literature

Mental Illness in Fiction

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There’s a lot of mental illness in the world, and there’s a lot of mental illness in literature.

And why not? Fiction frequently reflects real life (albeit often in a heightened way) and many readers have suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, etc. — or have family members, friends, and coworkers with various such conditions.

Mental illness — which of course ranges from mild to severe — can also help give literature the important elements of drama, heartbreak, curiosity-evoking content, cliffhanger situations, etc. Will characters with mental illness harm themselves or others? Can they function well in society, perhaps with the help of medication and/or therapy? How much does income level determine how people with mental illness are treated? Do the characters live at home or in a facility? Are some of them misdiagnosed? Do characters who know characters with mental illness act resentfully, compassionately, or both ways in their interactions? Heck, people with mental illness can’t help the fact that their brain chemistry has wired them differently — yet the resulting behavior is still not easy for family and friends.

One of the most famous novels dealing with mental illness is Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, set in a psychiatric ward. Known to many for its movie version, the book includes the sobering scenario of ward residents being treated harshly by Nurse Ratched.

Indeed, literature has many examples of the mentally ill not getting much compassion. For instance, the far-from-affluent Connie Ramos of Marge Piercy’s part-sci-fi novel Woman on the Edge of Time is institutionalized despite probably not being mentally ill at all — just legitimately angry at, and stressed with, what life has dealt her.

But there are other instances of characters being treated kindly by mental-health professionals — often in cases where the family has the money to pay for superior care. One example is in Jamie’s Children by Susan Moore Jordan, whose Niall character gets some darn good help that might help him save a relationship and create a music career.

Other literary works containing characters with mental illness, possible mental illness, depression, severe social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. — or who are “eccentric” or “slow” — include Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (“madwoman in the attic” Bertha), Jean Rhys’ Jane Eyre prequel Wide Sargasso Sea (a more sympathetic Bertha as a younger woman), Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (comically delusional title character), Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (despairing title character), Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (psychologically sick Raskolnikov), and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (reclusive Boo Radley).

Also: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (shell-shocked war veteran Septimus Smith), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night (had-a-breakdown Nicole Diver), Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (spacey Sylvie), Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (dual-personality title character), Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor (beleaguered Lucy Ashton), Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (depressed/suicidal Esther Greenwood), Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (schizophrenic Deborah Blau), Shakespeare’s Hamlet (possibly psychotic title character), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (hallucinating/patronized-by-husband female narrator).

Several of the above fictional works were semi-autobiographical.

One of the most famous examples of an author who struggled with mental illness was Janet Frame, whose scheduled lobotomy was canceled when a collection of her stories won a prestigious literary prize in New Zealand.

Then there are works featuring characters on the autism spectrum — a neuro-developmental condition, not a mental illness. One such person is Christopher of Mark Haddon’s novel-turned-play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

What are your favorite novels featuring characters who are or may be mentally ill? Any thoughts on the way that’s depicted in literature?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’ve finished and am now rewriting/polishing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

‘The Next Stephen King’ and Other Comparisons

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Before I read John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Harbor last week, I noticed that four of the eight review quotes on the back cover compared Lindqvist to the great Stephen King. Hmm…how derivative was this Scandinavian guy, anyway?

Actually, the excellent Harbor turned out to be quite original. It was obviously in the horror genre, but with a wintry, in-Sweden twist. Other differences from King, too. It all reminded me of…John Ajvide Lindqvist. With a touch of Peter Hoeg (Smilla’s Sense of Snow).

Yet I understand the reviewer shorthand of author comparisons. Some people — for better or for worse — want writers placed in a certain literary style or genre before deciding whether to read them. And many book publishers categorize authors in marketing campaigns.

Of course, comparisons to other authors might be dead-on, or barely an approximation. Also, some writers welcome being put in the company of a famous earlier author or novel, while others may feel such a comparison is a slur on their originality or even a near-plagiarism charge. But, heck, no writer or fictional work is completely unique.

Examples of other authors who’ve been compared to earlier authors? Let me count the names. To remain in the horror category for a minute, H.P. Lovecraft was definitely influenced by Edgar Allan Poe.

In more “general” literature, John Irving has been mentioned in the same sentence as Dickens for sprawling, seriocomic works such as The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Donna Tartt’s multifaceted The Goldfinch, Eleanor Catton’s sweeping The Luminaries, and Jonathan Franzen’s wide-ranging Freedom have also moved some reviewers to name-check Charles D.

