The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Characters' names
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The other book that prompted this thought in me was The Angels of L19.The characters are my generation so there were characters called Paul, Robert, Mark, Tracey etc, as there were when I grew up.
Except there is only one character with each name, which isn't like it was then.
Surely the artifice is Jon Fosse?
Yes that is clearly artificial And indeed deliberately so in the mirroring in the Septology
But most other books are also equally artificial but not deliberately so.
Eg Harry Potter should be called “Harry Potter” or “Harry P” by everyone to distinguish him from the other 5 Harry’s in his year, but they don’t seem to be mentioned.
I don’t find it jarring and I guess the author does that because we don’t see the characters the same way people in your office would speak to you and know they are talking to Paul Fulcher, not the other Paul. Your name observation reminds me of things in the movies and tv that don’t happen in real life, for instance in real life people generally signal that they are ending a phone call then say goodbye. On film people just finish a sentence and end the call, no good byes, no “ok, yes, ok…bye, yes, bye.”
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Clearly in a minority here then! It always bugs me in books how they all have different names. And the combination of L19, Salt Lick (the one where two seemingly different characters with the same first name turned out to be a major plot revelation) and now Fosse (who likes all his characters’ names to start with A and reuses names a lot) prompted me to see if others were bothered. On the telephones in films thing, there are whole memes on that (probably one in Lockwood’s book, if not a significant omission).
And don’t forget Russian literature where the same character might have three different names, two of which are the same, or only one letter different, as two other characters in the book.
That reflects reality though I think. And the authors don’t change it for their/readers convenience. Whereas in Anglo literature, it is typically artificial.
Historical fiction is the exception in Anglo literature also.
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Which again shows how artificial most fiction is. I may add it to my list of new Booker rules. Books under 200 pages with at least two characters with the same first name.
I don't like it when characters are named after months. One thing which bothered me about Daisy Johnson's Sisters was that I kept thinking that she was referring to July and September.
The king of character names is Dickens. Although Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert is a good one too. Paul, does he qualify for your criteria?
Which Paul do you mean :-)
Oddly that's exactly what he was known as for most of his childhood (less to distinguish him from other Paul's and more to distinguish from me)
Note that I said delightfully quirky and who wants a world of predictable, ordinary people. Not that I am accusing you of being ordinary, GY!
I think you then said “weird”
I stand by weird; weird, isn’t negative in my estimation. My whole family is weird.
One of my siblings also
I was walking through Brighton today and chanced across a bookshop selling a signed first-first of Assembly. I bought it thinking someone might like it. But I may now be weird and sell it on WeBuyBooks instead for 78 pence.
I did say “delightfully” and that “weird” is a positive trait in my family, whereas someone else seemed to be insisting that weird was negative and what sets you apart from your identical twin.
Just taking this thread in another direction - a bug bear of mine is when people in books have "coincidental" names - its funny when it happens in real life but I can't see how it works (other than in low grade comedy fiction) when the author picks the names.Latest example for me was the soldier greeting an upset person who is called Private Payne (the same book also had two detectives called Olyphant and Hunter).
The author has to be writing a certain style of book to get away with coincidental names, they have to be intentionally cheeky in a book where cheekiness fits, and those books would be few.
Rushdie is one of the worst offenders there
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Brings back happy memories of his opening goal in the 1979 FA Cup Final. And his bemused look as to why his teammates were all congratulating Alan Sunderland instead. And less happy ones of him playing 70 games - 70! - the next season and yet ending without a trophy or even a UEFA Cup place.
WndyJW wrote: "The author has to be writing a certain style of book to get away with coincidental names, they have to be intentionally cheeky in a book where cheekiness fits, and those books would be few."And I was not sure that The Promise was really such a book
Paul wrote: "Brings back happy memories of his opening goal in the 1979 FA Cup Final. And his bemused look as to why his teammates were all congratulating Alan Sunderland instead. And less happy ones of him p..."
A great player for many clubs who never seemed to succeed to the same extent as a manager despite multiple tries.
You have to think that he was one of the few players at that time who looked after himself physically which is why he played so many games.
Hugh wrote: "Names that coincide with real people can be distracting, for example Brian Talbot is a minor character in Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire, and I couldn't rid myself of the unintended association w..."That bugs me too, but I'm ok with it in some situations, such as when a character is named after another famous person. Our book club read West with Giraffes a few months back, which is based on a true story, but has a fictional character by the name of Woodrow Wilson Nickel. (The poor kid went by the name Woody Nickel and was teased endlessly for it).
