didn't find Anna very likeable but she was realistic, interesting and well developed so I loved the book
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I'll have to afford it!
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Greg - Is there a book in particular you're thinking about?Sociopaths or other similar kinds of characters have to be VERY well done, and often what redeems them, I've discovered, is an entertainment factor. This isn't a great example because it's not literature, I'm sorry, but I was thinking about this thread last night as I was watching the show "House MD." If you haven't seen it, Dr. House is a totally immoral, selfish, uncaring jerk most of the time, but I love him as a character, because he's so darn FUNNY. (Not the only reason but a big one.) I would never want to know him in real life. I'd never want to be his friend. But I love watching him from afar.
Then there are other characters who are not even villain types at all, I just dislike them for one reason or another.
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As far as irritating, I don’t generally find people irritating in person or in books unless they completely lack empathy. Complete lack of empathy is the one thing I just can't take. If people are misguided and do evil things but at least feel conflicted or guilty, I can deal with it, but people who are so far gone as to not feel guilt are tough for me. To me, true evil is boring. With villains it's OK because I enjoy reading about such people being crushed (not too nice but true), but as narrators, I just can't take it.
Yeah, I tend to be kind of picky :P I strive to understand and have compassion for everyone (it's a very strong life philosophy for me in general), but in terms of simply personal taste, there are a few types who just grind my gears. I can still wish them well, but that doesn't mean I want to interact much with them, in person or in books.
@Laura. Love your comment "could slap every other day", wow a great expression!One example which springs to mind for me is Ernest Hemingway in The Paris Wife which is about his first wife Hadley Richardson. It's not hist/fiction; the author has used real letters from Hadey and Hem to gain information for her story. Hemingway is such a pig to women and he's also obsessed with watching bull-fighting; to him it's a sport/good time. He also can't wait to go to war; the man seems to love killing. He's also so confident that he's going to write the best book ever and yet in Paris, he seems to do everything else except write. I couldn't like the character/person at all. I've read a couple of other books which feature him and felt the same.
I certainly don't mind flawed characters. A lot of great literature has characters you can be invested in in spite of their flaws. However, the character has to have some redeeming quality for me to like the book, no matter how well written it is.
Examples : I despised Gone Girl because I hated the characters - the cheating husband and the psyco wife. Her parents were pretty odd ducks too.
I also very much disliked The Corrections. I know it's been critically acclaimed and people think Franzen is a great writer (not me), but I disliked these people so much I didn't finish it.
So, it may very well be for some that likeabiity is not a critieria for a good book, and that may be so, but it's a criteria for me to like the book.
@Angela. It took me a long time to like The Corrections. The first time I read it, I felt like you and put it aside halfway through. When I picked it up ten years later, I loved it although it did feel like watching a train wreck about to happen. Funny, it's the one book my real-life twin and I disagree on; she hates it, says Franzen is pretentious.
I'm with your sister on this one . I'm certain I won't try it again .
What a fantastic idea for a discussion Shannon Noel! The most recent two books I have read that I did not like the majority of the characters were The Goldfinch and The End of the Affair. However, I did enjoy both books. In the affair book, I loved the writing style, there were several passages that I thought were brilliant, and I felt the characters were well developed and continued to develop through the story. In The Goldfinch, there were 2 secondary characters that I liked, and I also liked the story idea and the writing as well.
There have been multiple fantastic comments here that I agree with whole-heartedly.
Bette and Angela - I totally know what you mean, which is why I had a bit of a mindflip when I read the article and one author (or was it critic) said that the only thing that matters is: "is this character ALIVE?" It's so hard to get over dislike for a really detestable character though, even if they are vivid and strongly portrayed...
Thanks Evelyn! I haven't read either of those - did you enjoy the books DESPITE the unlikeable characters (meaning, you focused on other qualities of the books instead) or did you like what the characters did for the story, even if they were unlikeable?
I just read the article you posted and had to laugh because Franzen was quoted in the article and his book was an example I gave of one where I did not care for the book because of the unlikeable characters .I'm not a critic or a literature professor , just someone who gets a lot of joy from reading . I suppose when I was in college the literary criticism was important to me but not now . What's important to me is how I feel about a story so the arguments made in the article really don't matter much to me. I'll love or hate a book for whatever reasons are meaningful to me . They make it sound as if a book with likeable characters isn't a good book . I couldn't disagree more .
Great discussion you started , Shannon Noel .
Thanks.
I have to say I enjoyed the books despite the unlikeable characters. Also, I think in order for both stories to work, the characters had to be unlikeable. So really, yes to both of your questions.
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In Italy we actually say "I'd buy her only to slap her" "La comprerei solo per prenderla a schiaffi". But I felt it sounded better this way in English!!!
Angela - I agree, their stance sounded a bit extremist and black-and-white. Likeable doesn't necessarily mean bad or boring! It's all in the delivery.Thanks, I'm glad you like the discussion!
@Laura. I love both expressions; what interesting things we can pick up from each other here:)@Shannon. Graham Greene (The End of The Affair) is a most respected author among his peers and his readers. I think it's evidence of a author's talent when fellow writers hold him in high regard. It's true, there's not really any likable characters in the book but the beauty of his writing makes the book well worth reading. Lots of wannabe 'writers' today could learn from him, in my opinion.
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@Shannon. Graham Greene (The End of The Affair) is a most respected author among his peers and his ..."
How I do agree with both your assertions!
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Corrections (other topics)The Paris Wife (other topics)
Death in Venice (other topics)
Crime and Punishment (other topics)
Vanity Fair (other topics)
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If you're unable to read it, what the article discusses is this problem with a lot of readers who believe they have to like, agree with, and support every decision of a character in order to find the book "good." What critics argue is that such a factor is totally irrelevant, and even that likeable characters are essentially flat. (Also, likeability is too subjective to be used as a real factor, but honestly, I imagine most people focus on their own subjective gut feelings when forming opinions about a book. Yeah?)
I had a mixed response, because on the one hand I definitely agree that flawed, unlikeable, even downright horrible characters can be wonderfully compelling. I can appreciate characters that challenge and surprise me, and I appreciate writers who can put me in the head of a villain and still make me sympathize with them.
On the other hand though, there are lots of times I've enjoyed a book precisely because I found a character so endearing or entertaining. I can't help it. A character who makes me smile, laugh, or say, "YES! I've felt the same thing!" can be a very moving experience. But I think that's okay. There can be multiple factors that determine a book's virtues, and likability is just one of them.
I think the key for me is this: likeable characters should still have flaws (isn't that Writing 101?), and if a character is not likeable, then they need to at least be interesting or sympathetic. Not just a run-of-the-mill boring jerk, you know?
What are your thoughts? What characters have you enjoyed for their likeability, and which ones for their UNlikeability? In what cases would you find it hard, or easy, to get on board with an unlikeable character?