Who is your fictional self?

[Keroin]

Did you not notice mention of The Graduate and Five Easy Pieces?

Sorry! Posting on the fly today. Saw "American literature" and zoned out after that.

Or maybe it was the distraction of the whoopie pies and naked torso?

 

[philosophygirl]

can we pick more than one?

kara "starbuck" from BSG

 

[Netzach]

I only discovered my fictional twin a few years ago, a moment which still amazes me and which prompted this thread.

My fictional self is Sabina from The Unbearable Lightness of Being. For those unfamiliar with the work, Sabina is an artist who lives very much on her own terms.

This quote still gives me goosebumps:
"...in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable."

Nice pick. I'm pretty much a Tomas who's a wannabe Sabina. Not quite as traditional as Teresa and not as unburdened as Sabina.

I haven't read as much Munro as I should and I did read The Shipping News. I'm more into short forms than novels, often.

Another character I wish I were more like, Vilanelle, the heroine from The Passion, by Wintersen.

T calls me Dagny sometimes, but I keep telling him I'm a terrible robber baron.

Other identifications I've felt: young Portnoy. Just about everyone in a Joseph Heller novel that is not Catch-22 (I cant' recommend all the others enough)

Ohh, a good film one, probably the strongest identification I've felt in film - The Jeanne Moreau character from Jules et Jim.

 

[MisterSir]

can we pick more than one?

kara "starbuck" from BSG

Ah, so you're a headstrong idiot who gains extra abilities as the plot demands and seems to think of plans less in terms of "how effective will this be?" and more in terms of "how many rules can I break in doing this? and what's the chance I can mouth off to my superior officers without punishment?" Lovely role model. (the answer to the latter part is "always". Always always always always always always always always. Oh, Kara, how I wished that just once the Old Man would say to himself "I've had enough of this shit" and slap that stupid self-righteous look off your face)

Since ITW isn't around to say it I will.
Hawt.
Hawt.
Hawt.

Can I watch?

You don't want to. I don't use the phrase "tubby bitch" in reference to myself because I'm a female dog, if you get what I'm saying.

...I'm a pudgy bastard. Like the Pilsbury Doughboy's stunt double.

 

[jockdom]

On certain days I feel like I'm trapped in a Kafka Novel.

 

[nh23]

Bella in the twilight series. I am so fucking clumsy and when I was reading that series and every time she fell or got hurt I was like that is so something I would do, or something I have done.

On another note Master asked me the other day if I could fuck any fictional character who would it be. Pinhead from Hellraiser of course.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Have you ever come across a character, either in literature or film, which has made you think, “Wow, that’s me”? I’m not referring to an external likeness but shared characteristics, beliefs, value systems, philosophies, etc. If so, which character was it and from what piece of work? If not, or additionally, is there a fictional character you’d choose to be like, if only for a short while?

This has only happened once: when I saw Mike Leigh's movie Naked.

David Thewlis in that=me.

 

[Keroin]

can we pick more than one?

But of course!

Nice pick. I'm pretty much a Tomas who's a wannabe Sabina. Not quite as traditional as Teresa and not as unburdened as Sabina.

I haven't read as much Munro as I should and I did read The Shipping News. I'm more into short forms than novels, often.

Another character I wish I were more like, Vilanelle, the heroine from The Passion, by Wintersen.

T calls me Dagny sometimes, but I keep telling him I'm a terrible robber baron.

Other identifications I've felt: young Portnoy. Just about everyone in a Joseph Heller novel that is not Catch-22 (I cant' recommend all the others enough)

Ohh, a good film one, probably the strongest identification I've felt in film - The Jeanne Moreau character from Jules et Jim.

Will be looking up several of these references later, not just from you but from the entire thread.

I've often felt attached to characters in books, and as a kid I wanted to be several of them, but I never felt a kinship until I found Sabina. I wondered, as I read, how Kundera could know me so well without ever having met me. Unburdened is a good description. I feel that very much in my life now.

Short stories are my favorite written medium, I wish there was a bigger market for them. With Munro, I am hit and miss, though I'd have to be blind not to see her skill even when I don't cotton to a particular character or story. However, she is a master at capturing the gossamer layers of the female experience.

 

[ImpishSeraph]

Kaylee Frye from Firefly. The reason I say this...I'm always happy/positive, and I love to get dirty.

 

[ownedsubgal]

O-lan from the novel "The Good Earth," if she had been loved and just a bit less plain-looking.

Bess from the film "Breaking the Waves" without the religious idealism.

 

[Keroin]

This has only happened once: when I saw Mike Leigh's movie Naked.

David Thewlis in that=me.

Just had a look on Wiki, since I haven't seen this one. Interesting:

"An intelligent, educated and eloquent, if disturbingly embittered man, Johnny consistently keeps up with a reckless and at times borderline sadistic behaviour; he seduces Louise's flatmate, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), before embarking on an extended latter-day odyssey among the destitute and despairing of the United Kingdom's capital city.

During his encounters in London's seedy underbelly, Johnny expounds his world-view (which in different instances seems to be fatalist, nihilist or transhumanist) at long and lyrical length to anyone who will listen..."

Disturbingly embittered? Really?

 

[rosco rathbone]

Just had a look on Wiki, since I haven't seen this one. Interesting:

"An intelligent, educated and eloquent, if disturbingly embittered man, Johnny consistently keeps up with a reckless and at times borderline sadistic behaviour; he seduces Louise's flatmate, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), before embarking on an extended latter-day odyssey among the destitute and despairing of the United Kingdom's capital city.

