nicholaskelly

I found this 'companion' interesting, inspiring and informative since Sabastian Faulks, an illustrious novelist himself (I'm sorry I haven't yet read his famous "Birdsong") has portrayed different views regarding the four major characters, that is, Heroes, Lovers, Snobs and Vallains based on those twenty-eight great British novels, seven in each category. In other words, each character presumably deserves readers' similar attention, my motive is that I should read any character at random according to my familiarity. Therefore, I started with my first two favorites, that is, Winston Smith (Heroes, no. 4) and Jean Brodie (Snobs, no. 5) because I read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" some 40 years ago. Reading these two characters as seen by such an author with literary stature delighted me with his unique ways of looking at each character's backgrounds, contexts as well as any hidden agenda I hadn't perceived or realized before. For instance, I found this sentence rewarding, "Winston Smith is a new kind of hero: one who loses." (p. 79) because this implies any hero who loses can be a hero which is a new paradigm shift in that we tend to assume anyone who loses can't be a hero at all, he/she simply is a loser for ever! In other words, such a loser can be a hero if he/she can persist, keep going and do one's best for the good of those around him/her, the community and the nation. Moreover, I found this bitter, "Her tragedy is that she turns out not to be a leader in the ranks of an enlightened culture, but the victim of self-delusion and of forces she has not understood." (p. 252) because this informs us why she (Miss Jean Brodie) can't be a leader and we're embittered by her possessing such self-delusion. One of the reasons is that she's grief-stricken by the death of her fiance in Flanders and just imagine if we had to face a situation like that ourselves. In short, this character anthology is for those keen novel readers who long to know more in-depth views/backgrounds related to their read/familiar ones. I mean reading those unfamiliar ones is a bit tedious and, I think, futile since it's like reading them in the dark.

2022-10-29 03:23