My biggest pet peeve is a name that doesn't fit the period. Even if the name existed at the time, if it was rare for the period, but popular now, it bugs me to no end. The character Brianna in the Outlander series is one example that comes to mind. (Yes, I am guilty of reading and watching Outlander)
I was just thinking about this- I’m reading HEX and some of the character names make me cringe. This is about a 17th century witch whose ghost has been haunting a town since she was executed. The police chief is named Grimm, the minister’s last name is Mather (as in Cotton Mather the Puritan from the time of the Salem witch trials), and the local simple lady is named Griselda.
I keep hoping it will get better, but my hopes aren’t high.
Tracy wrote: "The police chief is named Grimm, the minister’s last name is Mather (as in Cotton Mather the Puritan from the time of the Salem witch trials), and the local simple lady is named Griselda."Argh!!!
Debra wrote: "My biggest pet peeve is a name that doesn't fit the period. Even if the name existed at the time, if it was rare for the period, but popular now, it bugs me to no end. The character Brianna in the ..."No explanation necessary, Debra, we’re all adults here. I just hope the writing is better than Fifty Shades of Grey.
My kids’ 83 yr grandmother is obsessed with Outlander. She loved Fifty Shades and her husband was from Glasgow (there was already a lot of tartan in their house,) so a sexually charged series about a Scotsman was too good to be true for her!
My daughter-in-law said the books were engaging.
And, you’re right, GY, The Promise is not the intentionally cheeky type of book that can get away with coincidental character names.
Debra wrote: "My biggest pet peeve is a name that doesn't fit the period. Even if the name existed at the time, if it was rare for the period, but popular now, it bugs me to no end. The character Brianna in the ..."I hate when the names don't fit the period. And I am reasonably up on what names should be in which period, more so than many authors, so I tend to get annoyed quite often. I feel like if you're writing a novel set in the fifties, you need a lot of Joans and Janes to buy you one outlier name.
Paul, see where you're coming from, but given that most people's number one gripe with One Hundred Years of Solitude is that it's hard to keep straight who is who because of the names, I think you might be in the minority. Fiction, not like life.
I did read a Daphne Du Maurier recently set in the 13th century and a number of characters had the same names and were married to people who had the same names. I spent a lot of time consulting the family tree.
You are going to love Paradise then Paul as each of the three sections has characters with recurring names (probably 10 or more names at least recur three times).
Yes and it is actually quite disorienting. Presumably deliberately.
I will have to formulate my thoughts on the reason for the choice when I get around to a review - which will not be for some time as still reading it.
Your description reminds me of Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham, who had a similar three part structure in past/present/future and used similes of names of characters in the three parts. Curious to read your thoughts and overal verdict
I don’t recall that in Paradise? Seemed pretty conventional (and not terribly Nobel worthy)
“To Paradise” that was meant to be.
Character names--this is a great topic.The reason authors don't use the same name for more than one person is to avoid reader confusion--I suspect that even if authors wanted to make the book more realistic that way, editors would nix it. That sort of thing doesn't bother me in the least.
Coincidental names--I agree that those only work in certain types of books, usually if there is humour of some sort or some purpose that helps move the novel forward.
Anachronistic names are only a problem for me if they are in historical fiction, of course, but I don't mind if it's a name that was around but wasn't common as much as ones that really weren't part of that culture, ethnic group or social class, etc, especially in very class-conscious countries, such as England. But then there are almost always anachronistic things, so it's a matter of degree. After all, if a contemporary author wrote just like authors of taht day did, the books wouldn't sell. However, that's fodder for a different discussion.
But back to names that don't fit the period, that can become rather nit-picky at times since, just like today, some names go in and out of style. Many of the most popular baby names now were very old-school and rarely used when I was growing up. I can honestly say that I don't know which girls names were more popular in 1825 than in 1875, but if I were the betting type, I'd wager that other than familial names, they were different.
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Specimen Days (other topics)Hex (other topics)
The Angels of L19 (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Michael Cunningham (other topics)Jon Fosse (other topics)
But I am reading at book at present which has two narrative strands, both told in the present tense, seemingly unconnected. But gradually the reader realises one is set years before the other and these are actually the story of the same people.
The first clue is that we learn the name of a late-middle age man in one part is Jesse - "but, hang-on", the reader thinks "Jesse is the young boy in the other part". Similarly with another character.
But when the Jesse name first reappeared, my initial reaction (missing the plot!) was actually "isn't it refreshing to see an author not afraid to have two different characters in a novel with the same first name."
And that was the point of my post.
95%+ of books I read have all the characters with different first names.
Yet if I think of work meetings or my childrens' school classes or my friends etc it would be unusual not to have two or more people with the same name. E.g. on Monday morning I will be at a meeting of 8 people, of which there are 2 Davids and 2 Pauls (OK we have some work to do on D&I).
Am I the only person who finds the artifice of names in the novel world a little jarring? Perhaps it is why I like Jon Fosse so much as he only has about 3 names he uses in his books and indeed re-uses across all his books.