NPR: 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900

[XemaSab]

1 - Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
2 - Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
3 - Humbert Humbert, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
4 - Leopold Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
5 - Rabbit Angstrom, Rabbit, Run, John Updike, 1960
6 - Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
7 - Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
8 - Molly Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
9 - Stephen Dedalus, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916
10 - Lily Bart, The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905
11- Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote, 1958
12 - Gregor Samsa, The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, 1915
13 - The Invisible Man, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952
14 - Lolita, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
15 - Aureliano Buendia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
16 - Clarissa Dalloway, Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, 1925
17 - Ignatius Reilly, A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980
18 - George Smiley, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John LeCarre, 1974
19 - Mrs. Ramsay, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927
20 - Bigger Thomas, Native Son, Richard Wright, 1940
21 - Nick Adams, In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway, 1925
22 - Yossarian, Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1961
23 - Scarlett O'Hara, Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936
24 - Scout Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
25 - Philip Marlowe, The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939
26 - Kurtz, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902
27 - Stevens, The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989
28 - Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo, The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino, 1957
29 -Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, 1926
30 - Oskar Matzerath, The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass, 1959
31 - Hazel Motes, Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor, 1952
32 - Alex Portnoy, Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth, 1969
33 - Binx Bolling, The Moviegoer, Walker Percy, 1961
34 - Sebastian Flyte, Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1945
35 - Jeeves, My Man Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse, 1919
36 - Eugene Henderson, Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow, 1959
37 - Marcel, Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust, 1913-1927
38 - Toad, The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame, 1908
39 - The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss, 1955
40 - Peter Pan, The Little White Bird, J.M. Barrie, 1902
41 - Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry, 1985
42 - Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett, 1930
43 - Judge Holden, Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, 1985
44 - Willie Stark, All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren, 1946
45 - Stephen Maturin, Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian, 1969
46 - The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1943
47 - Santiago, The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, 1952
48 - Jean Brodie, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, 1961
49 - The Whiskey Priest, The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene, 1940
50 - Neddy Merrill, The Swimmer, John Cheever, 1964
51 - Sula Peace, Sula, Toni Morrison, 1973
52 - Meursault, The Stranger, Albert Camus, 1942
53 - Jake Barnes, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 1926
54 - Phoebe Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
55 - Janie Crawford, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
56 - Antonia Shimerda, My Antonia, Willa Cather, 1918
57 - Grendel, Grendel, John Gardner, 1971
58 - Gulley Jimson, The Horse's Mouth, Joyce Cary, 1944
59 - Big Brother, 1984, George Orwell, 1949
60 - Tom Ripley, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, 1955
61 - Seymour Glass, Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger, 1953
62 - Dean Moriarty, On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957
63 - Charlotte, Charlotte's Web, E.B. White, 1952
64 - T.S. Garp, The World According to Garp, John Irving, 1978
65 - Nick and Nora Charles, The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett, 1934
66 - James Bond, Casino Royale, Ian Fleming, 1953
67 - Mr. Bridge, Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell, 1959
68 - Geoffrey Firmin, Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry, 1947
69 - Benjy, The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929
70 - Charles Kinbote, Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, 1962
71 - Mary Katherine Blackwood, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, 1962
72 - Charles Ryder, Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1945
73 - Claudine, Claudine at School, Colette, 1900
74 - Florentino Ariza, Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1985
75 - George Follansbee Babbitt, Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis, 1922
76 - Christopher Tietjens, Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford, 1924-28
77 - Frankie Addams, The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers, 1946
78 - The Dog of Tears, Blindness, Jose Saramago, 1995
79 - Tarzan, Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1914
80 - Nathan Zuckerman, My Life As a Man, Philip Roth, 1979
81 - Arthur "Boo" Radley, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
82 - Henry Chinaski, Post Office, Charles Bukowski, 1971
83 - Joseph K. The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1925
84 - Yuri Zhivago, Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, 1957
85 - Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling, 1998
86 - Hana, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, 1992
87 - Margaret Schlegel, Howards End, E.M. Forster, 1910
88 - Jim Dixon, Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis, 1954
89 - Maurice Bendrix, The End of the Affair, Graham Greene, 1951
90 - Lennie Small, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, 1937
91 - Mr. Biswas, A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul, 1961
92 - Alden Pyle, The Quiet American, Graham Greene, 1955
93 - Kimball "Kim" O'Hara, Kim, Rudyard Kipling, 1901
94 - Newland Archer, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton, 1920
95 - Clyde Griffiths, An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser, 1925
96 - Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, 1926
97 - Quentin Compson, The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929
98 - Charlie Marlow, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902
99 - Celie, The Color Purple, Alice Walker, 1982
100 - Augie March, The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow 1953

