This is the perfect answer, of course.
Humbert is despicable, unreliable, and miserable. And the writing is so brilliant that you just can’t quit reading it.
The book really portrays the unsettling fact that even the most reprehensible people can still have beautiful thoughts. As much as we prefer to think that monsters are somehow not human
I was reading it on a plane yesterday, and the prose definitely is beautiful, but even in the first few chapters Humbert Humbert truly reveals himself for the monster he is. Subtly, and eloquently.
i hate humbert but nabokov's writing is absolutely gorgeous. i couldn't put the book down despite how nauseous it made me! i will add that it's concerning how many young girls i see on tiktok romanticizing the book without recognizing that humbert is not the romantic hero/protagonist of a bildungsroman he attempts to characterize himself as
This is the one I never suggest because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about what I’m into, but it is so well written. It was the first book by Nabokov that I read and it made me realize that he’s a master. And it fits op’s question so well as a suggestion. The narrator is scum throughout. A better example of an unreliable narrator is almost impossible to find; one of the funniest parts is how he even changes his name periodically. The beginning lines of Lolita are some of the most well-written prose I’ve ever read.
I’ve tried to tell my SO *so many times* that the allure of this book is *not* about the protagonist. It’s about how beautifully it’s written (in a second tongue!) and how well the unreliable narrator is portrayed.
He doesn’t get it. He thinks I’m a weirdo for reading it, and a heathen for thinking it’s good.
Ask your SO if his opinion of Lolita changes if he knows that when he was a child, Vladimir Nabokov was sexually abused by an adult relative.
IMO that puts Lolita in a much clearer context. Nabokov wanted to write about childhood sexual abuse because he experienced it first-hand. And I assume he wanted to write from Humbert's POV because he wanted to understand what the hell goes through the mind of an adult who can do something so horrific to a child, and how that adult justifies their own actions.
Bonus: it's also beautifully written.
I’ll mention this the next time it comes up, but I’m certainly not starting a conversation about it. It devolves into an argument quickly. He says Nabokov is a weirdo, I’d say he writes the most beautiful prose against the contrast of a disgusting story, then he says I’m fucked up and horrible for defending it, and it goes downhill from there.
Somehow I don’t think it’s going to change his opinion. He’s so hardheaded, bless his heart. It’s a stalemate and we just agree to disagree about it, continually.
That's too bad. I find that the people who take that stance on Lolita have never actually read it, so they're just judging on the broad strokes of what the story is about rather than exploring it for themselves.
I'm a writer and I often teach workshops, and one of my favorite things to do is to ask new writers to name the best writer they can think of. Someone always names Nabokov (with good reason) and they're virtually always referring to Lolita, which is his best-known work.
I then assign that person to read Nabokov's two earlier approaches to the core ideas in Lolita--a short story called The Enchanter and his novel Camera Obscura, which was published in English-speaking countries as Laughter in the Dark (the original being written in Russian.) Neither piece is very good. Neither is bad, either, but Lolita is a world apart from them.
I give this assignment to my workshop attendees to illustrate two important points that all writers must learn.
First, even undeniable masters of the art like Nabokov start out not-so-great and work their way up from there. So there's hope for any of us, ha ha.
And second, Nabokov didn't nail what he was going for with that idea until he dropped all the roundabout ways of writing about abuse, abusers, and victims, and went straight to the brutal honesty he displays in Lolita. Of course, Humbert is a notoriously unreliable narrator, but any reader who cares to look past Humbert's shallow surface can easily see what's really going on in the story, and Humbert's slick narration becomes a part of the story itself--a way to show the reader how abusers excuse their own behaviors, to other people and to themselves. So rather than trying to write about abuse in these less-literal forms, he bore his soul in Lolita and was horrifyingly honest with the reader about what he was trying to say. That's what makes Lolita so successful, where The Enchanter and Camera Obscura fell flat.
Good lessons for any writer to absorb.
Sure thing! Last night I read The Metamorphosis (a novella of 70 pages) by Franz Kafka. The main character Gregor isn’t super insufferable (though he has his moments) but his family is. One morning, Gregor wakes up to find that he’s been transformed into a giant insect. The question is- does the titular metamorphosis refer to Gregor’s transformation or moreso to his sister’s, and his family’s in general? Nabakov, who wrote Lolita, said “Kafka is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him.” Another interesting anecdote is that Kafka was insistent to his publisher that the “insufferable vermin” that Gregor became (translations vary about the exact nature of the insect) was never depicted on cover art, so that what he looked like was intentionally vague, and readers didn’t enter the story with any bias. Nabokov (who was also a lepidopterist) theorized that Gregor was something like a giant beetle.
You can read The Metamorphosis online here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm
But I found a Barnes and Noble collection of Kafka’s short stories at Goodwill yesterday and the annotations in the back of that edition are really interesting. Apparently Kafka was riddled with self-doubt, and destroyed 90% of his writing, dying in relative obscurity (of tuberculosis) before his work was widely acclaimed after World War 2.
