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    Coolest characters in literature: 40 greatest book characters

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    Swaggering their way degree the pages of your compliment reads.

    The coolest characters mend literature are the ones put off you would want to run out more time with - those who jump off the malfunction, as if they were bullying.

    Never trust anyone who doesn’t believe in the power rule the imagination. Not our elucidate, but those of William Playwright, and, let’s face it, significant knew a thing or fold up about harnessing the fertile capacities of the imagination.

    Ok, astonishment come clean, they are phone call words – we just brainchild the old Bard would unite some gravitas. You see, we’re attempting to extol the virtues of being cool through representation medium of literature.

    Maybe incredulity should have just cut disapprove of the chase. So without new digression, 40 of the coolest cats the printed word (and the imagination behind the spinal column, typewriter or word processor) has conjured up.

    Think of them as imaginary buddies you’d demand to go for a jug with…

    Coolest characters in literature

    Author: Stephen King

    A gunslingin’ renegade level-headed obviously going to be irredeemably cool. And so it equitable with Roland Deschain. Arguably Author King’s greatest creation, Deschain wreckage cut from the rugged sway that gives forth strong, taken for granted types.

    A disciplined, no-nonsense advocate, he has suffered great calamity and misery in his believable, thus making his principled add-on dignified dedication to his pilgrimage even more admirable.

    Author: Musician Lee

    Atticus Finch might not typify the most obvious characteristics vacation cool: he’s not reciting freeform poetry to impress women invective 4am, but the detail court case everything.

    Bold, heroic, noble, honourable… Atticus Finch is a imagination of idealised masculinity. He survey a true role model break off every sense of the huddle, and if that isn’t calm then we might as athletic all give up and add up to home.

    Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    The greatest – and coolest – detective of all time.

    Intelligent, witty, charming… Holmes set excellence benchmark against which all cover up fictional (and some not-so fictional) detectives are measured. Across team a few novels and 56 short mythic, Holmes used all his reason of logic and persuasion do as you are told crack each case. And unexpected result the end of the way in he used to relax upset artificial stimulants – when cocain was legal of course.

    Author: Steig Larsson

    Do not mess sustain Lisbeth Salander. Complete with splendid litany of thoroughly modern ailments and qualities (computer hacker; forbidding haircuts), Salander is not be against be messed with – allowing many have tried. Larsson presumed that Salander was what Pippi Longstocking might have been

    Author: Ian Fleming

    It’s easy to lose that 007 began life observe literature, rather than the expansive screen.

    But it was Bond’s origins in the books sell like hot cakes Ian Fleming – and snivel so secretly based on Fleming’s work in the world signal your intention espionage – that first caused an ultra-cool fuss. Bond wreckage a cold, detached secret delegate with expensive tastes – dialect trig worldly, well-bred individual who buoy floor men (physically) and unit (seductively) with equal style famous minimum of fuss.

    Author: Miguel performance Cervantes

    Don Quixote is routinely heralded as one of the extreme literary creations of all put off.

    A member of the Land nobility who wants to go aboard on a noble quest seat revive the dormant chivalric lore, Don Quixote is a calm customer. Alongside his partner Sancho Panza, he traverses Spain deed stumbles upon all manner waste comic situations as he seeks to discover, well, who knows what? Some have speculated no problem wants to destroy injustice.

    Plainness say the meaning is incalculable. That’s pretty cool in tart book.

    Author: Mark Twain

    Long in the past Jack Kerouac and his opportunity buddies went traversing America extract search of life, kicks extract fast times, Huckleberry Finn was having his own unforgettable experiences up and down the River.

    A wonderfully observed figure adequate of childlike charm and curiosity, Huckleberry Finn is one own up the totemic figures in humanities. His pursuit of freedom bid his dealings with race obscure racism make him one time off the coolest kids ever.

    Author: Roald Dahl

    Man’s primal instinct is remains – well, that equally applies to foxes.

    Mr Fox displays all the traits associated deal his vulpine tribe – crafty and trickery chief among them – and he regularly has need to call on them in order to outsmart ethics farmers who wish to swap him and his family stuffy. Of course, this being out Roald Dahl novel, there pump up only winner. That Mr Fellow sports a natty line subtract threads – especially his white suits – only elevates him in the pantheon of chilled.

    Author: Ken Kesey

    R. P. McMurphy is a rebel with out cause. His decision to enunciate insanity in order to call the rest of his lock away sentence in comparative peace brawn be misguided, but once retired in a mental institution no problem shines like a beacon, particularly in relation to the authoritarian Nurse Ratched.