http://www.npr.org/programs/totn/features/2002/mar/020319.characters.html

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I disagree fairly vehemently with this list. Any list that doesn't have Ignatius in the top 5 is no list at all. x(

[OmahaBlueDog]

1. No Tom Joad? No Kilgore Trout? No Billy Poet?

Epic Fail

[XemaSab]

3. .

:thumbsup:

[geardaddy]

18. Agreed.

KT was legendary.

[Danger Mouse]

2. James Joyce for the win? I guess?

[JCMach1]

4. Nothing after 1989 and top-heavy with the first 1/2 of the century

hmmmmm

[PVnRT]

6. You're surprised?

That's all of these "greatest" lists are anymore. Rock music ones are just as bad - no acknowledgment of anything after the mid-1970's most of the time, save a passing nod at The Clash and Nirvana.

[jobycom]

8. Harry Potter. 1998.

:P

[LynneSin]

5. Yeah for TS Garp but where is Owen Meany?

And personally I think Neely O'Hara should be on there. The book may be campy but that was an amazing character created.

[jpgray]

7. No Flaubert, no Tolstoy? Hmm.

[Orrex]

26. Well, Flaubert's work really went downhill after 1880

Since this list is 1900 and later...

[BurtWorm]

27. Since 1900.

[jobycom]

9. Eeyore at 96? He deserves top 25, at least!!!!11 WHo did this list, Rolling Suck?//?

:rofl:

[charlie and algernon]

10. And where's Charlie??????? or Algernon???????

[Forkboy]

11. Good to see Sherlock get some love.

The books are amazingly cool.

[Bertha Venation]

12. They missed Francie Nolan

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

[NewJeffCT]

13. and, if Winnie & Eeyore make the list, why no Bilbo Baggins?

or Frodo?

[Bucky]

38. Because JRR Tolkien didn't create great characters.

He wrote in an interesting style and developed a memorable, even archetype-setting, plot, yes. But he's actually quite weak on characterization.

[Lethe]

54. he spent decades coming up with the backstory

the characters and their personalities are almost incidental to the fate-driven plot

but the back story is rich, of course, can't fault him for that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. The Bagginses aren't that great characters

I reckon I'd put Gandalf ahead of them both, and Sam too. But Tolkien isn't a great character writer - he's a tale-teller.

[Withywindle]

47. I think the most compelling characters are Gollum and Eowyn. n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. There are good cases for them both (nt)

[insanity]

14. Cathy from East of Eden?

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. or Cal Trask, for that matter

[av8rdave]

28. Oh yes...she should definitely be on the list

[Bucky]

40. Also, Cathy from the daily cartoon strip of the same name

There's just no justice here.

Well said, sister

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

15. All well and good

but Stephen Maturin (my all time favorite fictional character) should be rated higher, where the hell is Hannibal Lecter (my second favorite fictional character - read the books, the movies ain't even close to canon), and why isn't anything by Robertson Davies on this list?

I highly approve of the inclusion of Jeeves, though.

[geardaddy]

17. No Kilgore Trout?

:grr:

[MissMillie]

20. GMTA!

:hi:

[sasquatch]

19. Jay Gatsby?? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

[KamaAina]

21. Kick for Ignatius!

Actually, given NPR's well-known coastal bias (East and West, not Gulf), I was kind of surprised to see him as high as #17.

