Gratuitous Hero Torture

[malsperanza]

I thought it might be useful in the course of this discussion to name some books that I think use Gratuitous Hero Torture and that are not, in my opinion, "genre" fiction--defined, in part, as fiction that uses GHT in formulaic ways.

This is a random list, meant to be illustrative of range, rather than comprehensive in any sense.

Ernie Levy in The Last of the Just (possibly the most serious book I have ever read, though it is also very funny).

Zeno, the persecuted alchemist in The Abyss

Wyatt Gwyon, the forger in Gaddis's The Recognitions

Heathcliff

Jim in Lord Jim

Maybe even Aschenbach in Death in Venice, if it's not too bizarre to call him the hero

Harry Potter

Frodo (possibly)

Pyrrhus in An Arrow's Flight

Lear (not sure about this one: not sure about his hero status)

Hamlet (see discussion below)

Marlowe's Edward II (ditto, courtesy of Conversant)

Shakespeare's Richard II? Hm, not convinced but willing to try it (per Conversant)

And I have to mention one example that isn't available in English, alas, Mr Silvera in a lovely Italian novel called The Lover with No Fixed Abode (L'Amante senza fissa dimora)

Jesus, in the Gospels of the New Testament (possibly genre fiction, depending on how we resolve the question of wish-fulfillment as a marker of genre)

Gilgamesh (exile and angst! exile and angst!)

Most of the Greek canon:

Iliad
Odyssey (maybe)
Oedipus
Antigone (a rare female tortured hero)
Orestes (in fact, the whole Atreides family)

And now a couple of titles that are usually called "genre" fiction, but that are, IMO, very good books:

Philip Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely (where he gets beaten so badly he tries to commit suicide)

Similarly, Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key

Lymond and Nicholas in the two Dorothy Dunnett series

James Cobham in Freedom and Necessity (a lesser book, but a good example of the tortured hero)

And then there is The Fountainhead, a veryverybad book, but no one could deny that it is chock full of GHT


It would be fun to add to this list. I'm prepared, frex, to include both Harry and Draco from the Draco Trilogy . . . depending on how it ends. Because, as we shall see downthread, How It Ends is key.

Other suggestions are invited.

ETA:

From Tipgardner (I haven't read these):

Saladin Chamcha (Satanic Verses)

The narrator of Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Murakami)

Protagonists in:

Money, by Martin Amis
Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
Fall of a Sparrow, by Robert Hellenga
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, by Haruki Murakami (Not sure I agree: he is confused, befuddled, misled, mistreated, but it's hard to say how deep his angst goes... well, maybe. Worth putting on the list anyhow)

Comments

[conversant.livejournal.com]

I've got to hear your thoughts on Dunnett. (I've only read The Game of Kings because much as Lymond was coded to be attractive, I just found the whole thing too formulaic to feel any curiosity beyond that first book.) I will, however, grant that there are interesting things about the book, but for me, at this early stage in thinking about your genre topic, I have to put it firmly on the genre-fic side.

I agree that 'how it ends is key' and I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the DT, as well. I expect I'll agree.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

RE Dunnett: All I can say is, keep going; they get better. The Game of Kings was her academy piece; she got more innovative afterward. I wouldn't say that Lymond exactly breaks the genre formula, but he certainly distorts it.

OTOH, Nicholas, protagonist of the House of Niccolo books, does things to the formula that defy categorization. You'd probably like that series better--I do. Maybe try that one, and if it works for you, Lymond will still be waiting in the wings.

The two Dunnett series are among my favorite books evar. Hard to encapsulate my thoughts on them because I spent 8 years on a closed listserve talking about them at massive length. Can't begin to synthesize all that, but it was the genesis of my interest in the tortured hero and the author/reader OTP. Dunnett is master of the readerfuck; there's no one better.