Books

Best writer of all time?  Franz Kafka, because he made me feel sorry for a cockroach.  I HATE roaches!  They’re ugly, disgusting, creepy, and just plain give me the heebie-jeebies.  I have gigantic cans of Raid in my house.  Yet Kafka, in his Metamorphosis, made me pity one, despite the nightmares.  This takes a tremendous amount of talent and skill.

Suspense.  Poe is King, and King’s got nothing on Poe.  “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the creepiest thing I have ever read in my life.  And “The Pit and the Pendulum“.  Imagine it:  You’ve been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition.  Alone in the dark, bound.  You have nothing to do but watch as, slowly, that gigantic knife swings back and forth, coming closer and closer.  Waiting for it to begin chopping you into bits, as you think about your life.  It’s chilling, and thrilling all at once.

Scene.  Jack London is the absolute master at setting a scene.  Think of the first chapter of White Fang and “To Build a Fire“.  You’re sitting, safe and warm, at home, but you can’t help but shiver at the relentlessness of the Arctic cold, and the desperate hunger of the wolves.

Vengeance is always an entertaining vehicle, no matter how twisted.  In fact, the more twisted, the better: The Count of Monte Cristo  (my personal favorite), Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter, Abigail Williams in The Crucible.  Revenge just makes for an excellent story.  And so does madness.  Shakespeare wrote insanity exquisitely in King Lear  and Macbeth. Sometimes, they work in tandem, like in “The Cask of Amontillado“.

Villains, or at least, anti-heroes.  A great story needs an interesting villain.  Shylock in Merchant of Venice, for instance, is absolutely riveting, especially after Edmund Keane gave his groundbreaking performance, changing the perception of the character for all time.  A good example in modern literature would be Apropos, the ultimate anti-hero.  In three hilarious novels (Sir Apropos of Nothing, Woad to Wuin, and Tong Lashing), Peter David’s Apropos manages to stumble into situations that force him to become a hero, or, so it seems at the time.  Irene and Soames Forsyte, The Forsyte Saga, are rather baffling, because although we all hate Soames, Irene is the one who betrayed him.  She married him for his money, and knew, when she did it, that she did not love him. That she would never love him.  Irene is the real villain, and, yet, she is portrayed, and perceived, as the long suffering heroine.  Baffling, yes, but, also, interesting.

I don’t really like Gothic novels.  I like strong heroes, and, in Gothic novels, most of them are weak.  Heathcliffe, for example.  I know, I know, it is sooooooooooooo romantic.  Blah, blah, blah.  Come on, the guy is pathetic.  And don’t get me started on Jane Eyre.  What is so romantic about a lord, a married lord, leading the governess astray, convincing her that he would marry her?  So what if the wife is crazy.  He isn’t a romantic, tragic hero, he is a lying cheating snake!

Okay, okay, rant over.  A better bet, I think, would be Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.  Sure, to begin with he’s a cold, self-righteous so and so, but not entirely without cause.  That insult to Lizzie is completely uncalled for, but, other than that, you have to admit that his attitude is understandable.  Think about it.  He’s a wealthy gentleman accustomed to the more sophisticated society of London, finding himself in the middle of nowhere in the company of such people as Lydia and Mrs. Bennet.  Can you really blame the guy for looking down his nose and wincing?  His coldness is a shield, and he is willing to admit his mistakes, and to open up old wounds, revealing a family scandal in order to make it right. I mean, really.  Would you actually prefer the spineless Lord Rochester, to Mr. Darcy?

I think that good characters really make a novel.  Plots can go nowhere, writing be really blah, and mystery almost nonexistent, but, if a book has great characters, I sometimes find myself liking it despite everything else.