During his encounters in London's seedy underbelly, Johnny expounds his world-view (which in different instances seems to be fatalist, nihilist or transhumanist) at long and lyrical length to anyone who will listen..."

Disturbingly embittered? Really?

I never put it in words. It was just an instant identification with the character.

Good film, worth netflixing.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Bess from the film "Breaking the Waves" without the religious idealism.

hehe spot on.

 

[RhymeSmith]

Dr. Jack Mickler in Don Juan De Marco. There are both physical and attitudinal resemblances.

 

[Primalex]

Corwin of Amber

 

[midwestyankee]

On certain days I feel like I'm trapped in a Kafka Novel.

That would bug me too, Gregor.

 

[Keroin]

Lydia---love for Lydia H.E. Bates

Picking away at these slowly...

So, this from the IMDB reviews page:

"LOVE FOR LYDIA is the sexy, sophisticated story of the dizzy and exciting but also rather empty lifestyle of English society people during the wild Twenties decade. The central character, Lydia, is a beautiful but rather shy girl at first. Then she inherits a great deal of money and begins to realize that she is a very desirable catch -- and that men will let her get away with almost anything!"

and...

"There's an aimless quality to her life, and an emptiness as well. It shows in the way she downs a drink before dinner or takes a quick hit from a pocketbook flask. Glamorous and sexy, but you feel the human side of it -- the loneliness and the waste."

I'm curious to hear your take on this.

 

[MisterSir]

That would bug me too, Gregor.

*ba-dum TISH*

Yes, he'll be here all week folks. Please don't throw your leftover food at him if he tells a bad joke, that's what the spare set of cutlery is for.

 

[laBelleDormant]

I am like Tiffany Aching from Terry Pratchett...

(In my defence 'there was a small part of Tiffany's brain that wasn't too certain about the name Tiffany,' which means you oughtn't to judge from the name.)

Tiffany has the First Sight, the ability to see what is really there (as opposed to Second Sight, which shows people that they think ought to be there).

She also has Second Thoughts, which are 'the thoughts you think about the way you think', and Third Thoughts, 'the thoughts you think about the way you think about the way you think'.

She has read the entire dictionary, although she sometimes has difficulty with pronunciation.

Fave Quotes from Tiffany:
'"The secret is not to dream," she whispered. "The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I'm going. You cannot fool me any more. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine."

'...it had been been magic. And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.'

'"Tell me why you still want to be a witch bearing in mind what happened to Mrs. Snapperly."
'"So that sort of thing doesn't happen again." said Tiffany.'

And this is SO the way I think:
'The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you have no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch.

'If it came to that, the book never gave you the evidence of anything. It talked about "a handsome prince"... was he really, or was it just because he was a prince that people called handsome?

'As for "a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long"... well, which day? In midwinter it hardly ever got light! The stories don't want you to think, they just wanted you to believe what you were told...'

 

[OzArrian]

I have this strange affinity with Cliff Clavin from 'Cheers'... spouting useless information whilst drinking beer sounds incredibly attractive as an alternate fictional lifestyle

 

[Keroin]

I recently realized that most of my role playing villains are various facceted personifications of my own inner tyrrant.

Kinda disturbing actually, though i suppose for some people thats a "well duh."

As for characters not of my own fiction, I have long associated strongly with Crowe, of Mike McCormack's Crowe's Requiem.

This character sounds "disturbingly fun". LOL. From a review on Amazon:

"Crowe is a young Irishman desperately seeking to apply a mythic gloss to his brief, awkward life."

and

"In caging his readers within the mind of a boy possessed of a vivid imagination who is destined never to grow up, literally or figuratively, the author's subversive triumph is in revealing Crowe's failure to transform himself from an ordinary luckless soul (albeit with an extraordinary disease) into a tragic hero."

This novel was compared to The Tin Drum, one that I have read. Weird, I feel like I'm peering into people's souls through these characters.

 

[Keroin]

I've been sort of half-assed pondering this thread since its inception and I am drawing a blank.

I've read virtually anything that can appropriately be called American literature and still, I draw a blank. Some days it seems to be Julian English (John O'Hara, Appointment in Samarra) and other days it seems to be Ben Braddock (Mike Nichols, Dir.; The Graduate) and yet other days it might be Robert Dupea (Bob Rafelson, Dir.; Five Easy Pieces).

And none of them really come close. Or I don't really come close to any of them.

Confirming the idea that I do in fact live under a rock, I'll confess that I've not read the first of your references nor have I seen the second and third of your references. No, I have not seen The Graduate. Look, I'm usually busy doing stuff and I live in places without TV, sorry!

Anyway, reading up on these three characters, MWY, I must say...hm.

The enigmatic riddle continues.

 

[Betticus]

Emperor Palpatine. That twisted, insane, evil bastard...

 

[Keroin]

Emperor Palpatine. That twisted, insane, evil bastard...

Thankfully you don't have his skin problems! Yikes. It's called the sun, Emperor, you should check it out some time.

 

[LilyBart]

And as an aside, I am not at all like the fictional character of my screen name. I just really enjoyed the novel.

I will have to think some more on the original post question.

~LB

Or maybe I am. Sorta. New resolution for 2009....
Seeing as how I cleaned the garage on January 2nd. it might be time for a new killer resolution. And a new character affiliation.

No worries, I definitely do not plan a similar demise. Ever.

Nuh uh... I had dibbs. But even then that's just a hypothetical...

(PS- My b-day's Aug 10 too)

The best birthday date ever!
I can give you a list of notables (besides you and me), if you want....

~LB