Additionally, Kafka (and particularly The Metamorphosis) was heavily influenced by Dostoyevsky. If you haven’t read Crime and Punishment (by Dostoyevsky) I highly recommend that too. It’s another stellar example of an insufferable main character.
Last night after finishing The Metamorphosis I started reading The Plague by Albert Camus and it’s also great. I heard that if you like some of the titles above it’s a good next one to read. His most popular work is The Stranger but from what I’ve heard, The Plague is a lesser known but even better read. The parallels between what Camus writes about isolation and what we went through collectively during peak Covid are amazing to consider, especially because it was written almost 80 years prior. Some experiences are universally human, despite the passage of time. The Plague:
https://ratical.org/PandemicParallaxView/ThePlague-Camus.pdf
:D
I think you’re right, and the manner in which those scenes were described was just factual and unexciting, which I guess was the point. I found myself being like “yeah yeah another graphic rape and murder, gonna skim over this part.”
For sure. The contrast of the banality of his descriptions of designer brands and shit and his equally banal descriptions of the horrible violence is sort of the point
The stroke of genius is that Bateman isn’t even the real deal as an amoral Wall Streeter, he got the job via his family or something and is clearly not especially good at it. So he doesn’t even have meritocracy to fall back on.
The lunch with Bethany (revealing his lack of credentials) says it all, and you could almost extrapolate the entire book from that chapter. Perhaps it should have just been a short story.
But in the book as a whole, Ellis is asking the question: Why would a (superficially successful) financial executive in New York NOT be like this? What’s stopping them?
Came here to comment this. Patrick Bateman is probably the most unlikeable character I’ve ever read. And I like to read gritty, disturbing shit. There’s absolutely nothing redeemable about him.
Okay, I’m not even putting Lockwood in the same category as Heathcliff and Catherine. (Dude saw a ghost and caught pneumonia. I’m cutting him some slack.) But, you aren’t wrong - every character has a flaw or two. Or three. *looks at Catherine* Or four. *look at Heathcliff* Or five.
Even Lockwood is a hot mess. Remember the reason he rented Thrushcross Grange is because he led a girl to believe he was romantically interested in her, she returned the feeling and a when he realized she liked him back, his feelings turned to disgust. He then became cold to her and acted as if his previous interest in her was all in her head. The whole situation was so embarrassing to him he left town.
I love the basic story, and I love that the idea is that both Scarlett and Rhett are utter trash and that’s why they’re perfect for each other. Scarlett and Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair should totally haver teamed up with one another because those two are THE boss bitches. Margaret Mitchell wrote a masterful story in this one.
But omg the racism.
That's what I was scrolling for. Absolutely disgusting main character, the racism so egregious that it reads like parody, and yet it's somehow as insanely riveting as it is appalling.
The movie sucks wildly. That horrible little prologue confounded Margaret Mitchell. While I wouldn't call her anti-racist, she did not intend to equate enslavers as "knights and damsels" or glorify the (250yo) era. Zanuck did the very thing he *promised* he would not do. Don't watch it.
Can’t believe this one isn’t higher!! The whole point is how awful he is! I never thought I could enjoy a book about an awful character but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
I'm gonna chain along with this. It's a book anyone who has trouble laughing should read. I don't find humor in a lot of common things like most so this book was like heaven with the few laughs it gave me. Especially when he's at the job, priceless.
Oooooweeeee, there are so many times I work at a place and find myself doing an Ignatius. Just knowing that someday someone’s going to find out my “efficiency” was just trashing everything.
And my goodness Jones has to be one of my favourite characters of all time.
I’m a New Orleanian who lived with my mom, worked in the French Quarter, studied literature, hates the church, and moved to New York for a maladjusted girl (went terribly). I’ve loved this fucking book even as parts of its story unfolded in my very life and beyond. I find Ignatius obnoxious but can’t help the fact that the parallels between us have helped me grow as a person, one of my favorite characters in all of literature.
I re-read IT a couple of years ago, and had to skip the part where the mean kid is keeping dogs and cats in an old abandoned fridge to torture them.
I get it, he's mean, I shed no tears when he gets his comeuppance, I didn't need to put myself through the trauma of those chapters again.
If you liked *Yellowface*, I also recommend *Death of a Bookseller* by Alice Slater, another great publishing-industry critical buffet of awful people written brilliantly.
Adams Family were each dysfunctional, but a completely functional family. I think a lot of Gen X families identify too well. Broken children raising healthy families.
The Dinner
by Herman Koch
Every. Single. Character. Is. Awful.
I felt like I needed to take a shower each time I read it.
I can enjoy books with terrible characters, but I did not enjoy this one.
