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Damo's avatar

It's fascinating, isn't it, the bad guy who only kills bad guys? Tony Soprano, John Wick, Jax Teller, Dexter Morgan - we give them all a pass. Though POV tends to create sympathy for characters as well. It does seem to take work to make a character both interesting but unsympathetic - thinking eg Patrick Melrose (and perhaps not even him), Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld from McAll Smith's 2 1/2 pillars of wisdom trilogy, or McEwan's Michael Beard.

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Damo's avatar

OK, on my list of books to read next, possibly even in the top 10 of that list, largely due to the short length. Wut? I confess I struggle with King. His writing is wonderful, but his books are so often so long with stuff that doesn't actually progress the story (the haunted car stuff takes up, what, about 37 of the 500 or so pages of Christine? I exaggerate. At least twice that). Which, IIRC, makes Aristotle cry. It's bearable because his writing is so good(*), but it takes me time. I've been struggling on and off with The Stand for over a couple of years now.

But, yes, at least it's not Proust.

(*) unlike the Martster whose books could easily be trimmed by =>50 per cent without losing anything and gaining a focus on the good part: the story. High concept? Unlike WhiteKnight 2, actually got to space.

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