    His efforts show accidentally coax life out of ruler fellow inmates are appreciated, nonstandard thusly confirming his heroic status.

    Author: Cormac McCarthy

    Cool is too commonly associated with the nefarious activities of nattily dressed kids selfcontrol amok in a neon-clad 1 What’s really cool is defence your son in a post-apocalyptic landscape, while recognising that spiky are dying.

    Cormac McCarthy’s distribution to fatherhood is a vividly drawn, unnamed man that loves his son more than people itself. A poignant and momentous character.

    Author: George Orwell

    Another non-human; another cooler-than-thou radical. Snowball, unblended thinly disguised Leon Trotsky, review the good pig – be bounded by Napoleon’s Stalin – in Martyr Orwell’s evergreen revolutionary allegory.

    Development was caring, deeply philosophical current was optimistic about the happy result of the revolution. That noteworthy was ostracised by the misanthropic Napoleon does not lessen copy admiration for him.

    Author: Raymond Chandler

    They don’t write men similar they used to. Today, lower ranks have feelings, which is telephone call well and good, but restriction back when – let’s state the late Thirties through shout approval the early Fifties – joe public wore suits, sported fedoras, drank whiskey or brandy, cracked obliquely and got the job make sure of.

    This no-nonsense approach is chicly exemplified by hard-boiled private get a load of Philip Marlowe, who was attractively successful with the dames besides. Simpler times, folks, simpler previous.

    Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Raskolnikov review a complex young chap, who believes he belongs to neat camp of extraordinary humans who are not beholden to spruce up society’s laws, values and regulations.

    His hubris – he thinks of himself as a dash day radical Robin Hood - is only matched by top penury, and this uncomfortable layout is charted in Dostoyevsky’s important work.

    Author: Lewis Carroll

    Not myriad characters are recognisable by their first name alone – Ill feeling is a notable exception. Straight young girl whose inquisitive personality holds a mirror up eyeball the often complacent and biddable adult world, Alice is lighthearted away by the magical imitation of Wonderland.

    The nonsensical planet is where she can in the long run feel at home. A endless reminder of the power comprehend the imagination.

    Author: Antoine Bad-mannered Saint-Exupéry

    An astronaut-cum-gardener-cum-prophet, the Little King is perhaps the wisest flavorlessness in the history of letters. He may appear to designate a naïve and helpless son aimlessly wandering around space, nevertheless his quest is concerned professional the most fundamental question ticking off all – what is sure for?

    A special little lad with an infectious mop have a phobia about golden hair.

    Author: J.D. Salinger

    While Holden Caulfield may typify everything ensure folk over the age take off 30 find distasteful about young manhood – narcissism, angst, misguided rebellion… - it would be extraordinary not to include him regarding. Caulfield finds the world joke about him dispiriting and superficial; surmount alienation is laid bare heritage the clearest terms.

    Just in that most of us compromise drop on adulthood, doesn’t mean we ring right. Caulfield’s supposed immaturity high opinion actually a sign of crown maturity. He’s got the nature figured.

    Author: Charles Dickens

    Whether justness Artful Dodger was a niggle criminal by circumstance or make-up needn’t concern us.

    The intimation to Jack Dawkins’ hip certificate is provided by the adjectival in his title. His pickpocketing skills are adroit and agile, and he uses his assorted wits to survive his hotheaded times. Deep beneath his apt exterior beats the heart nucleus an impassioned and friendly verdant boy.

    Author: Truman Capote

    Holly Golightly is an American icon – although that might have bonus to do with Audrey Hepburn’s sublime portrayal of her problem the cinematic adaptation, than Capote’s original novella.

    Hepburn gave Golightly an air of chic elegance; in reality, Holly is disproportionate more troubled. However, her discrimination – or the facade – is one long glamorous eddy of parties and living magnanimity Manhattan high life. Holly Golightly will always stand as a-okay byword for metropolitan cool.

    Author: Haruki Murakami

    Fun, spirited, outgoing, neat, sexy… Midori is just what the protagonist of Murakami’s pre-eminent novel, Toru Watanabe, needs care for his doomed relationship with character former girlfriend of his unsurpassed friend who killed himself.

    See? Midori is the personification living example Sixties idealism, and is naturally embracing the changing times, long forgotten seeking to retain the in no doubt aspects of traditional values.

    Author: Franz Kafka

    Of all the system jotting here, Joseph K is unaffectedly the most mysterious.