[ZombieHorde]

22. Whoever made that list is not into Asian people, or ME people, ....

[geardaddy]

24. Good observation.

:thumbsup:

[geardaddy]

23. They're missing some others

Alex - A Clockwork Orange
Ralph - Lord of the Flies

[OmahaBlueDog]

25. One could also make an argument for Isadora Wing

[Withywindle]

29. Ugh, how middlebrow.

What a bunch of weak, safe choices - for a high school English teacher in 1965.

[mitchum]

30. Consider the source; isn't NPR synonymous with middlebrow?

It's the New Yorker for people too lazy to read

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. The source was 'Book' magazine, in 2002

Must resist joke about "too lazy to follow links and read" ... no, sorry, I can't do it.

[mitchum]

44. I saw the headline and read the list...

so why in the fuck would I need to follow the link? Would it illuminate the choices further?
Edit: did eventually resist using additional comment

[XemaSab]

34. You're thinking along the lines I was thinking along

"What a bunch of weak, safe choices - for a high school English STUDENT in 1965." x(

[SoxFan]

43. This is the attitude that drives people away from literature

Take the elitist twaddle elsewhere.

[Withywindle]

48. What, my attitude?

I think this list is the one that's elitist: most of it is the sort of bland stuff that passes for "great contemporary literature" as it's taught in schools, and doesn't have nearly enough genre fiction (ANY genre other than "upper-middle-class-white-male navel-gazing") or experimental work.

[XemaSab]

56. And if you're going to talk about great characters instead of great book or something else...

For example, I *love* Lolita, but Humbert is a nasty, crazy, nasty man, and Lolita herself is just boring, but both of them made the list.

Harry Potter was written to be sort of the everyman. I think Dumbledore or Snape would have been better picks from that series.

Holden Caulfield is a great pick, but his sister? :shrug:

And there are obvious omissions... no Lord of the Flies, no Steinbeck, no quite a few characters or authors...

[cemaphonic]

64. what? Humbert is a great character!

a good character doesn't have to be - and frequently isn't - very nice. And Lolita is pretty interesting too - she might be coming across as bland and boring because her personality is filtered through Humbert's POV, and he is massively self-deluded about her.

[tigereye]

61. who says classics have to be weak?

Nabokov is weak? Joyce is weak? Alice Walker is weak? Need I go on?

[Withywindle]

69. that's not what I meant at all.

I mean the list is weak, because it doesn't go out on any limbs or have any brave idiosyncracies. The list itself is very conventional. I don't mean to slam on any of the authors per se (although I think there's a lot of overratedness going on - I mean, how many Edith Wharton books have you really made it all the way through?)

[Drunken Irishman]

31. Meh

[martymar64]

32. No Tyler Durden either. Chingon!

:hurts:

[sammythecat]

33. no fuckin conan the barbarian???

fuckin dude totally kicked some major ass man

[Deja Q]

35. Harry Potter is in there yet not Kirk, Picard, Doctor Who, or Reagan?

Wankers.


(Okay, I think Reagan was a real person, but people loved writing fiction with him at the centerpiece of it all...)

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. "From Book magazine"

I think all of them were first created as characters in books (though Peter Pan was far better known from the play, which seems to have come out a couple of years after he was mentioned in the book listed)

[Withywindle]

46. Harry Potter isn't even the best character in the Harry Potter series.

He's supposed to be kind of an Everykid, so he's bland as hell.

Severus Snape? Hermione Granger? Remus Lupin? Sirius Black? Albus Dumbledore? All way more interesting, colorful, and ethically ambiguous, therefore more memorable.

[Bucky]

41. Gee, do you think this list might inspire some disagreements & discussions?

Surely I can't be alone in saying "Phoebe Caulfield, what hell?"