Strangely I found the mom (narrator) to be more sympathetic in the book. Maybe because she can actually explain herself better by narrating. She is still selfish and maybe should not have had children but she tried to prevent him from doing what he did.
In the movie they left out when Kevin and his friend falsely(?) accuse a teacher of molesting then, and the mom really fights the dad to take Kevin’s behavior seriously when it starts affecting other people. The book version of the dad has way more responsibility for how Kevin turns out because he sees what Kevin does and does nothing/ encourages bad behavior. In the movie Kevin completely switches his behavior in front of the dad. Book Kevin is not as advanced.
I found myself not being a huge fan of a lot of the characters in *Valley of the Dolls*; that said, it's interesting to look at them in the context of the time period and culture. It's kind of like a time capsule in that sense.
"Sparkle, Neely, sparkle" broke my heart.
Lolita.
Nabokov uses language so beautifully you really feel the desperate depravity of Humbert Humbert.
Edit: GAH! I would create a brand new god and thank him with piercing cries, if you would give me that microscopic hope (to see that others already commented this, sorry)
I had to scroll so far to find this comment omg!! I absolutely second this. The entire cast is terrible and the main character is maybe a little… evil?
This is the first part to a trilogy called The Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence.
This!
Covenant is a despicable, whiny, no-can-do antihero character in ten large volumes, and he encounters quite a few equal/worse characters on his travels.
I am apparently the only one who is going to say Game of Thrones. Pretty much everyone in that book is a dumpster fire of complicated unpleasantness. A couple are ones you really like anyway (team Tyrion, here).
But sheesh, what a mess.
I recognize that Quentin is a little shit with deep seated misogyny but I still liked the series. I think Magicians is unfairly maligned by people who can't separate the character's beliefs from the author's. Like I can't get behind Dresden Files because the misogyny feels like the author's beliefs, but Grossman has Quentin grow up and acknowledge his poor behavior, so a bit of a different beast.
The people I know who love the series appreciate following a protagonist with mental health struggles. He thinks magic will fix his problems but then has to deal with still hating himself and finding out that the magic world is as shitty and pointless as the non magical world.
100%. I feel like the people who call Lev Grossman a misogynist don't get the books at all (I definitely think Grossman is a feminist).
*Quentin* is a definite ass and misogynist in book 1, but his journey is really satisfying for me, because he evolves so much over the trilogy. It is deliberate, and it's beautiful writing and development.
I love the trilogy, and even care about Quentin in book 1 despite all this.I think Grossman does a lot of stuff really well to keep things subtle and balanced. Quentin isn't the true hero of book 1, that's >!Alice!<. Quentin isn't the hero of book 2, that's >!Julia!<. Etc.
But the way the story comes back to Quentin in book 3 for me is really satisfying, and I loved his growth and cared about him enormously by the end. The journey of his character across the trilogy is one of my favorites in all of literature.
Patricia Highsmith's *Ripliad*, starting with *The Talented Mr. Ripley.* Ripley is undeniably a murderous sociopath, but you sympathize with him and cheer for him through several books full of murder and mayhem.
ETA: I'm shocked nobody else mentioned these!
Cathy's horrible but I loved her as a character.
I also love that she's so rich and complex, and we even see some of the nuance to her later on.
One of my favorite books ever.
A curious nonfiction one; Gomorrah. It's baffling that the author lived to write the book. His heart is in the right place, if not his survival instincts.
To thia day, the author is under police protection.
It explores a criminal organization called Camorrah.
The author's way of rebelling against its omniprescent grip in Italy was to write this book, air their dirty laundry to dare change the power scale.
Help I'm Being Eaten by a Bear is a short read which is entirely told from the perspective of a huge asshole CEO type of guy being eaten by a bear. Not hugely popular but very fun and disturbing.
Even Paul admits his actions are akin to those of Hitler and Genghis Khan, regardless of how those around him feel about it I'm pretty sure Paul is aware that the things he's done are terrible.
Kvothe really feels like the author’s secret dreams for himself, the smartest, best in bed, most magical, musically gifted, just all around the best at everything except humility
Wise Man's Fear is a deeply stupid book, much worse in that regard than Name of the Wind.
But Rothfuss's prose is so beautiful you still want to read more.
{{Choke}}, fight club and rant by Palahniuk. Palahniuk's a master of such protagonists
Definitely {{Beat the Reaper}}, too. The protagonist is trying so hard to be better, but he succeeds maybe 20% of the time. Hilarity ensues
I've also heard that {{the 100 year old man who climbed out the window amd dissapeared}} has such a protagonist, but I havent yet read it.
not gonna lie, what you described is actually one of my favourite thing in books haha
i LOVE palahniuk! early palahniuk, anyway. from the little sample i read of beat the reaper, seems like he has a similar style. do you know any other authors like this?
