Don Quixote leads the way in this image and the blog post below.
I started sorting through my family’s 2025 tax paperwork yesterday, which reminded me that a tax-preparation company we used for the first time last year was rather incompetent. (Needless to say, we’ll be trying a different company this month.) I was also reminded of characters in novels who are incompetent or bumbling — with some of them sympathetic and some of them less so.
Before I continue with today’s theme, I wanted to mention that a far-from-inept podcaster/blogger — the mega-talented Rebecca Budd, who many of you know of via WordPress — interviewed me about how reading books can be helpful and comforting in these very difficult times. Thank you, Rebecca, for the great questions and wonderful conversation! Which can be listened to here:
Anyway, the first inept character who came to mind was the clueless and deluded but kind of charming Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ early-1600s classic. Quixote IS quite skilled at attacking windmills he mistakes for enemies. 🙂
Not as sympathetic is the buffoonish Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Also inept, at the start of the seven-book Potter series, is Hogwarts student Neville Longbottom, but his character arc eventually has him become more self-assured and even heroic.
An inept/adept mix can also be simultaneous — as with the bounty hunter Stephanie Plum who is both bumbling and skilled in Janet Evanovich’s series of novels.
Then there’s Ignatius J. Reilly, who could be categorized as a fool in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. But he has some smarts, too, and is funny as hell.
The combination of ineptness and proficiency manifests itself in a different way in Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon, in which Charlie Gordon goes from being a low-IQ to high-IQ individual via an experimental surgical procedure.
A poignant character with almost no life skills is “The Poor Fool,” a child of Wang Lung and O-Lan in Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. The girl, who isn’t named in the novel, has a mental handicap probably caused by being a baby the year her family was starving. Yes, some characters sadly have no control over how they turn out.
Back in 2019, I wrote a post about bad bosses in novels, and some of them were pretty incompetent — including Captain Queeg in Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny.
Most of us know some incompetent people in real life, so that type is certainly familiar when encountered in literature. Even welcome in a way, because we’re relieved that these people are fictional rather than real. 🙂
Thoughts about, and examples of, today’s topic?
Misty the cat says: “That car either disappeared into the garage or into the space-time continuum.”
My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )
This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂
I’m also the author of a literary-trivia book…
…and a memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.
In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about Black History Month and a closed fire station — is here.
Dave Astor on Literature 
🤜🏼🤛🏼 There you go Dave! Love this! 💖
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Interesting, Dave. As in real life, inept characters play important roles in the protagonist’s journey. In the cases where they are the main character, as in the cases you mention, readers have the opportunity to watch them grow and succeed. I don’t recall similar characters from other noteworthy novels, but the inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau, from The Pink Panther movie series came to mind.
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Thank you, Rosaliene! It’s nice when incompetent characters occasionally become more competent. 🙂 Somehow I’ve ever seen a Pink Panther movie or cartoon (except in passing), but I’ve heard about the ineptness of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Great example!
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Good evening Dave,it was a pleasure for me to listen to your very interesting conversation with Rebecca, concerning reading and also reading aloud together with other people, which I really enjoy, because, like you, it helps me to better understand the content!
Unfortunately I don’t know any uncompetent people, but I do know 2 very efficient blogger! Thank you for all your energy you are investing for your comunity:)
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Thank you, Martina, for the very kind words! Much appreciated! Glad you enjoyed the podcast; Rebecca always gets good conversations going. 🙂
It’s wonderful that you don’t personally know any incompetent people!
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A great topic. I have certainly met some incompetent people in real life. I’ve hired some, worked with/for some, maybe even married one at some point. They are part of life and have loveable qualities as well. Shakespeare almost always included one or two in his plays, even the serious plays. Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, Bottom in Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Touchstone in As You Like It and the gravediggers in Hamlet come to mind.
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Thank you, Darlene! Yes, incompetent people can be part of our personal lives or work lives, and some are lovable and others much less so. Sorry you’ve had to experience them. When I think of some of the supervisors I worked under during my full-time-job years, I’m…glad to be freelancing. 🙂 And great Shakespeare mentions. His plays (I must confess to reading or seeing only about a half-dozen of them) seem to contain almost every personality type imaginable.
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What a fun theme! I’ll need to do some mulling to see what I come up with, but I like your sampling, Dave. Thanks, too, for including your chat with Rebecca! I look forward to listening later today. 💝
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Thank you, Vicki! I’ll look forward to what you come up with, if you come up with something. 🙂 And I hope you enjoy the podcast! Rebecca is a fabulous host.
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Listening now! 😉 So good!
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Just finished listening…what a pleasure! I loved your thoughts and Rebecca’s about the importance of books as “stabilizers” during turbulent, rocky times. Couldn’t agree more — books as calming, centering tools. Yes! I enjoyed my cup of afternoon tea listening to you both – many thanks! 💝
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I’m feeling incapable of adding anything useful to these comments, Dave.
Tax season is imminent, unfortunately.
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Thank you, Audrey! Tax season can definitely be an unwelcome distraction. Might explain why today’s blog post of mine is kind of so-so. 🙂
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Chance in Jerzy Kosinsky’s Being There comes to mind. The there is Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple, who solves crimes by appearing to be a dotty and dithering old lady.
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Thank you, Liz! Two great examples! Chance of course was considered a genius (an “idiot savant”?) by some but obviously was not. And “appearing to be a dotty and dithering old lady” was a brilliant investigative strategy.
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I hope you find better tax people this year! Great interview. Fun to hear your voice.
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Thank you very much, Marie! It’s great to converse with Rebecca. 🙂 As for better tax people, nowhere to go but up after last year. 🙂
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The hunchback of notre dame comes to mind
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Thank you, Milena! Excellent mention! Yes, Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo character was kind of awkward and bumbling, with low self-esteem, but of course goodhearted in his way.
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It’s hard to tell if he was incapable or very capable
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True! VERY capable in certain ways.
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Ignatius J. Reilly briefly reappears in my own novel The Last Titan. He’s actually the Greek god Hermes in a fat suit doing impossible physical stunts while spouting off Reilly’s inimitable dialogue.
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Thank you, Michael! Wow — that sounds like a great cameo! I love it when novels reference other novels/characters from other novels.
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