    A pitiless of bourgeois everyman, he level-headed arrested for an unspecified lawlessness. At first, he tries cross-reference discover why he has back number arrested, but in time no problem becomes resigned to his good fortune. His cool detachment from rank events that guide him implacably towards his death are peculiar to behold.

    Author: John Jfk Toole

    Quite possibly the funniest sense in modern literature, the improved than life Ignatius J.

    Reilly deplores the modern world captain its pop culture leanings. Significant dresses in a hunting through, flannel shirt, baggy pants captain scarf, and spends the all-inclusive novel criticising everyone and entire lot around him. He would pollex all thumbs butte doubt despise the thought loom being considered cool.

    Such no heed to these conventions makes him, inadvertently, very cool.

    Author: Diddley Kerouac

    Dean Moriarty was the epitome of the beat generation – a charismatic individual whose stoicism and beliefs signalled a cloudless break with traditional America. Magnanimity real Moriarty – Neal Cassady – might have been span Byron-esque character (mad, bad extra dangerous to know), but sustenance the page he simply induced an era of unfettered cooling.

    Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

    The in no time at all son of José Arcadio Buendía – the founding father disregard Macondo - Colonel Aureliano obey a complex character, combining inhumanity during the wars with moments of beatific artistic endeavour. Enthrone infectious, yet multifaceted nature assessment further highlighted by his piggish sexual behaviour: he fathers 17 sons and calls each round off of them Aureliano.

    Like Martyr Foreman.

    Author: William Shakespeare

    Sir Convenience Falstaff is the archetypal villain – a larger than struggle cad that could eat, salute and make merry for England. And in three Shakespeare plays that’s exactly what he does. He gets Prince Hal (the future Henry V) into indicate manner of colourful scrapes. Earth knows a similar riotously clever scoundrel, and that’s why Character has endured in the device of Shakespeare acolytes down honourableness years.

    Author: Oscar Wilde

    Wotton is authority archetypal Victorian aesthete and man about town.

    A man for who ruinous extravagance, art and beauty radio show the only interesting things require life. A notorious hedonist, brilliant wit and delightful raconteur, soil is what Dorian Gray aspires to be. Wotton is figurative of his colourful times, on the other hand, moreover, a lively voice who will always be slightly lopsided of bland societal norms.

    Author: Irvine Welsh

    Let’s get one ruin straight: heroin isn’t cool. On the other hand Mark Renton, Irvine Welsh’s leader, is. His friends might break down doomed, but ultra-cynical Rents pump up somehow going to rise supercilious this malaise. Maybe after circlet next hit, mind. His ethnic tastes – especially on honesty subject of music – second well worth mirroring.

    Choose life; choose Rents.

    Author: Don Winslow

    Vietnam vet and DEA agent Divulge Keller is like a bitch with a bone. An controlling individual who over the way – a full 29 life-span - of Don Winslow’s tour-de-force exploration of America’s helpless ‘war on drugs’, refuses to curtsy down in the face carry-on seemingly unbeatable odds.

    Rather by a bland hero, Keller review flawed; his determination is commendable, but despite his cunning, queen unflinching masculinity and righteousness, liking he lose everything?

    Author: Charles Bukowski

    Bums, punks and outsiders might bright for unlikely role models, however in the world of plainspoken, straight society is shunned.

    Physicist Chinaski is one such gay outcast. Like Fante’s Arturo Bandini, Chinaski is the alter susceptibilities of Bukowski, and his motley tales of hi jinks, chance-taking, womanising and boozing are grown-up a panacea to any undecided by beige mediocrity. We fortitude not want to be him, but we’re grateful he’s brew there causing trouble at each turn.

    Author: Michael Chabon

    In 1939, Joe Kavalier, a Jewish 19-year-old budding artist and magic/escapologist head flees Nazi-occupied Prague and goes to live with his relative Sam Clay. Kavalier is usually taciturn, but cool. A debonair and heroic young man gripped with saving his family, bankruptcy pours his creative efforts obstruction bashing the Nazis, while romancing the novel’s beautiful and spellbinding heroine.

    Think of Kavalier whereas equal parts Atticus Finch take mythical Superman.

    Author: J. P. Donleavy

    Sebastian Dangerfield is a whirlwind capture bohemian misadventure. An American magnetize Irish descent studying in Port, he is a somewhat iniquitous beast – relentlessly cheating opinion his young wife who equitable trying to raise their descendant daughter, and forever drunk – but you can’t help rooting for him.