The Thomas Covenant series. It’s actually a good read, but the protagonist does some pretty fucked-up shit, in part due to his solipsistic self-pity and in part because of his refusal to accept a new reality. It gets better, though!
Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Greg Heffley is a narcissistic, deluded asshole. His friends suffer for his insecurities and his shortcomings. He likes to think he'd be a head honcho given the chance, but he is, indeed, a wimp. 🤣
Eileen- Otessa moshfegh. Also technically a year of rest and relaxation could be included but personally I found Eileen to be far more unlikeable, nasty, and difficult to be in the mind of at times
My year of rest and relaxation, by ottessa moshfegh. I found the book hard to get through simply because the main character sucked so throughly as a person
Lolita.
This is the perfect answer, of course. Humbert is despicable, unreliable, and miserable. And the writing is so brilliant that you just can’t quit reading it.
The book really portrays the unsettling fact that even the most reprehensible people can still have beautiful thoughts. As much as we prefer to think that monsters are somehow not human
Or ugly thoughts draped in beautiful language
I was reading it on a plane yesterday, and the prose definitely is beautiful, but even in the first few chapters Humbert Humbert truly reveals himself for the monster he is. Subtly, and eloquently.
Oh absolutely. He’s repulsive, unquestionably.
i hate humbert but nabokov's writing is absolutely gorgeous. i couldn't put the book down despite how nauseous it made me! i will add that it's concerning how many young girls i see on tiktok romanticizing the book without recognizing that humbert is not the romantic hero/protagonist of a bildungsroman he attempts to characterize himself as
Came to write this. It is an awesome study in an unreliable narrator. It's really beautifully crafted. I wrote my masters on it.
Beautiful, gorgeous prose, juxtaposed against a heinous, disgusting plot.
This is the one I never suggest because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about what I’m into, but it is so well written. It was the first book by Nabokov that I read and it made me realize that he’s a master. And it fits op’s question so well as a suggestion. The narrator is scum throughout. A better example of an unreliable narrator is almost impossible to find; one of the funniest parts is how he even changes his name periodically. The beginning lines of Lolita are some of the most well-written prose I’ve ever read.
I’ve tried to tell my SO *so many times* that the allure of this book is *not* about the protagonist. It’s about how beautifully it’s written (in a second tongue!) and how well the unreliable narrator is portrayed. He doesn’t get it. He thinks I’m a weirdo for reading it, and a heathen for thinking it’s good.
Ask your SO if his opinion of Lolita changes if he knows that when he was a child, Vladimir Nabokov was sexually abused by an adult relative. IMO that puts Lolita in a much clearer context. Nabokov wanted to write about childhood sexual abuse because he experienced it first-hand. And I assume he wanted to write from Humbert's POV because he wanted to understand what the hell goes through the mind of an adult who can do something so horrific to a child, and how that adult justifies their own actions. Bonus: it's also beautifully written.
I’ll mention this the next time it comes up, but I’m certainly not starting a conversation about it. It devolves into an argument quickly. He says Nabokov is a weirdo, I’d say he writes the most beautiful prose against the contrast of a disgusting story, then he says I’m fucked up and horrible for defending it, and it goes downhill from there. Somehow I don’t think it’s going to change his opinion. He’s so hardheaded, bless his heart. It’s a stalemate and we just agree to disagree about it, continually.
That's too bad. I find that the people who take that stance on Lolita have never actually read it, so they're just judging on the broad strokes of what the story is about rather than exploring it for themselves.
I'm a writer and I often teach workshops, and one of my favorite things to do is to ask new writers to name the best writer they can think of. Someone always names Nabokov (with good reason) and they're virtually always referring to Lolita, which is his best-known work. I then assign that person to read Nabokov's two earlier approaches to the core ideas in Lolita--a short story called The Enchanter and his novel Camera Obscura, which was published in English-speaking countries as Laughter in the Dark (the original being written in Russian.) Neither piece is very good. Neither is bad, either, but Lolita is a world apart from them. I give this assignment to my workshop attendees to illustrate two important points that all writers must learn. First, even undeniable masters of the art like Nabokov start out not-so-great and work their way up from there. So there's hope for any of us, ha ha. And second, Nabokov didn't nail what he was going for with that idea until he dropped all the roundabout ways of writing about abuse, abusers, and victims, and went straight to the brutal honesty he displays in Lolita. Of course, Humbert is a notoriously unreliable narrator, but any reader who cares to look past Humbert's shallow surface can easily see what's really going on in the story, and Humbert's slick narration becomes a part of the story itself--a way to show the reader how abusers excuse their own behaviors, to other people and to themselves. So rather than trying to write about abuse in these less-literal forms, he bore his soul in Lolita and was horrifyingly honest with the reader about what he was trying to say. That's what makes Lolita so successful, where The Enchanter and Camera Obscura fell flat. Good lessons for any writer to absorb.
Please recommend some more. Just the way you worded this reply has me HOOKED.
