Friday, August 15, 2014

Five fictional characters who deserved better

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Melissa Albert tagged five fictional characters who deserved better than they got, including:
Lydia Bennet (Pride and Prejudice).

More unfairness from the pages of Austen, who we’re sure was only calling it like she saw it. Yes, Lydia’s a giggly twit, but who among us stands by every decision we made when we were 15? We’ve all crushed on somebody who ended up being so not worth it. Now think of being tied to that person for life, with hardly any money to boot. And that’s why we don’t understand the people who wish they could be transported back to Austen’s day.
Read about another entry on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on Melissa Albert's lists of [fifteen of the] romantic leads (and wannabes) of Austen’s brilliant books and recommended reading for eight villains, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance, Emma Donoghue's list of five favorite unconventional fictional families, Amelia Schonbek's list of five approachable must-read classics, Jane Stokes's top ten list of the hottest men in required reading, Gwyneth Rees's top ten list of books about siblings, the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Paula Byrne's list of the ten best Jane Austen characters, Robert McCrum's list of the top ten opening lines of novels in the English language, a top ten list of literary lessons in love, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Cathy Cassidy's top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best housekeepers in fiction, ten great novels with terrible original titles, and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue