Unpleasant Characters
Friday, February 27, 2009
These words from Zoe Heller, as brought to us by Patricia Cohen, in yesterday's New York Times: "The point of fiction is not to offer up moral avatars, but to engage with people whose politics or points of view are unpleasant or contradictory."
I do a quick mental count against books I've written and books I've dreamed. Hmmm. The early polling suggests that I may have missed the point. I've been tripping behind Henry James instead, who instructed us that the "only obligation...of a novel...is that it be interesting." (Hey, I'm trying.) And I've stumbled after Denise Levertov, too: "One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language." I've cherished the Camusian notion (though of course I make zero claims), that "the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."
But unpleasantness? Politics? Have I been going about this all wrong? Should I have been hanging out, in my head, with far more characters I don't like, characters I wouldn't expect my readers to like, so as to make my work more engaging? Every book needs a villain. Every story hinges on conflict. But just how unredemptively unpleasant do we wish our characters to be?
It's the question I pose to you, oh careful readers, on this day.