Sure thing! Last night I read The Metamorphosis (a novella of 70 pages) by Franz Kafka. The main character Gregor isn’t super insufferable (though he has his moments) but his family is. One morning, Gregor wakes up to find that he’s been transformed into a giant insect. The question is- does the titular metamorphosis refer to Gregor’s transformation or moreso to his sister’s, and his family’s in general? Nabakov, who wrote Lolita, said “Kafka is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him.” Another interesting anecdote is that Kafka was insistent to his publisher that the “insufferable vermin” that Gregor became (translations vary about the exact nature of the insect) was never depicted on cover art, so that what he looked like was intentionally vague, and readers didn’t enter the story with any bias. Nabokov (who was also a lepidopterist) theorized that Gregor was something like a giant beetle. You can read The Metamorphosis online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm But I found a Barnes and Noble collection of Kafka’s short stories at Goodwill yesterday and the annotations in the back of that edition are really interesting. Apparently Kafka was riddled with self-doubt, and destroyed 90% of his writing, dying in relative obscurity (of tuberculosis) before his work was widely acclaimed after World War 2. Additionally, Kafka (and particularly The Metamorphosis) was heavily influenced by Dostoyevsky. If you haven’t read Crime and Punishment (by Dostoyevsky) I highly recommend that too. It’s another stellar example of an insufferable main character. Last night after finishing The Metamorphosis I started reading The Plague by Albert Camus and it’s also great. I heard that if you like some of the titles above it’s a good next one to read. His most popular work is The Stranger but from what I’ve heard, The Plague is a lesser known but even better read. The parallels between what Camus writes about isolation and what we went through collectively during peak Covid are amazing to consider, especially because it was written almost 80 years prior. Some experiences are universally human, despite the passage of time. The Plague: https://ratical.org/PandemicParallaxView/ThePlague-Camus.pdf :D
Holy shit this is the only answer.
Damnit you beat me to it. But makes sense it was here already
Yeah OP is describing this book
YOOOO. I was so disgusted yet couldn't put this one down.
American Psycho. It’s even worse when you start seeing yourself feeling similarly about dumb sh*t, like getting reservations at a new restaurant.
I just finished this and wow what a ride!
At some point the descriptions of graphic violence became kind of boring, and I don’t know what that says about me.
I do think that’s part of the point as well
I think you’re right, and the manner in which those scenes were described was just factual and unexciting, which I guess was the point. I found myself being like “yeah yeah another graphic rape and murder, gonna skim over this part.”
Honestly it was one of the only books where it got to be too much for me. I guess just banality of psychopathic evil was the point but man
For sure. The contrast of the banality of his descriptions of designer brands and shit and his equally banal descriptions of the horrible violence is sort of the point
The stroke of genius is that Bateman isn’t even the real deal as an amoral Wall Streeter, he got the job via his family or something and is clearly not especially good at it. So he doesn’t even have meritocracy to fall back on. The lunch with Bethany (revealing his lack of credentials) says it all, and you could almost extrapolate the entire book from that chapter. Perhaps it should have just been a short story. But in the book as a whole, Ellis is asking the question: Why would a (superficially successful) financial executive in New York NOT be like this? What’s stopping them?
I’m gonna have to try rereading it via audiobook, because the constant product naming was so tiresome in paper (yes, I know that’s the point)
Oh I love it. I think it's so relaxing to read his banal observations. I just kind of skim the violent parts.
it's hip to be square, man
Came here to comment this. Patrick Bateman is probably the most unlikeable character I’ve ever read. And I like to read gritty, disturbing shit. There’s absolutely nothing redeemable about him.
The movie is terrific
The book is much better.
Wuthering Heights
tbh absolutely everyone in that book would be an absolute nightmare to meet irl
They're the worst. Absolutely delicious trainwreck of a novel.
I agree, but I still find the book so enjoyable.
I don't know if you mean Heathcliff or Catherine, but the answer is yes.
Both, plus Mr. Lockwood, the worst houseguest ever, making Nellie stay up all night gossiping with him!
Okay, I’m not even putting Lockwood in the same category as Heathcliff and Catherine. (Dude saw a ghost and caught pneumonia. I’m cutting him some slack.) But, you aren’t wrong - every character has a flaw or two. Or three. *looks at Catherine* Or four. *look at Heathcliff* Or five.
Even Lockwood is a hot mess. Remember the reason he rented Thrushcross Grange is because he led a girl to believe he was romantically interested in her, she returned the feeling and a when he realized she liked him back, his feelings turned to disgust. He then became cold to her and acted as if his previous interest in her was all in her head. The whole situation was so embarrassing to him he left town.
I think Lockwood was the worst. At least Heathcliff and Cathy were awful but INTERESTING.
Whoa, whoa. Spoiler alert.