When Isabel Allende came out with The House of the Spirits, many reviewers and readers were reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. And the comparison is somewhat apt, though Allende put her own stamp on magic realism and multigenerational storytelling — such as concentrating more on the female characters.

Then of course there’s Cormac McCarthy following in the footsteps of William Faulkner with almost-biblical prose depicting the lives of often flawed, unhappy, eccentric, far-from-affluent people. “Southern Gothic” and all that.

Speaking of the American South, True Grit author Charles Portis’ funnier novels (such as Norwood) are reminiscent of Erskine Caldwell’s comedic classics Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre.

In the “modernist” area, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway takes some inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

And A.S. Byatt — especially with her intricate masterpiece Possession — has been compared to the incomparable George Eliot.

Of course, finding a resemblance between authors can often be too facile an endeavor — especially when describing female and African-American writers. For instance, Barbara Kingsolver kind of echoes Margaret Atwood in penning fiction that’s feminist and political yet more character-driven than polemical, but their writing styles are really not alike. And the works of African-American writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker have as many — or more — differences than similarities.

Who are some specific authors who can be compared to earlier specific authors?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m almost finished writing a book called Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Writers, but am still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

These Days, More Explicit Lit Is Often What’s Writ

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It’s no revelation that a lot of recent literature is more frank, candid, and graphic than fiction of the distant past — with sex or violence often spelled out rather than implied. But while this blog post’s theme might be unoriginal, I’m going to give my take and then ask for yours.  🙂

Despite the queasiness that blunt treatment of sex or violence can elicit on occasion, I’m glad overall that recent lit tends to be more forthright. It’s real life, and it can be psychologically healthy to have things out in the open and straightforwardly addressed.

Of course, one hopes the explicit stuff is not too over the top, and that young readers aren’t exposed to it until they’re ready. And there’s a part of me that does prefer mature content being presented with some mystery and subtlety — which explains part of the appeal of classic novels. Heck, it can require a heap of writing skill to effectively hint at things rather than be totally direct.

I thought of this topic when juxtaposing two recently read books — Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford (1853) and Abigail Tarttelin’s Golden Boy (2013) — published 160 years apart.

Gaskell’s novel, which mostly focuses on the older single women of a small English town, describes their relationships and an appalling railroad accident in relatively low-key ways. It’s not a boring book — Cranford is absorbing in it’s light-yet-serious fashion — but the content is all rather…decorous.

Of course, one can’t overgeneralize about long-ago literature. For instance, Emile Zola’s 1880 Nana novel was pretty racy for its time (probably no surprise that Zola was French  🙂 ), but even some 19th-century British novels were bursting with veiled yet not completely veiled passion — as any reader of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and several of George Eliot’s magnificent novels would tell you. (But the times forced Eliot, who never wed her longtime partner George Henry Lewes, to be discreet when depicting a key non-marital sexual relationship in 1859’s Adam Bede.)

On to Golden Boy. Tarttelin’s compelling novel speaks openly of sex and sexual identity: heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and intersexual — teen protagonist Max, while identifying as male, has both male and female genitalia. The book also features an exceptionally painful-to-read rape. But everything is in the service of the plot, and Golden Boy ends up being a memorable read from a very young author still in her 20s.

Like the 1853 Cranford, Tartellin’s 2013 novel is set in a small English town — but what a difference 160 years makes! Still, Golden Boy‘s technique of having the narration switch from character to character harks back more than eight decades to how William Faulkner structured As I Lay Dying (1930) — even as Golden Boy reminds me (while being its own original self) of two more recent novels: J.K. Rowling and her depiction of teens in The Casual Vacancy (2012), and Jeffrey Eugenides and his gender-confused protagonist in Middlesex (2002).

Lee Child’s twenty riveting Jack Reacher books, from 1997’s The Killing Floor to 2015’s Make Me, are examples of how frank displays of sexuality and vivid descriptions of violence are part and parcel of many modern thrillers, mysteries, etc. Heck, as violent as some pre-1900 novels might have been, most didn’t have quite the clinical detail of some of Reacher’s bone-crushing battles with the bad guys.

Other relatively recent novels with spasms of violence rendered in a way hard to imagine in most long-ago lit include Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (1985), Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy (2008-10), and Frank Bill’s Donnybrook (2013). Then again, things got rather graphic when two people were murdered by Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 classic Crime and Punishment.