[XemaSab]

45. That was one of many reactions to this list

Wasn't she in, like, 5 pages? :shrug:

[Lethe]

53. it's like these guys just randomly picked characters from the "classics" list

i would love to see their criteria

i think Marlowe should have been higher

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

42. I've read maybe a half dozen of those books.

Including children's books like Cat and the Hat. And books I put down before finishing the first chapter, like Blood Meridian.

I don't think I'm missing much.

[Lethe]

55. is Blood Meridian garbage?

that was the next book i was gonna check out from the library.

no good?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

59. I don't like McCarthy.

Some people go nuts over him.

[cemaphonic]

65. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.

I love it, but it is extremely violent, and McCarthy's prose is pretty mannered which some love and some hate (especially in Blood Meridian - there's an Old Testament/Moby Dick dialog style layered over his usual prose)

[PittPoliSci]

71. i think it's an amazing book.

read it even if you don't like the plot. it's very well written, to say the least.

[WCGreen]

49. How about Fucking batman...

Holy Golightly... In another age she would be called a ditz...

[EastTennesseeDem]

50. Ignatius has to be number one

REALLY.

[petronius]

51. Easy Rawlins? Archie Goodwin? Daneel Olivaw? Cadfael?... (nt)

[Lethe]

52. ugh

phoebe caulfield? how is she a good character at all? she has like 15 lines in the worst novel in the history of the english language. don't even get me started on holden.

22. yossarian - the character was interesting for the first 50 pages, after that it was just masturbatory

ok i gotta stop here, i may have an aneurysm

[catnhatnh]

57. Mr.Rose....

"Ask me what business I'm in."

Edited to add: Because this author tossed off better SECONDARY characters than represented here. Couth? Merrill Overturf? Best automobile in fiction: 1954 Zorn Witwer?

[Deep13]

60. Golum? from Tolkien books

Paul Atreides from Dune?

I guess the critics consider scifi/fantasy to be slumming.

[AngryAmish]

62. Jeeves was the straight man

Bertie Wooster was much funnier and he actually was the protagonist. Jeeves was simply the clean up crew.

And any list without Dudly Smith is not worth writing.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

63. Sam Vimes and Havelock Vetinari

Granny Weatherwax as the only 3rd I could recommend.

Om Be Praised, and Blind Io Be Thanked.

This is Vetinari at his very best:

"The Patrician sighed and, carefully marking his place, laid aside his book. To judge from the noise there seemed to be an awful lot of excitement going on out there. It was highly unlikely any palace guards would be around, which was just as well. The guards were highly-trained men and it would be a shame to waste them.
He would need them later on.
He padded over to the wall and pushed a small block that looked exactly like all the other small blocks. No other small block, however, would have caused a section of flagstone to grind ponderously aside.
There was a carefully chosen assortment of stuff in there - iron rations, spare clothes, several small chests of precious metals and jewels, tools. And there was a key. Never build a dungeon you couldn't get out of."

Sam and Granny are equally magnificent.

http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/vetinari/vetinari.html

[begin_within]

66. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

[Wickerman]

67. I'd have liked to have seen Guy Grand from Southern's Magic Christian

and it would've been nice to see some more female authors represented. Lorrie moore has had some pretty interesting characters, though not bestselling, of course.

[triguy46]

68. I had thought by now that the gild would be off Salinger's lily....

his work has not weathered well. Then to find Mohan Biswas, by Nobel winner VS Naipaul relegated to #91, is just sad. YOu have to wonder if they took the 1995 Literary Guild best 100 novels of the 20th century and pulled out the characters.

This reads like someone's self masturbatory list of books read since 7th grade. Look at me I can name a bunch of characters.

[PittPoliSci]

70. lame list.

joyce should've probably been number 1. hemingway sucks and his characters are awful. Faulkner should've probably had more names on the list. Quentin Compson was in more than one of his books, and the demon that was Thomas Sutpen should've been top five.

[ashling]

72. Huckleberry Finn

Falstaff