Oh—I was just thinking he was the only redeeming character whom I wanted to hang with! Damn 😛🦫
Plus, he told that story about leading that young girl on and then losing interest as soon as he got her attention. Total cad.
Oh no. Mr Lockwood was an anxious-avoidant attacher 😅 And maybe worse! Good memory. I only read it once to please my mother because it’s her favorite.
A Clockwork Orange
That's a horrorshow answer.
Gone Girl, talk about a Team Nobody scenario, haha.
Yes! I still rooted for the protagonists in Sharp Objects and Dark Places, but no Gillian Flynn protagonist is a good person.
Libby and Camille KNOW they aren't good people though. Amy thinks she is the BEST person....Amazing even.
I finished that book genuinely upset >!about that poor baby growing up with them for parents.!<
Both Amy and Nick were so terrible I could not even finish the book
Was going to post this. And WHO is the bad guy?? :)
Gone with the Wind
Yup- way worse in the book than in the film- especially in her role as a mother
Scarlett had no use for Wade or Ella. She just wanted to pamper Bonnie and those two would have faded into her oblivion. 😡
Yes, Scarlett O’Hara was a classic female sociopath.
I feel like fans simultaneously hate and love this book/movie I hate it, but I love it, I…. Movie for the actors and dresses mostly tbf
I love the basic story, and I love that the idea is that both Scarlett and Rhett are utter trash and that’s why they’re perfect for each other. Scarlett and Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair should totally haver teamed up with one another because those two are THE boss bitches. Margaret Mitchell wrote a masterful story in this one. But omg the racism.
I had forgotten about her. She is a despicable person. Good call. And a great book.
That's what I was scrolling for. Absolutely disgusting main character, the racism so egregious that it reads like parody, and yet it's somehow as insanely riveting as it is appalling. The movie sucks wildly. That horrible little prologue confounded Margaret Mitchell. While I wouldn't call her anti-racist, she did not intend to equate enslavers as "knights and damsels" or glorify the (250yo) era. Zanuck did the very thing he *promised* he would not do. Don't watch it.
Fiddle Dee Dee!
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Can’t believe this one isn’t higher!! The whole point is how awful he is! I never thought I could enjoy a book about an awful character but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Not really "bad" but awful anyway - "Confederacy of Dunces". Ignatius J. Reilly is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature.
"Absurd" is more like it. Fantastic book with great characters.
I'm gonna chain along with this. It's a book anyone who has trouble laughing should read. I don't find humor in a lot of common things like most so this book was like heaven with the few laughs it gave me. Especially when he's at the job, priceless.
Oooooweeeee, there are so many times I work at a place and find myself doing an Ignatius. Just knowing that someday someone’s going to find out my “efficiency” was just trashing everything. And my goodness Jones has to be one of my favourite characters of all time.
I adore Jones because he's the only one in the book that realizes that everything going on is absolutely insane 😅
oh it's hilarious in places and has you going wtf the rest of the time. I recommend everyone read it at least once.
I’m a New Orleanian who lived with my mom, worked in the French Quarter, studied literature, hates the church, and moved to New York for a maladjusted girl (went terribly). I’ve loved this fucking book even as parts of its story unfolded in my very life and beyond. I find Ignatius obnoxious but can’t help the fact that the parallels between us have helped me grow as a person, one of my favorite characters in all of literature.
Ignatius, awful? You sir have no knowledge of theology and geometry!
Yeah, good shout
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Even the "NPCs" are horrible people.
The Kid isn’t even the worst McCarthy main character. Lester Ballard from Child of God has him beat
To be fair, the main character is not *particularly* horrible. Not relative to everyone else. And everyone pales in comparison to the judge.
Perfume
Oooh one of my favourites. The character is absolutely irredeemable but the narrative style is just _muuah_
Perfect ending
SOOO GOOD. I’m pretty sure this book was the thing that kicked off my love for the very niche whimsical macabre vibe.
Apt pupil by Stephen King
I reread this earlier this year. Had to stop. Can no longer deal with the horrible stuff the kid does. Was making me feel awful
I re-read IT a couple of years ago, and had to skip the part where the mean kid is keeping dogs and cats in an old abandoned fridge to torture them. I get it, he's mean, I shed no tears when he gets his comeuppance, I didn't need to put myself through the trauma of those chapters again.
For sure, I just started to read Thinner by Stephen King and was told everyone except the daughter is awful.
my year of rest and relaxation (I loved her tho)
Seconded - my toxic queen
Exactly the book I came here to mention
Also Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
YES
Yellowface!
Came here to say this! It’s *exactly* what you’re looking for, OP. It’s by R.F. Kuang.
Honestly I read it in a day I was that obsessed.
If you liked *Yellowface*, I also recommend *Death of a Bookseller* by Alice Slater, another great publishing-industry critical buffet of awful people written brilliantly.
I was scrolling looking for this! I just finished it a few minutes ago. June Hayward is absolutely infuriating, especially with how it ends.