Do you agree that modern literature tends to be more frank and candid? If so, what do you think of that? What are some examples of novels with fairly explicit depictions of sex or violence, and some examples of books that take a more subtle approach?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Women of Fiction With Lots of Ambition

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I like to go AWOL: reading novels that star Ambitious Women Of Literature. Those fictional characters are often Admirable while they Work hard to conquer Obstacles in Life — As We Observantly Look. But enough of this Acronym Wordplay Overdose Locus.

Ambitious female protagonists are of course more prevalent in modern literature, as a good chunk of the world has become less patriarchal and countless women have entered previously “male” professions. (Heck, the U.S. will probably elect a woman president in November.) But even long-ago literature has female protagonists impressively pushing against the limits that society places on them. All of which makes for plenty of potential drama in fiction old and new.

Much of my summer reading has featured ambitious female characters. For instance, Frank Moorhouse’s Grand Days focuses on twenty-something Australian Edith Campbell Berry as she starts work for the League of Nations in 1920s Geneva. Smart, driven, idealistic, self-analytical, willing to try new things, and sometimes rather annoying, Edith makes her mark in a mostly male milieu — but not without many challenges.

The book I read before that was Fannie Flagg’s I Still Dream About You, in which Maggie Fortenberry ambitiously tried but didn’t succeed in parlaying her Miss Alabama title into fame and fortune. Yet, as the novel gradually shows, this kind woman became a success in other ways.

Then there’s I Still Dream About You‘s villain, real estate agent Babs Bingington, who builds a boffo business for a while via a scorched-earth approach. (She came to Alabama from New Jersey, but — hey — there are many non-Babs-ian people in my state. 🙂 )

Other ambitious but not very likable protagonists include ruthless social climber Undine Spragg of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, near-psychopath Cathy Trask of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and determined, manipulative, more-sympathetic-than-the-above-two-characters Becky Sharp of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Having a higher likability quotient is hardworking Gervaise Macquart, who enterprisingly opens her own laundry before tragically being dragged down to life’s depths by her shiftless husband Coupeau in Emile Zola’s The Drinking Den.

On a more positive note, Emily Starr strongly wants to be a writer in the L.M. Montgomery trilogy of Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest. She achieves that goal, though her life has plenty of difficulties. Another memorable character driven to write is Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

The young widow title character in Thomas Hardy’s The Hand of Ethelberta also knows what she wants: to be a successful poet (done!) and to bring together herself and the siblings with whom she grew up poor. You’ll be impressed with how the resourceful Ethelberta goes about trying to achieve that second goal.

The likable Thea Kronborg’s ambition is a singing career, and she becomes a renowned opera star in Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark.

Another likable and ambitious protagonist is the title character in Robert Haught’s Here’s Clare and Clare’s New Leaf. In the first novel, she runs for governor of California; in the second, her accomplishments include acting work.

Although her quest was supposedly pushed by God more than herself, Joan of Arc was certainly ambitious in taking command of a 15th-century French army. That tale is “fictionalizingly” told in Mark Twain’s historical novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

Then there’s Hermione Granger, who’s self-driven to be the smartest and hardest-working Hogwarts student in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. AWOL in the sense that she’s Among Wizards Of Literature.

Who are your favorite ambitious female characters?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Novelists and Other Nobel-Nabbing Names

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Like those who comment under this blog, I take pride in having read many fiction writers. But, for me, a look at the list of “Nobel Prize in Literature” recipients punctures that pride a bit.

That major honor was first offered in 1901, and since then 112 people have won it. But I’ve read only 31 of those writers — in some cases, only a small sample of their work.

Those 31: Rudyard Kipling (1907 winner), Rabindranath Tagore (1913), Anatole France (1921), William Butler Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Sinclair Lewis (1930), Eugene O’Neill (1936), Pearl S. Buck (1938), Herman Hesse (1946), T.S. Eliot (1948), William Faulkner (1949), Par Lagerkvist (1951), Ernest Hemingway (1954), Albert Camus (1957), Boris Pasternak (1958), John Steinbeck (1962), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970), Pablo Neruda (1971), Saul Bellow (1976), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982), William Golding (1983), Wole Soyinka (1986), Nadine Gordimer (1991), Toni Morrison (1993), V.S. Naipaul (2001), Orhan Pamuk (2006), Doris Lessing (2007), J.M.G. Le Clezio (2008), Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), and Alice Munro (2013).

