Imlac, from out of
Rasselas. A poet and philosopher whose wisdom is matched only by his modesty and benevolence.
Salvor Hardin from
Foundation, for being benevolent but ultra-cunning, and stealing the show with a pretty small part of an ambitious book (One of his mottos is "Never let your sense of morals prevent you form doing what is right!", which pretty much says all you need to know).
The unnamed protagonist of
The Society of Others (close runner up is Vicenzo), for being brilliantly written, intelligent and perceptive, and developing drastically without just morphing into another character altogether.
Richard Remington from
The New Machiavelli, if not for general depth of character then for several of his most excellent, furious rants about a society that's still the same now as it was a century ago:
Quote:
"I'm boiling with indignation," I said. "I lay in bed last night and went through it all. What in God's name was to be expected of us but what has happened? I went through my life bit by bit last night, I recalled all I've had to do with virtue and women, and all I was told and how I was prepared. I was born into cowardice and debasement. We all are. Our generation's grimy with hypocrisy. I came to the most beautiful things in life like peeping Tom of Coventry. I was never given a light, never given a touch of natural manhood by all this dingy, furtive, canting, humbugging English world. Thank God! I'll soon be out of it! The shame of it! The very savages in Australia initiate their children better than the English do to-day.
Neither of us was ever given a view of what they call morality that didn't make it show as shabby subservience, as the meanest discretion, an abject submission to unreasonable prohibitions! Meek surrender of mind and body to the dictation of pedants and old women and fools. We weren't taught—we were mumbled at! And when we found that the thing they called unclean, unclean, was Pagan beauty—God! it was a glory to sin, Britten, it was a pride and splendour like bathing in the sunlight after dust and grime!"
Mellors from
Lady Chatterley's Lover (which starts really poorly, but I'm glad I stuck with it because he just gets better the more he speaks.
Hector and Henry from
Henry Tumour. It's a bit of a cheat, but they're a double act and to separate them would literally kill at least one of them. A brilliant, brilliant book*, and the only book about a teenager that's ever been remotely accurate. And they're funny and intelligent, and wise, but also prone to spite and selfishness, and their relationship develops beautifu... aargh, damn it! Stop posting threads about books! You'll have me up all night.
*Probably best summed up by a reviewer somewhere or other:
Quote:
Then Hector starts hearing a voice in his head.... Its mission is to persuade him to get stuck into life's passing feast.... The voice is that of Hector's tumour, the eponymous Henry, and it hectors him with increasing urgency, because while urging him to live, it is killing him.