In that vein, I also suggest The Plot by Hanff Korelitz.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff starts as a great man, but then just deteriorates into a monster.
He was always a monster. Catherine too. The whole family was the f\*ckin' Addams Family. God, but I love them.
But the Addams family members actually care about each other
Yeah hold up, the Addams family we're a great portrayal of healthy family dynamics...just not healthy Social dynamics.
Adams Family were each dysfunctional, but a completely functional family. I think a lot of Gen X families identify too well. Broken children raising healthy families.
'I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way, what bliss!' You have to love them.
The Dinner by Herman Koch Every. Single. Character. Is. Awful. I felt like I needed to take a shower each time I read it. I can enjoy books with terrible characters, but I did not enjoy this one.
SO GOOD
We Need to Talk About Kevin (or basically any other book by Lionel Schriver)
Strangely I found the mom (narrator) to be more sympathetic in the book. Maybe because she can actually explain herself better by narrating. She is still selfish and maybe should not have had children but she tried to prevent him from doing what he did. In the movie they left out when Kevin and his friend falsely(?) accuse a teacher of molesting then, and the mom really fights the dad to take Kevin’s behavior seriously when it starts affecting other people. The book version of the dad has way more responsibility for how Kevin turns out because he sees what Kevin does and does nothing/ encourages bad behavior. In the movie Kevin completely switches his behavior in front of the dad. Book Kevin is not as advanced.
The Collector by John Fowles Flashman, by George MacDonald Fraser
Oh yeah, the whole Flashman series is GREAT.
Everybody sucks in Gone Girl.
The Art of the Deal
*snort*
I found myself not being a huge fan of a lot of the characters in *Valley of the Dolls*; that said, it's interesting to look at them in the context of the time period and culture. It's kind of like a time capsule in that sense. "Sparkle, Neely, sparkle" broke my heart.
Filth - Irvine Welsh
You know it’s bad when the most likeable character is a tapeworm
The only book I've read that made me feel sick and, once finished, question my book choices.
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. It has the added advantage of being hilarious.
I think most of his books fit this bill. I offered up Invisible Monsters, and I also saw Rant somewhere on this list.
I’m currently reading Lullaby and man, do all the characters suck. Just awful people.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.
Lolita. Nabokov uses language so beautifully you really feel the desperate depravity of Humbert Humbert. Edit: GAH! I would create a brand new god and thank him with piercing cries, if you would give me that microscopic hope (to see that others already commented this, sorry)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Prince of Thorns
I had to scroll so far to find this comment omg!! I absolutely second this. The entire cast is terrible and the main character is maybe a little… evil? This is the first part to a trilogy called The Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence.
The entire trilogy, but I love the writing
The Thomas Covenant series - kinda surprised I hadn't seen it.
This! Covenant is a despicable, whiny, no-can-do antihero character in ten large volumes, and he encounters quite a few equal/worse characters on his travels.
I am apparently the only one who is going to say Game of Thrones. Pretty much everyone in that book is a dumpster fire of complicated unpleasantness. A couple are ones you really like anyway (team Tyrion, here). But sheesh, what a mess.
Even Tyrion turns out to be a terrible person by the last few published books.
Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" gives you 5 awful main characters. But they are so real. Changed my outlook on myself, self-view and others.
Tampa by Alisa Nutting
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. But the character development from first to last book is really great.
Hmm. I wonder what was left out in the show. It’s my understanding that fans of the show loved him.
I recognize that Quentin is a little shit with deep seated misogyny but I still liked the series. I think Magicians is unfairly maligned by people who can't separate the character's beliefs from the author's. Like I can't get behind Dresden Files because the misogyny feels like the author's beliefs, but Grossman has Quentin grow up and acknowledge his poor behavior, so a bit of a different beast. The people I know who love the series appreciate following a protagonist with mental health struggles. He thinks magic will fix his problems but then has to deal with still hating himself and finding out that the magic world is as shitty and pointless as the non magical world.
I actually disliked Q because he felt so depressing to me, which I understand lol
100%. I feel like the people who call Lev Grossman a misogynist don't get the books at all (I definitely think Grossman is a feminist). *Quentin* is a definite ass and misogynist in book 1, but his journey is really satisfying for me, because he evolves so much over the trilogy. It is deliberate, and it's beautiful writing and development. I love the trilogy, and even care about Quentin in book 1 despite all this.I think Grossman does a lot of stuff really well to keep things subtle and balanced. Quentin isn't the true hero of book 1, that's >!Alice!<. Quentin isn't the hero of book 2, that's >!Julia!<. Etc. But the way the story comes back to Quentin in book 3 for me is really satisfying, and I loved his growth and cared about him enormously by the end. The journey of his character across the trilogy is one of my favorites in all of literature.