(Kipling, 42, was the youngest of the 112 winners and Lessing, 88, the oldest — with 64 the average age.)

Why haven’t I read more Nobel recipients? Well, there are many great non-Nobel authors to enjoy. 🙂 Also, I’m drawn to many works by female authors, and women have unfortunately won the prize only 14 times. Then there’s the matter of some authors being little known in the U.S. (or even their own countries) until winning the prize; some not having English translations of their work before (and in certain cases even after) receiving the Nobel; some having a reputation for not being easy to read; and some hailing from countries with which I might feel I don’t have enough cultural knowledge to fully appreciate their writing. I like to read sometimes-challenging authors from a fairly wide range of countries, but I could do better.

Since 1901, the most Nobel recipients have come from France (15), followed by the United States and United Kingdom (10 apiece), Germany and Sweden (8 apiece), Italy and Spain (6 apiece), etc. Among the many other countries represented in the winners’ circle have been Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Colombia, Guatemala, Iceland, India, Ireland, Japan, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Saint Lucia, and Turkey.

The Nobel has certainly spurred me to read some writers for the first time — including J.M.G. Le Clezio and Alice Munro. Other writers I’ve read with little or no thought of them having been Nobel recipients (Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and others).

Here’s a link to the list of Nobel literature recipients. How many have you read? Who are your favorites? Any other thoughts on the prize and the authors who’ve won it?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

A Ghost Post

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When one thinks of the supernatural in literature, one immediately thinks of ghost stories. Yet some non-ghost tales and novels also have moments of a paranormal nature. This post will discuss both kinds of works.

Supernatural fiction is of course appealing for a variety of reasons. It offers vicarious thrills (we’re not experiencing the spookiness in real life), piques our curiosity about how characters will react to the scares, sparks our interest in how inventive authors will be in creating the eeriness, etc.

I got to thinking about all this not by seeing the current Ghostbusters movie but by reading The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. A really good collection, including “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” tale that memorably chronicles a household with the specter of a dead servant still hanging around.

Then there’s The Turn of the Screw by Wharton’s friend Henry James, whose novel makes readers wonder about the age-old question posed by many ghost stories: Are the apparitions real or are they the products of anxious characters’ imaginations? Heck, the alarming eyes that appear in the dead of night in Wharton’s “The Eyes” are just the protagonist’s conscience, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Sometimes, phantasms are partly played for laughs, as in Oscar Wilde’s hilarious yet poignant story “The Canterville Ghost” — whose title character can be rather bumbling when it comes to frightening people. Or with the funnier of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter ghosts — including Nearly Headless Nick (named Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington when alive) and poetry-spouting Peeves the Poltergeist (“oh Potter, you rotter…”).

In other recent fiction, Stephen King’s work has periodically been ghostly in addition to being in the genres of horror, etc. One example is his low-key, spine-tingling novel From a Buick 8, in which a supernatural car is a sort of portal to another world.

There are more haunted houses than haunted cars in literature, and one of them is the mansion in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Strange noises and presences seem to dwell in that dwelling — and one character might be getting “possessed” by the house — but the story is told with such skillful understatement that readers are not sure what to think.

Or how about Peter Straub’s aptly named Ghost Story, in which the past psychologically and literally haunts a group of old men who might be getting targeted for something they did wrong in their youth? The grapes of wraith and all that…

A mild-mannered but also-vengeful specter appears in Edith Wharton’s story “Afterward,” a cautionary tale about what happens when a businessman gets a little too greedy. Which reminds me of the spooky visits in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, though Marley’s ghost never sings the reggae tune “No, Scrooge Guy, No Cry.”

Then there are the understandably vengeful, long-dead dogs in Wharton’s chilling tale “Kerfol.” (Yes, animals can be ghosts, too.)

But, as noted before, the supernatural can be just a part of “general interest” works. For instance, think of the magic realism novels — such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits (yes…SPIRITS!) — that have humans occasionally fly and do other strange things.

Think also of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which is realistic in its way yet has the famous, pivotal scene in which a despairing Edward Rochester calls Jane’s name and she hears him despite being too far away to hear him.

Even “lighter” novels can have seemingly supernatural moments. For instance, Fannie Flagg’s heartwarming A Redbird Christmas has a crucial scene in which a girl’s life is saved because it snows in just one small southern Alabama town as scores of redbirds descend. If that seems confusing, read the delightful novel — it will all make sense.

