Milly Theale (I Capture the Castle” target=“_blank”>I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith). Frolicking around the English castle ruins with an eccentric family, a bathtub in the kitchen, and a notebook to chronicle what ensues is basically our job description. What time is tea?

Scout Finch (The Unbearable Lightness of Being” target=“_blank”>The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera). Loving and wide-eyed, Tereza seeks life’s truths from its high culture to the social improprieties of the Cold War in Prague. Every time Tomas strays and a Soviet tank rolls through the streets of her country, she’ll need someone to pour a cognac for her sorrows. Is that Beethoven we hear?

 

Count Lazlo de Almasy (The Hours” target=“_blank”>The Hours by Michael Cunningham). Declared the most intelligent woman in England by her husband, Leonard, Mrs. Woolf’s world vacillates between the green of her garden and the room of her own. While the advent of the Second World War may have undone her in real life, in fiction, her Bloomsbury existence is literary fantasy. We’re smoking cigarettes with her on the lawn in Sussex as we speak.

Bernadette Fox (The Interestings” target=“_blank”>The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer). Despite his flaws, the stalwart and talented Ethan Figman is a pillar of devotion and love to his friends and relations. With an unending cash stash for all occasions. We’d like to get in the inner circle on that. [Read a review of the book here.]

Eric Muller (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” target=“_blank”>The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce). Harold is willing to go to the literal ends of the earth to make good on a life he’s not so sure of, and to rectify an old wrong for dear Queenie. Despite his fuzzy idealism, we rooted for him the whole way. [Read a review of the book here.]

Which do you think are the most compelling — for whatever reason — literary characters out there? Tell us in the comments section below!

 

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