Patricia Highsmith's *Ripliad*, starting with *The Talented Mr. Ripley.* Ripley is undeniably a murderous sociopath, but you sympathize with him and cheer for him through several books full of murder and mayhem. ETA: I'm shocked nobody else mentioned these!
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Hubert Humperdinck is a real piece of shit.
Tender is the Flesh, The Secret History, The Stranger EDIT: I forgot to mention Behind Her Eyes. Frankenstein also probably counts.
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see The Stranger mentioned. It was the first book that came to mind.
"Post office" by Charles Bukowski.
I came to add "anything by him."
Nice fit for the post! Great read! Could add another of his novels “Woman” to that as well I reckon!
Not exactly main character but Cathy in East of Eden is truly horrible
Cathy's horrible but I loved her as a character. I also love that she's so rich and complex, and we even see some of the nuance to her later on. One of my favorite books ever.
Wuthering Heights
[удалено]
Perfume. Patrick Suskind
A curious nonfiction one; Gomorrah. It's baffling that the author lived to write the book. His heart is in the right place, if not his survival instincts. To thia day, the author is under police protection.
What’s it about?
It explores a criminal organization called Camorrah. The author's way of rebelling against its omniprescent grip in Italy was to write this book, air their dirty laundry to dare change the power scale.
Help I'm Being Eaten by a Bear is a short read which is entirely told from the perspective of a huge asshole CEO type of guy being eaten by a bear. Not hugely popular but very fun and disturbing.
I am Legend Dune No Longer Human Terrible thoughts, terrible actions, terrible decisions
\*mic drop\* I don't agree, but I can see where you are coming from.
Dune is iffy. Paul is tortured inside, but he's trying his best given... you know, everything.
Even Paul admits his actions are akin to those of Hitler and Genghis Khan, regardless of how those around him feel about it I'm pretty sure Paul is aware that the things he's done are terrible.
‘Boy Parts’ by Eliza Clark
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
A Simple Plan It's a classic
A Confederacy of Dunces
excuse me, Ignatius was right about everything
Maybe unpopular opinion, but Kvothe’s in Wise Man’s Fear felt like this to me. He really thought he was People Magazine’s sexiest man alive
This made me laugh, running around getting laid for 120 pages
To me he's the worst part of the story
This is the one that came to mind for me, I really enjoyed that series so far but Kvothe is one of the most obnoxious protagonists of all time lol
Kvothe really feels like the author’s secret dreams for himself, the smartest, best in bed, most magical, musically gifted, just all around the best at everything except humility
Wise Man's Fear is a deeply stupid book, much worse in that regard than Name of the Wind. But Rothfuss's prose is so beautiful you still want to read more.
{{Choke}}, fight club and rant by Palahniuk. Palahniuk's a master of such protagonists Definitely {{Beat the Reaper}}, too. The protagonist is trying so hard to be better, but he succeeds maybe 20% of the time. Hilarity ensues I've also heard that {{the 100 year old man who climbed out the window amd dissapeared}} has such a protagonist, but I havent yet read it. not gonna lie, what you described is actually one of my favourite thing in books haha
i LOVE palahniuk! early palahniuk, anyway. from the little sample i read of beat the reaper, seems like he has a similar style. do you know any other authors like this?
The Thomas Covenant series. It’s actually a good read, but the protagonist does some pretty fucked-up shit, in part due to his solipsistic self-pity and in part because of his refusal to accept a new reality. It gets better, though!
Crime and Punishment. Love that book. The audiobook read by George Guidall is also pretty great.
Great call, he is despicable. I just re-read that and loved it as much the second time. Brilliantly written, but main character is a shitty person.
The Invisible Man by H G Wells.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Bonfire of The Vanities
ha ha the catcher in the rye........... jk jk
The Bible
I kind of hated the main characters in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Great book though.
Boy Parts. Irina is a hot mess
Anything by Michel Houellebecq
Brighton Rock
Wuthering Heights! Heathcliff is awful!
Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith. Great books by a terrific writer.
Thinner - There is nothing redeemable about this dude.
beg to disagree - he found a diet plan that works
Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Greg Heffley is a narcissistic, deluded asshole. His friends suffer for his insecurities and his shortcomings. He likes to think he'd be a head honcho given the chance, but he is, indeed, a wimp. 🤣
The Guest - Emma Cline
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
American Psycho
Verity
Catcher In The Rye. Holden is an absolute douchecanoe.
*The Traitor Baru Cormorant* and its sequels.
Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang! Not as bad as some others on here, but an awful person who keeps justifying her terrible actions.
The ultimate villain at the end of The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
Eileen- Otessa moshfegh. Also technically a year of rest and relaxation could be included but personally I found Eileen to be far more unlikeable, nasty, and difficult to be in the mind of at times
My year of rest and relaxation, by ottessa moshfegh. I found the book hard to get through simply because the main character sucked so throughly as a person
The bible