And I haven’t even discussed the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.!

What are your favorite ghost stories? What are your favorite non-ghost works with occasional supernatural moments?

I’ll be skipping a July 31 post (vacation!) but will return Aug. 7.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Nicknames in Novels

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Among the many things memorable in works of fiction, character nicknames are probably far down the list. But those informal monikers can be fun, interesting, make protagonists seem more approachable, and/or offer insight into their personalities, accomplishments, and looks.

My nickname today? “The Man Who Was Desperate for a Blog Topic During This Summer Week.”

In literature, Natty Bumppo of James Fenimore Cooper’s five “Leatherstocking” novels might be the king of different designations — a good thing considering how silly “Natty Bumppo” sounds. He’s known as Hawkeye and La Longue Carabine (The Long Rifle) in The Last of the Mohicans, by the books’ titles in The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder, as “the trapper” and “the old man” in The Prairie, etc.

Hopefully no one who met The Scarlet Letter author Nathaniel Hawthorne called him Natty…

Another character with more than one nickname is Lord Voldemort in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Voldemort (born Tom Marvolo Riddle) is called “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and “The Dark Lord,” among other things. Some of the series’ other characters have nicknames such as “The Boy Who Lived” (Harry himself) and “Mad-Eye” (Alastor Moody).

Speaking of eye issues, there’s the patch-wearing Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn in Charles Portis’ novel True Grit. (Sadly, John Wayne didn’t portray another rooster — Chanticleer of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Was the “Duke” too American for that role?)

Another novel with various nicknames is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch, Charles Baker “Dill” Harris, Arthur “Boo” Radley (who those kids initially feared)…

There are also many casual monikers in Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, another novel of the American South. Imogene “Idgie” Threadgoode, the Buddy character (“Stump”) who lost his arm in a railroad accident, the hobo “Smokey Lonesome” Phillips, “Big George”…

Which reminds me of “Chicken George” (George Lea), who trained chickens in Alex Haley’s Roots.

Charles Dickens’ novels also have a number of nicknamed characters: the pickpocketing Artful Dodger (Jack Dawkins) of Oliver Twist, Tiny Tim (Tim Cratchit) of A Christmas Carol, Pip (Philip Pirrip) of Great Expectations…

And if you haven’t overdosed on “P” and “i” names, there’s Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi — which is longer than 3.14 pages when the tiger character doesn’t eat most of the book.

Then there are the Mirabal sisters (Las Mariposas — The Butterflies) from Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, which partly fictionalizes the story of those brave opponents to Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.

A couple more examples: Captain “Aarfy” Aardvaark of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, and the wondrous baseball player Roy Hobbs whose nickname is the title of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. Incidentally, “Roy Hobbs” was a moniker mix of real-life baseball legends Rogers Hornsby and Ty Cobb — who had more hits than Taylor Swift, but less romantic angst on YouTube.

Of course, it almost goes without saying that countless characters have predictable nicknames: Sue for Susan, Jim for James, etc.

What are your favorite nicknames in literature?

Here’s a somewhat-related 2015 post about author aliases.

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

When Gender Enters a Blender in Literature

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I like a lot of literature in which women display so-called “masculine” behavior and men display so-called “feminine” behavior.

That not only applies to recent fiction written during a time when gender roles are thankfully becoming less defined, but also applies to older lit by the occasional authors who weren’t totally rigid about gender roles in an era when that kind of tolerance was considered “out there.” Sometimes, older lit was dismissive of the gender-role flexibility it was depicting; other times, it was more sincere.

Why do I like it when female and male characters are not put in gender boxes? Besides the fact that gender roles should be more fluid, that fluidity can make for stories that are more interesting, unconventional, etc.

Two works I read this summer exemplify how compelling all this can be. One of them was Julia Alvarez’s superb novel In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), a part-fictionalized tale of four real-life sisters who riskily (three were murdered) became prominent in the effort to depose despicable dictator Rafael Trujillo — ruler of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until he was assassinated himself in 1961. The other work was Bret Harte’s memorable short story “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868), in which hard-bitten California Gold Rushers act maternally with a baby born in an all-male camp (the mother died in childbirth).

I read Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White a couple of decades ago, but still vividly recall one of its most original characters: Marian Halcombe, who was depicted as kind of “masculine” even as her main attributes were intelligence, resourcefulness, and bravery displayed while helping unravel the 1859 novel’s mystery.

There’s the also-brave Judith Hutter in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer — which, despite being published in 1841 and set in the 1740s, has her be the one to propose marriage to frontiersman Natty Bumppo.

In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Ma Joad becomes the decision-maker (and her husband takes a more subsidiary role) as intense hardship befalls their family.

Then there are novels in which women run for high political office — as does the title character in Robert L. Haught’s engaging Here’s Clare (2014) when she seeks the California governorship. (I’m now reading the 2016 sequel, Clare’s New Leaf.) Of course, politics is less of a male’s world than it used to be, but still unfortunately a majority-men realm.

Or novels in which women work in other professions many still tend to associate with men — as does the Sheila character who runs a New Orleans bar in the memorable Grail Nights (2015) by Amanda Moores (wife of commenter jhNY).

When it comes to female characters who are girls, there are many examples of “tomboys”: Scout Finch of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868), Maggie Tulliver of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860), Frankie Addams of Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding (1946), and Idgie Threadgoode of Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), among others. Some grow out of their “tomboy” ways, some don’t; some are definitely or seemingly gay, some aren’t.

Adult males who don’t fit the conventional masculine mold? The gentle giant King of Elizabeth Berg’s Open House (2000) cooks like a chef and has had just one sexual experience as he approaches middle age. And there’s the also-gentle Forney Hull, who works in a library in Billie Letts’ Where the Heart Is (1995).

Heck, being gentle is not that unusual a male trait, but there’s still an expectation that many male characters will be macho, sexist, domineering, sports-talking people reluctant to share their feelings.

Other male characters defy the “conventional wisdom” by being much better parents than their wives; one example is Subhash of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013).

Young fictional males acting in non-stereotypical ways include Paul Irving, the sweet, daydreaming boy in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea (1909) who eventually becomes a published poet; and John Grimes, the sensitive teen protagonist in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

(In Baldwin’s novel, John’s nice-guy biological father Richard died because of police racism that’s still tragically with us in 2016 as trigger-happy white cops yet again shot and murdered defenseless African-Americans — this time, Alton Sterling of Louisiana and Philando Castile of Minnesota, after which there was retaliatory violence against police in Dallas.)

Sadly, many female and male characters are thwarted when trying to break free of gender boxes. For instance, the wife in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s riveting 1892 story “The Yellow Wallpaper” just wants to work and have some mental stimulation, but — like many 19th-century women — has to deal with monotony and oppression at the hands of her patronizing husband and society in general.

What are some of your favorite literary works that scramble gender expectations?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

The Unexpected in Famous Novels

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When people crack open a famous novel, they often have certain expectations. But sometimes surprises are in store.

Part of the reason is that many of us (myself included) try not to read too much about iconic books before starting them for the first time. This means not clicking on Wikipedia entries, ignoring Amazon summaries and reviews, and skipping the forewords and introductions in the novels themselves — all of which avoids spoilers and allows for the books to unfold in a fresh way.

My most recent experience with a classic novel that surprised me was D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913). Just about all I knew of it was that its original publisher deleted a number of passages that were “risque” or otherwise “controversial” — passages that were fairly tame by today’s standards. But I was struck by how much more there was to the excellent novel than sexual references. A portrait of a working-class family, an exploration of a mismatched marriage, a depiction of a frustrated mother and her emotionally too-close relationship with her second son, a chronicle of that son’s complicated romantic life, etc.

Then there are those challenging classics that have a reputation for being SERIOUS, yet one discovers when reading them that they contain moments of hilarity — as with the devil “cameo” in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and the Ishmael/Queequeg room-share scene in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Then there’s Silas Marner, which has been the bane of some high school students who found it (allegedly) tedious, moralistic, and not something to be read unless assigned by a teacher. But I thought George Eliot’s short novel was warm, affecting, inspiring, and more.

Or Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, who has a reputation for writing excellent novels set in New York City’s high society. But EF pulls us in with a tale of far-from-rich folk in rural Massachusetts.

I knew a little something about Of Human Bondage‘s plot before I read W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece, but was still shocked by just how much the would-be-doctor protagonist degraded himself with a woman totally wrong for him.

I also knew that Cormac McCarthy’s riveting Blood Meridian was going to be violent. But the intensity of the mayhem (very graphic for a literary novel) took me aback.

