I had considered myself well-read until.....

[blpurdom]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Rachel Bray" <bray.262 at o...> wrote:
> After going through and highlighting all that I've read on 
> their list.....I am rather embarrassed.  I've only read 18 
> of them and 6 of those are considered "children's" books 
> (Winnie the Pooh, Cat In the Hat, Harry, etc.) and most of 
> the 18 was required reading in high school. And I'm a 
> blasted English major for goodness sake!  Tis a sad, sad 
> day indeed.  :-/  Rather depressing.
> 
> I need to get to work on reading some of these.  Except for 
> Lolita.  That story line gives me the yucks.
 
I've known some folks for whom Lolita was required reading in 
college.  However, I only got 33 of the characters (and I thought 
some of the labels were wrong or limited to only one book in which 
the character appeared, rather than all of the books in which the 
author used the character).

For instance, I was familiar with Gatsby (1), Holden & Phoebe 
Caulfield (2 & 54), The Little Prince (46) and Santiago (47),   but 
these were read for high school English classes (although I own 
copies of the books and have reread them for pleasure since then--
and the Little Prince was read in French).

College courses were more frequently a reason for my having come in 
contact with characters on the list: Gregor Samsa (12), The 
Invisible Man (13), George Smiley (18--yes, this was a required book 
in Honors Freshman Lit), Meursault (52), Grendel (57), Benjy (69), 
Joseph K. (83) and Quentin Compson (97)--although Quentin's 
inclusion annoys and confuses me, as I felt like SCREAMING at him 
the entire time I was reading his narration in the "Sound and the 
Fury."  

Most of the characters I'm familiar came from children's books or 
just books I decided to read on my own.  Is anyone else confused by 
the character Peter Pan (40) being listed with "The Little White 
Bird" instead of "Peter Pan?"  The other kids' book characters I had 
were Winnie the Pooh (29), Toad (38), The Cat in the Hat (39), 
Charlotte (63), Harry Potter (85) and Eeyore (96).  What?  No Mary 
Poppins?  No Ramona?  No Matilda Wormwood?  No Anne Shirley?  Not 
too surprisingly, there's a preponderance of male characters in 
general on the list.  Hmmm.

The "reading for pleasure" characters I had were Sherlock Holmes 
(6), Scarlett O'Hara (23), Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo (28--how cool to 
see something by Italo Calvino on the list!), Alex Portnoy (32--
although I detested the book, and I like a number of things by 
Philip Roth), Sam Spade (42), Antonia Shimerda (56), Big Brother 
(59), T.S. Garp (64), Frankie Adams (77), Nathan Zuckerman (80--
although I thought the character first appeared in "The Ghost 
Writer" and I never heard of the novel listed here), Yuri Zhivago 
(84), Hana (86--although I first encountered her in an earlier book) 
and Celie (99).

Since Garp is here, I wish his mother (Jenny Fields) was also (a 
fantastic character!).  And, of course, I felt that Irving's 
masterpiece, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," was woefully overlooked.  
And just how/why was Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout omitted?

If we were allowed to count viewing films/miniseries as a way to 
become familiar with a character my count would go up to 47, which 
is almost half, but I suppose that would be cheating. ;)

--Barb
(oh--and nothing from the Raj Quartet?)