Character Connection

Eleanor Vance is kind of the main character in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. While I can't really bring myself to recommend the book, Eleanor is a fascinating character. Eleanor is a fairly young woman (I want to say she's 30-ish) who's never had the opportunity to be young. Her mother was peevishly ill for years yet ruled Eleanor with an iron fist. Whatever Mrs. Vance wanted, she was going to get. If it literally drove her daughter crazy, all the better. Now that her mother has passed away, Eleanor is living with her sister and her young family. The sister is just as bad as the mother. I don't know how Eleanor turned out to be so passive when she lived with two shrews, but I guess it was easier for her to submit than to fight. Anyway, the sister treats Eleanor like unpaid help. When Eleanor asks to borrow the car, which she helped pay for, the sister pitches an ungodly fit. Yet somehow mousy little Eleanor digs up the courage to do what she wants for a change. She defies her sister and takes the car off to Hill House. Julie Harris as Eleanor Eleanor has been invited to haunted Hill House by a psychic researcher.  I don't remember the details exactly, but Eleanor has been the center of some poltergeist activity in the past.  The researcher has invited people like her to the house to see if they can prompt it to show them what it's capable of. At Hill House, Eleanor is more truly free to be herself. She's been such a lonely, meek soul for so long that it takes her just a little while to loosen up, but she does it. She becomes fast friends with the other people in…

So, since it's Valentine's Day and all, it's time to feature a character crush. This time, it's Rhett Butler. I know, how predictable can I be, right? But there's a reason that so many women love this man. Rhett. From the first time he appears on the page, I think my eye was drawn to him as often as Scarlett's was. He is handsome and physically powerful, but he has a commanding presence as well. He seems to dominate the room easily when he wants to, but he's capable of sitting back and observing and blending in until he blinds someone with a pithy, sarcastic remark. "As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was annoyed with herself because she did not feel…

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved Major Pettigrew from the book by Helen Simonson. I don't always do well with military types. I look all meek and mild, but the minute I'm given anything that even remotely resembles an order, I dig in my heels. That's not really the best way to get on with men who are used to having their orders obeyed. But Major Pettigrew is a little different. Well, a lot different once you get to know him. From my review: "There was so much more to the Major than I expected. I expected some sort of repressed "Right-o, carry on then" kind of bore. To paraphrase another character, the Major isn't bad for an old git. I laughed so many times at his dry one-liners. They were made all the funnier because he mostly said them around people who completely missed them. One wouldn't want to seem impolite, now would one? He has definite ideas about Proper Behavior and the Right Thing to Do, but he's also flexible enough to pursue a relationship with a Pakistani woman. He sees past their obvious differences, ignores all the idiots blabbing on tv about relations with the Middle East, and sees through to the beautiful kindred spirit within. He's also got a big streak of the Knight in Shining Armor." There are a few things that saved him. First of all, I think he just fell into the military more because it was expected of him as the eldest son of a soldier. I don't think he was truly temperamentally suited to the army life. After he left the army, he became an English teacher at a boys' school. A reader. Don't we all love men who read? I pictured the Major as Peter O'Toole The…

Deryn Sharp is one of the main characters in the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld. I've only read the first two. She's about 15 or 16 and she's one of those characters who are perennial favorites among female readers--a girl disguised as a boy. I wonder why we do like them so much? But that's a post for another day. Deryn is intelligent and brave. She loves the Darwinist creatures that her father worked around before his death. She decides that she is going to follow in his footsteps and join the British Air Service as a ship's boy on board a flying ship. In their world, this amounts to a flying whale. I know. But it's really cool and makes sense in the context of the story. She of course manages to land herself in all kinds of trouble. She's not really a troublemaker, she just reacts so quickly to situations that she's in the middle of them before anyone else has time to blink. She never hesitates to do the right thing or the brave thing. The one thing that bothers me a little about her is that she can follow orders a little too blindly. She's so intelligent, I have a hard time believing she wouldn't question some orders. I guess she wants so badly to stay in the Air Service that she does what she can to stay in the officers' good graces. As she's getting a little older in the books, I enjoy watching her struggling with her femininity. She definitely has some feelings for one guy in particular, but he has no idea she's a girl. True, that's a standard complication in these kinds of books. It doesn't make it any less entertaining for me though. Who did you connect with this week? Link…

Marianne Engel is the main character from The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. It's been a while since I read this, so my details might be off, but I'll definitely be true to the spirit of Marianne. Marianne at first comes across as a crazy lady. Not in any kind of a dangerous way, but in a whoa-let's-take-a-step-back-here-cuz-what-the-heck-is-this-chick-talking-about kind of way. The narrator, who is never named, has been horribly burned in a car crash. Marianne, whom he has never met before in his life, suddenly shows up in his hospital room claiming that they were lovers in a past life. Now, the narrator at this point is not a nice person. At all. He admits it himself from the beginning. But Marianne comes in and starts caring for him. She sits with him and tells him stories and does whatever she can to make him comfortable and help him pass the time. She even cares for the nurses who are taking care of him. She listens to them and brings them gifts and treats. Her stories are amazing. They cover vastly different times and cultures, and she talks about the characters as if they're people she's been friends with. They are all beautiful, timeless love stories. And that is how she starts to crack the narrator's tough shell and make him a better man. She's also a talented carver of gargoyles. I don't remember if she actually says anything like this, but I at least got the impression that she agreed with Michelangelo; she isn't carving a form, she's setting it free. Her other...eccentricities...fade when compared with her carving. So what if she's a little kooky in day to day life? She's spreading love and beauty and compassion in a world that desperately needs it. But when she's carving, she…

Frankie Bard is one of three main characters in The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, a World War II novel that I loved and which inspired my favorite personal review. Man, I impressed myself with that one! Anyway, this is what I had to say about Frankie then: "I am going to be haunted by Frankie's story for a long time. I should [...]

Moses Froben. A world-famous opera singer. No one would ever guess the story of his life. I just loved Moses when I read his story in The Bells by Richard Harvell. He began life as the only son of a deaf woman whom everyone believed to be the village idiot. Their life was not easy, surviving as best they could in a hovel, but really and truly living in the bell tower of the village church. Unknowingly, she gave her son the priceless gift of a beautiful voice and the ears to recognize beauty when he hears it. Moses eventually ends up living with some monks, who recognize his talent and start to train his voice. He's a lonely boy who lives in uncertain fear of some of the monks. He loves the music though, and does what he must in order to have it. The world through Moses's eyes is uncertain and dark for the most part. But when he finds love, the whole tenor of the book changes. He grasps it tenderly but with both hands, because he has learned how easily that which we love is lost. When obstacles stand in the way of what he wants, whether that is happiness or his career, he does not let anyone stand in his way. I don't remember thinking of Moses as being a particularly powerful character; he wasn't the type to pick fights or draw attention to himself. But tenacious describes him perfectly. He chooses his battles wisely and then puts everything that he is into them. His life is never easy, but he doesn't complain overly much, and he makes the most of his opportunities. When things happen to him that would crush the souls of most people, he picks himself up and keeps going. When he…