Another big surprise was the sympathetic portrayal of a Jewish character (Rebecca) in a novel published in 1820, when anti-Semitism was rampant. The book: Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.

Along those lines, Alexandre Dumas’ 1843 novel Georges contains exceptionally positive portrayals of black characters for its time. Then again, I shouldn’t have been that surprised given that Dumas was partly black himself, though he usually focused on white characters (as in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers).

All those unexpected things mentioned above are examples of why reading literature can be so wonderful.

What surprises have you found in famous novels?

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as “Dear Abby” and Ann Landers, and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.

Great Novels With One Memorable Flaw

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There are novels we love that might contain one disliked — even cringe-worthy — scene, element, or subplot we could do without. But we still love the books…most of the time.

Why do some great novels have a memorable flaw? I hate to break this to anyone, but authors aren’t perfect. 🙂 It’s hard to do anything as difficult and time-consuming as writing a book without the occasional misstep.

I thought about this while reading Lionel Shriver’s So Much for That last week. The 2010 book is fantastic — perhaps the best 21st-century novel I’ve had the privilege to read. It’s exquisitely written, devastatingly sad, wickedly funny, and wonderfully inspiring as Ms. Shriver (this Lionel is a she) focuses on two star-crossed families, overrated consumerism, exploitation of the powerless, and the profit-driven mess of an American medical system (two characters have fatal diseases). Plus there’s pitch-perfect dialogue — including some amazing rants — from the novel’s memorable cast. And the tropical-island ending? Wow! But there’s one subplot about a botched penile enlargement that — while sort of germane to the book’s themes and something that indirectly brings two other characters together — is rather gross and not truly needed. Yet…what a novel!

Another health-crisis-filled book — Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper — has a disturbing plot twist near the end that’s very hard to take. A twist so disturbing that it knocked the otherwise-excellent novel down enough notches to make me doubt I was glad to have read it.

In Elizabeth Berg’s Open House, protagonist Samantha makes a humiliating/embarrassing attempt to give her unlikable husband oral sex many weeks after he had coldly left her — even though the novel had already made it abundantly clear that Samantha’s self-esteem was low at the time. Fortunately, Samantha more than got her act together by the end of the mostly great book.

One of the most famous examples of a clunky moment in a terrific work is the epilogue that ends The Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final Harry Potter book. Those few pages showing Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and others 19 years later are rather tedious and awkwardly written. But Rowling’s series is so wonderful that the rare false note is okay — and, heck, the epilogue ended up inspiring the new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Turning to older classics, there are missteps in three outstanding novels by three giants of 19th-century American literature. Mark Twain’s iconic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn includes the repellent section in which Tom Sawyer treats the escaped slave Jim cavalierly. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables is magnificently moody and melancholy until the authorial gears switch to a happy ending that doesn’t seem right. Pierre proves that Herman Melville didn’t need a sea setting to write eye-opening fiction (the book features a possibly incestuous relationship), but Melville goes off the rails when his bitterness over Moby-Dick bombing with 1850s readers and critics caused him to have Pierre laboriously write a difficult-to-read book that’s greeted with total contempt.

Then there are terrific novels with memorable segments that would have been perfectly fine in smaller doses, but drag on too long. They include the death scenes of Little Eva in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie, the wedding-day festivities in Emile Zola’s The Drinking Den, the orgy of eating in Honore de Balzac’s The Magic Skin, and so on.

What are some novels that you love even though they have a fairly major flaw? What is that flaw?

For travel and other reasons, I’ll be skipping a column the next two Sundays (June 19 and June 26), but still checking the blog from time to time!

(The box for submitting comments is below already-posted comments, but your new comment will appear at the top of the comments area — unless you’re replying to someone else.)

I’m writing a literature-related book, but still selling Comic (and Column) Confessional — my often-funny memoir that recalls 25 years of covering and meeting cartoonists such as Charles Schulz (“Peanuts”) and Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”), columnists such as Ann Landers and “Dear Abby,” and other notables such as Coretta Scott King, Walter Cronkite, and various authors. The book also talks about the malpractice death of my first daughter, my remarriage, and life in Montclair, N.J. — where I write the award-winning weekly “Montclairvoyant” humor column for The Montclair Times. You can email me at dastor@earthlink.net to buy a discounted, inscribed copy of the book, which contains a preface by “Hints” columnist Heloise and back-cover blurbs by people such as “The Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson.