Here's a meme, something I can never resist. I saw it on Gaskella's blog. If you want to do it, the rules are below -- however, I am not at all sure about the "influenced" bit. I've chosen characters who've made a big impression on me for whatever reason, but to say they'd influenced me suggests I'd want to emulate them and in many cases that's just not true. I've also strayed from the rules because I'm going to tell you why they are on the list.
THE RULES
Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters who’ve influenced you and who will always stick with you. (Emphasis: influenced). List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
1. Lisbeth Salander (The Girl...). Not for nothing is she top of the list. Damaged, difficult, brilliant, with her own unconventional but very strict moral code, she is unforgettable.
2. Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden). Another difficult, damaged girl! But one who discovers enormous hidden depths and opens herself to change and love and nature. Wonderful.
3. Katy (What Katy Did). Not sure why she is on the list except that this is a book I really loved as a child though I haven't read it since. Katy had a lot of lessons to learn and passed with flying colours -- I think I used to ask myself how I would cope if I broke my back and had to stay lying down for many many months.
4. Lucy Snowe (Villette). Not many people's favorite heroine but I love Lucy. I probably wouldn't love her if I met her as she is far too repressed for me, but she is such a fascinatingly written character with so much going on under the surface that I can't help being drawn to her.
5. Jane Marple (Agatha Christie, various). I love her intelligence, and the fact that she is that generally invisible thing, an older woman, who forces the entire male establishment to acknowledge her existence and her superiority.
6. Bunny (William Maxwell's They Came Like Swallows). Bunny is the central character of this beautifully written, terribly sad novel. If you haven't read it, do so.
7. Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights). The world is divided into people who hate Heathcliff and people who don't. I don't.
8. Fanny Price (Mansfield Park). Ditto. I love and admire Fanny. She is utterly powerless and horribly put-upon but manages most wonderfully to stick to her principles and in the end the rest of her circle has to acknowledge her fundamental rightness.
9. Tempe Brennan (Kathy Reichs, various). Tempe is great. She is so bright and dedicated but she is so vulnerable -- a recovering alcoholic, confused about her love life, often angry and depressed -- but always finds that inner strength to see her through.
10. Miss Mole (Miss Mole, EH Young). If you don't know this great novel, do read it. Miss Mole is a single woman in her forties with no visible means of support who single-handedly manages to change the lives of the family she works for. Unforgettable.
11. Loyal Blood (Annie Proulx, Postcards). Loyal is a true tragic hero whose forty-year-long wanderings are constantly dogged by disappointments and disasters. Sounds gloomy but is amazingly moving and uplifting.
12. Mrs Ramsay (Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse). Why is Mrs Ramsay on the list? I don't know except that she popped into my mind. The image of her presiding over all those guests at dinner is vivid to me, and as for Mr Ramsay, raging through the house after her death, that is quite astonishingly real and moving.
13. Miss Hargreaves (Frank Baker, Miss Hargreaves). Is she real or is she imaginary? Great mid-20th century fantasy with a terrifically eccentric central character.
14. Katherine (Katherine by Anya Seyton). One of the first grown-up novels I read and I lapped up every minute of it. Beautiful Katherine, and her wonderfully romantic love affair with John of Gaunt, made a huge impression on me which I have never forgotten.
15. Lear (King Lear). I had to put him on here. Deeply flawed, badly behaved and badly treated, his deterioration is agonising to watch and his final redemption almost unbearably tragic.
