As you may have noticed if you've read any of my previous posts- I'm sort of doomed when it comes to finding someone that I absolutely adore who actually feels the same way about me. I don't think this is unusual in any respects, we're now on a third (or fourth, depending on how you count it) generation of people who grew up watching Disney films. As we all know, they're terrible for your ideas of love.
Hell, my favourite Disney film love moment is two squirrels chasing each other around a tree (notice that she's chasing him....)
But something I do quite regularly is fall in love with characters in the books I read, to the point that I think about them for days. Since there are real life actual people that I've been in love with that I can easily go weeks without thinking about, or hours in the case of him this can cause a few real problems.
- I've never met these characters
- I only know what the author has give me as information
- Mostly they look how I interpret the descriptions
- They're just not real.
The first time I recall this happening is when I read Primo Levi's If Not Now, When? on holiday in Gran Canaria when I was about 14. I had recently got very into the Manic Street Preachers and was very deeply busy being a massive stereotype. One good thing about being a manicsfan (offically all one word) is that you get a pretty impressive reading list!
The main character in this book is called Mendel, he's a Russian Jewish partisan fighting in the woodlands against the Nazis. He'd been a watchmaker before the war and his wife was killed.
So fairly inappropriate for me to fall in love with this character. However, he's just so human. Methodical, contradictory and scared that I found myself a little jealous when he sneaks off into the woods with partisan women.
Another strange one is Sam Vimes from the Discworld novels. For those of you that don't know, Sam Vimes is a film noir style, old fashioned cop. Captain of the Ankh Morpork City Guards, ex-alcoholic and in the more recent books happily married and a Duke. My first introduction to him was in Feet of Clay my first Discworld novel that didn't feature Rincewind where at length he solves some crimes by resisting booze and prodding buttock. He's dirty, unshaven, kind of old, but generally quite loveable. He cares for people and hates authority. So it isn't an unsurprising attraction. Nobby Nobbs would definitely be more difficult to understand.
Patrick Bateman. I'm not going into it. I know it's just wrong. American Psycho if you don't recognise the name.
Captain Yossarian from Catch-22 . I finally read this one only last year, after much encouragement from my Dad who repeatedly told me he'd only ever "got about 30 pages in before I decided against it" I'm pleased I did because Yossarian is just a delight to read, he's such a flawed character and totally bent on his own survival you just cannot help love him. He might be a little bit crazy but that's all part of catch-22 itself. You can't fly a plane if you're crazy, but to fly the missions you've got to be crazy. He's so callous towards but consistently believes himself to be in love with the women he encounters.
There's others- Aramis from The Three Musketeers is another one. I'm sure I'll think of more and write a second post on it soon.
