We have no contributing diarist this week, so we'll have an open forum instead. Those of you who have read a book that changed your life and would like to contribute a diary, please kosmail me. I have a template that makes it very easy to write a diary! You need only write three paragraphs and the template tells you exactly what to put in each one. Just think--contribute a diary and you may find yourself on the "Rec" list!
The Kossacks who frequent this corner of the site are readers who’ve read more books than we can count. Every one of us at some time or other has encountered a fictional character that we loathed or despised—the kind of character that leaves a permanent sore spot in your mind every time the memory of him or her crosses your thoughts.
I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours!
For me, it’s James Bond. Even in pre-women’s liberation 1963 and 1964, when I was reading the Bond novels, I thought he was the male equivalent of a slut. If a woman had had it off with one male character after another, she’d have been damned by a very unpleasant name. But no one seemed to mind when James had it off with one female character after another.
When the light dawned in later years, I realized how much I disliked the fact that in those novels, if Bond “got the girl” at the beginning of the book, she’d certainly die by the time the book ended. Naturally, if she had the good sense to hold him off until the adventure was over she’d be allowed to live until the last page. (Although I never watched it, I understand there was a television series starring a bunch of cowboys that also specialized in “dead girlfriend of the week” episodes. Was it “Bonanza”?)
It wasn’t until years later that it occurred to me that Ian Fleming, author of the Bond series, evidently hated women. Otherwise, why would he have killed so many of his fictional females? He seemed to believe in the age-old “I’ll show you who’s boss, you stupid wench” method of controlling uppity women--women who might question the idea that they had no purpose beyond that of providing sexual satisfaction for some guy.
I despise this sort of thing. I refused to read or watch The Silence of the Lambs, for example, because I utterly repudiate the idea that women, especially young women, exist for only one reason: to provide prey for predators. Doesn’t matter that these fictional young women grew up in loving homes with parents who educated them, doesn’t matter that they might have aspired to be scientists, professors, mothers, or wives—they were born to be nothing but murder victims. I find this to be disrespectful of women.
So, okay, in my case the answer to the question is 007. Which character do YOU dislike the most, and why? Has this carried over into your other reading? Tell us about it. We’re sitting up expectantly, the hand reaching for the popcorn bowl arrested in mid-air, waiting for you to speak.
Talk away!