Uncreated Conscience

As Rachel and I were going through our morning routine today, we were listening with half an ear to The Today Show blathering on about South Carolinan Representative Joe Wilson calling President Obama a liar during his healthcare reform speech. I then recalled watching this incredible video by ThoughtBubble.org, which animated YA author John Green‘s video discussing the state of American healthcare.

The rest of the morning was spent introducing my roommate to the awesome that are the VlogBrothers, John and Hank Green. This, of course, prompted me to watch some of my favourite Brotherhood 2.0 videos when I stumbled across one of John’s videos about THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger.

In response to the comment/criticism that Holden Caulfield, the narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, is unlikeable, I regret to inform you that you are also unlikeable.

So am I.

There’s this weird, but pervasive feeling in the world of contemporary coming-of-age fiction that characters ought to be either the person you want to be or the person you want to be with. [...]

[Holden Caulfield] is the guy you secretly know yourself to be.

A few weeks ago, Sarah Rees Brennan wrote a great essay called “Ladies, Please (Carry On Being Awesome)” about (specifically female) response to female characters in fiction. She later followed up on Twitter asking about character identification and whether it was necessary to enjoy a book.

My answer? No, it is not necessary. But I must qualify this response with it is not necessary for me.

I think the reason I don’t identify with characters is the reason I enjoy critical, textual analysis. I mean, for the love of God, why else would I willingly put myself through James Joyce’s ULYSSES three times during my stint at university? (Because Joyce is a genius and I love him, that’s why.) I realise this all sounds horribly pretentious, but I’m in earnest. ULYSSES? Not a work of popular fiction. It’s about as far from popular, commercial fiction as you can get. But as a work of literary satire and parody, it is tops. Joyce turns the mundane into the epic, makes fun of 19th century sentimental literature (Nausicaa), uses a birth scene as an epic metaphor for the birth of the modern English language (Oxen of the Sun), and attempts to textually represent the multi-dimensionality of consciousness by calling attention to the fact that text will ever and only be limited as two-dimensional representation—with purposeful typographic errors (Penelope).

Genius! He is a genius! Also, I promise that will be the last of Joyce nerd (for now).

But I don’t read only to get irrationally excited about literary criticism.

Reasons JJ Reads Books

1. TO BE ENTERTAINED.
2. To make connections between the experiences of the characters in the novel to the universal human experience.
3. To appreciate the skill and craft of writing.

Note that TO BE ENTERTAINED is the first and all-caps reason I read a book. I think entertainment is the best reason to do anything; you should do things because you like doing them. But for me, identification is not a requirement for entertainment/enjoyment. Sometimes “identification” as a general notion gets on my nerves.

For instance, I am often expected to like a book simply because there is an Asian character in it. I won’t deny the fact that an Asian-American protagonist would draw readers of Asian descent to a novel, but more often than not, I find myself avoiding them. Why? Shouldn’t I identify with them?

Why should I? If we go by the identification criteria, then for the most part, I don’t see a lot of myself in many Asian-American protagonists. I am not the child of recent immigrants, I never had any cognitive dissonance regarding my ethnic roots and the greater “American” culture, and I had a very, very privileged—in a specifically WASP way—upbringing. I’m generalizing, but if there’s ever any Amerasian character that is, you know, not defined by his/her ethnicity and is a fully-fledged human being, then I’ll decide whether or not I’ll like him/her. (Also, if you know of any, please recommend them to me. I do go a bit out of my way to avoid “Asian” books, you know.)

I look at characters as individuals, as multi-dimensional people and human beings and that is what makes me love one character over another. The more sharply and uniquely flawed a character, the more I tend to love him/her. But I don’t have to like any of the characters at all in order to enjoy a novel. WUTHERING HEIGHTS is one example.

Rachel hates WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Hates it. She found Heathcliff, Catherine, and Edgar despicable and unlikeable to the point of irredeemability. Similarly, I have no sympathy for any of the characters within WUTHERING HEIGHTS, but the literary nerd in me is impressed. According to Camille Paglia, the Heathcliff/Catherine – Hareton/Catherine relationships represent the ultimate in Romantic (literary Romanticism, not sentimental romanticism) doubling. Incest is common in Romantic works, and even more prevalent in the Gothic genre. I think WUTHERING HEIGHTS is great and entertaining, even if I can’t like any of its characters.

While I acknowledge that identification happens, I really wish it didn’t sometimes. Identification is the reason we have the “Mary Sue/Gary Stu” phenomenon. It’s also the reason we have the beautiful, brooding male onto whom readers can project their desires. Just as it annoys me when a female character has no flaws, it annoys me even more when a male is “perfect”. It worries me even further when a male character’s “perfection” blinds people to some of his seriously questionable actions and/or attitude.

The most prevalent negative male trait seen in a positive light is “protectiveness”. Words can’t even describe how much I hate this. “He only controls every aspect of my life because he loves me and is looking after my physical well-being! No matter that he’s actually infantilising me! Look, he’s like all the best parts of my Daddy and that gorgeous unattainable matinee idol all in one easily accessible package!” This particular beautiful and brooding male is generally accompanied by a Mary Sue of epic proportions. Is she plain-but-not-so-secretly-beautiful? Check. Is she “adorably clumsy” and prone to retarded pratfalls to reinforce the male’s protective instincts? Check and check.

I’m not saying identification/projection of desire doesn’t happen for male readers either. I mean, I love John Green to bits, but in his protagonists and love interests, I see every intelligent, slightly insecure teenaged boy wanting to rescue and save the Manic Pixie Dream Girl from herself. However, this doesn’t mean that all his novels are the same. Similar characters might emerge over and over again but each of his books are explorations of different themes. And I’m not saying identification/projection of desire is a bad thing either. We all do it; I’ll admit to being drawn to Asian characters (that aren’t horribly stereotyped) in film and TV because of the kinship I see between our faces. It’s just that it shouldn’t be the only criteria by which we judge a work.