BTT: Quirky

This week’s question is suggested by (blogless) JMutford:

Sometimes I find eccentric characters quirky and fun, other times I find them too unbelievable and annoying. What are some of the more outrageous characters you’ve read, and how do you feel about them?

This one required some thought mainly because I don't read a lot of books with eccentric or quirky characters. At first I wanted to say that I don't read a lot of fiction but then the eccentric parents of Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle popped into my mind. Walls does an excellent job portraying them in a fashion that leads readers to see how unstable they really are. I found myself identifying with Jeannette because my father can also be described as an eccentric, unstable man. (We have alien landing pads next to the barn.) So while her parents were eccentric they weren't too unimaginable for me.

I was completely annoyed by Anne Tyler's character Bitsy Donaldson in Digging to America. A woman who craves multi-culturalism, an environmentalist, and who has no problem telling people how they should live their lives. Bitsy drove me bezerk! She is just too much. I could not believe how she constantly preached to Zibar on how she should raise her daughter. Like suggesting Korean children's stories, soy milk, or looking down on her for changing her daughter's name from Suki to Susan. Bitsy also criticized Zibar for working instead of being a stay-at-home mom like herself. I usually have issues with such preachy characters or people. And I normally steer clear of parents like these at school.

I am just starting The Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko for the third time. While the book is close to 800pgs, which isn't bad, there are so many crazy, almost unimaginable characters involved that one really has to keep up with the plot to make sense of everything. This time I am actually mapping out the character connections. I remember trying to read this in college. Alex Kuo, my professor, quoted Simon Ortiz who said something along the lines of "if its fiction, you'd better believe it." I always think of this quote when reading literature that seems so off the wall, and this book is definitely up there. I'll be in touch about my feelings of these characters soon.

Finally, I hated all the characters in Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair. All of them added up to such a ridiculous book. I found them to be very annoying and weird, which is most likely why I did not enjoy this much raved about book.