UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS FROM LITERATURE (at least for me) . . .

If you write, you should be reading. And if you’re reading, you’ll run across characters that resound with you. Here’s a few that did with me.

THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR – John Nichols: Okay, so I’m still reading it. But I came across someone I think everyone can identify with between the covers, and that’s one of the more central characters in the story. Joe Mondragon is a small time land owner, no water rights to speak of, who takes it in his head to plant a field of beans and irrigate it using water he should have few if any rights to. He’s one of these people whose circumstances has forced to become a jack of all trades. He can fix most anything, do almost anything, and as the character develops it becomes clear he feels he has his back against the wall. Thoreau wrote that most people live lives of quiet desperation. In Joe’s case, the desperation can’t stay quiet anymore. So he goes off and does something totally illogical.

I can identify with the guy. How many times have we wanted to sing that famous Johnny Paycheck song to a boss, or go off and march to our own drum for a bit, just because we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I’m still reading the book, I don’t know what happens yet, but I can certainly identify with Joe.

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE – STAR TREK: TNG 10 – Peter David: This book focuses mostly of Commander Riker, but it’s the guy who is filling in for him aboard the Enterprise as First Officer that I find so interesting, Commander Quintin Stone. The guy might just be completely and totally crackers. He pulls a few things that are plain reckless and doesn’t really care one bit. But as things progress, we begin to realize he’s actually a very stable person being held together with sheer force of will. He’s fighting and winning against some serious psychological scars.

I think the reason I liked him so much is he pretty much mirrored how I felt after I came back from the Gulf War, and it was refreshing to find someone in a story fighting the same battles, even if he was fictional.

The book is still on my library shelf, and I read it every now and again.

WITHOUT REMORSE – Tom Clancy: Big surprise here that I’d put Clancy on this list. The character I like the most (aside from Jack Ryan – everybody likes Jack), is John Clark. In Without Remorse, he’s goes rogue, and is hunting the people who killed a woman he cared for deeply. Using his SEAL training, and combat skills, he goes after them with guns blazing. The thing I like the most about the character is he has to stop. He knows he’s on the verge of becoming something he doesn’t want to be.

LOGAN’S RUN – William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson: First, the movie has very little in common with the book. It’s good, but the book is better. The character I admire most in it isn’t Logan, but his buddy Francis, another sandman. A sandman has one job, and that’s to track down and kill the people who turn twenty-one and don’t report in to be killed. When it happens to Logan, he runs. He’s being pursued by Francis, who at the end we find isn’t the bad guy after all. Given a malfunctioning life clock when he was born, Francis is old compared to Logan. He’s seen that the system is falling apart, and has decided to try to do something to save people. Overcoming his own built in prejudices and conditioning is what makes Francis appealing to me.

TRAILS PLOWED UNDER – Charles M. Russell: Russell is known mostly as an artist, but he recorded tales of the old west you don’t find anywhere else. One person I thought very interesting in his stories was an unknown sheepherder known only as “Shep.” Shep only shows up for a few pages, but leaves a big mark. He and his dog wander into town to spend a little money, and relax. There’s a big man in town that everyone calls “Goliath.” Describing him as a “bully” is about the nicest thing you can say about him. Indeed, one of the best parts of the story is when a gambler, who knows his Bible is telling the story of Goliath. When the big man hear’s him, he think the gambler is calling him a Liar (the gambler pronounced Goliath as Goliar). Of course the gambler straightens him out, telling him about Goliath, but leaving the ending out. He whispers to a friend, “And I sure wish David would show up.”

Well, when Goliath ties cans to Shep’s dog, Shep gets a little annoyed, and in true David fashion, tosses a rock at Goliath. The rock catches the big man square in the mouth, busts out his teeth, and drop the big man like a much humbled tree.  Shep proves that heroes can come from the most unlikely of places.

So there’s a few.

Who’s some of your more unforgettable characters from stories?