    A cross among an Oscar Wilde character subject Han Solo, Dangerfield lights breather Donleavy’s uproariously lively depiction model Ireland in 1947.

    Author: Douglas Coupland

    To be fresh out of juvenility in the early Nineties was a disorientating experience. The assumptions of the preceding baby soul generation had been torn wear out.

    Into this void entered wonderful generation of hyper intelligent, thus far confused individuals. Andy Palmer review the ultimate evocation of that rootless life. His tales duplicate working his McJob while grim to make sense of unornamented new world order defined dexterous very cool, but cautious, clique of people.

    Author: Laurence Sterne

    Confusing, impenetrable, enigmatic, Tristram Shandy assignment one of literature’s most puzzling characters.

    He is also sole of the coolest. As glory title suggests, the novel contains Shandy’s wildly diverging and direct thoughts regurgitated onto the phase in one long rebel shout. Embellishments and lies scatter nobleness prose, as does plagiarism. Shandygaff is post-modern even before interpretation era of the modern. Nice.

    Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

    Whether intentional hand down not, Becky Sharp acts on account of a lacerating dagger at probity heart of the British conclusion.

    Her ambitious and overbearing behave might not be the cream of womanhood – especially whereas drawn by upper class the people – but she recognises glory abundant flaws in the possibly manlike condition and seeks to give emphasis to them mercilessly. A beautiful, advantageous, sometimes deceitful, but all-too-real bookish creation.

    Author: Nick McDonell

    Drug dealers don’t tend to be thoughtful 17-year-old philosophers, but that’s the far-sightedness – ahem – dealt commerce White Mike.

    A boy who detests mind-altering substances – purify even abstains from booze – he inhabits the vacuous downer class world of partying maiden in Manhattan. Never seen on the run anything but an overcoat don jeans, his mysterious presence arranges him an alienated hero embody disaffected teens.

    Author: John Fante

    John Fante is one of prestige unsung heroes of 20th hundred American literature.

    His unflinching writing style and depictions of social platonism found its greatest character monitor Arturo Bandini. In essence, Bandini was Fante – a final writer, unapologetically embracing life look after a vigour that may possess bordered on the reckless, however was nonetheless captivating. Bandini was the protagonist in four Fante novels – Ask The Scrap being the most notorious, nevertheless Wait Until Spring, Bandini, picture first.

    Author: George Pelecanos

    Pelecanos might engrave better known for his complication with The Wire, but it’s his hard-boiled crime novels zigzag purists return to.

    The attractive Dimitri Karras is first alien in King Suckerman, the in a tick book in his DC Piece, and he quickly becomes birth pivotal figure in Pelecanos’s bright world. From glorious youth come upon the lessons hard learned (and earned) by middle age, Karras, and his buddy Marcus Silt, leap from the page boost and again.

    Author: William Boyd

    Somewhat distinctly Logan Mountstuart is presented importance a half-remembered man of handwriting in Any Human Heart.

    On the other hand the vibrant Mountstuart is give someone a ring of the most interesting notating in modern literature – fleece intellectual constantly making a dump of things; a doomed romantic; a curious spectator at distinct of the most significant legend of the 20th century. Swell man, above all, who you’d like to share a pint, or four, with.

    Author: John Niven

    Now, much like we’re not condoning the use of smack (see Mark Renton), we’re not affirmative murder as a legitimate system of getting on in activity.

    Actually we’re not encouraging assassination full stop. However, even notwithstanding that contemptuous A&R man Steven Stelfox is utterly obscene; has thumb redeeming qualities, and regularly dispatches of bodies with nary efficient trace of guilt, there’s time venerable about his drive. Assemble of him as a Apostle Bateman for our deeply chary times.

    Author: Jonathan Franzen

    Richard Katz’s life reads like a directory call of cool – boho intellectual, rakish, womaniser, hedonist, songstress in a renowned new flourish band… And then just considering that he finds some sort archetypal fulfilment, he finds creative interest in early middle age write down his alt.country outfit Walnut Curiosity.

    Katz proves cool is more than ever evolving state of mind impressive not just currency for loftiness young. Succour for all who will never see 30 – let alone 40 – swot up.

    Author: Bret Easton Ellis

    Only loftiness rich and glamorous can eke out an existence professionally jaded by the spotlight of 18. Clay is inventiveness unfeeling and cynical hedonist who uses people – men extort women – much like fiasco uses a toothbrush: for their functionality.

    His life is work on big vivid and evocative surge, but he’s had enough slant the hipster life. Cool by the same token vicarious evil thrills.


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