Five unforgettable men and the books where they live.
Most people come to the book for the concept. When you pick up a new novel, with a few exceptions, you generally pick up because you like the idea that drives the book. Dystopia, serial killer mystery, high fantasy series, paranormal romance, these are the things that make our heads buzz when we decide to check out, buy or download something to read. Once you’re in the thick of all that conceptual and thematic heaviness, though, something has to hold you. Something has to get hooks in and refuse to let go, or it just becomes a great idea poorly executed. For that, we turn to characters.
So, in honor of Guys Read Week here at Stacked, rather than focusing on the books guys read, let’s take a look at the guys inside the books. Here are five very different imaginary males guaranteed to keep you reading.
Roland Deschain (The Gunslinger), The Dark Tower, Books 1-7 by Stephen King
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| The Gunslinger, art by Michael Whelan. |
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower maintains one of the most rabid cult followings in modern fantasy, yet it seems so many readers still dismiss it simply because it was written by America’s Boogeyman. Like all of King’s works, the massive Tower saga (a work nearly four decades in the making and still growing) has elements of the horrific, but at its core is an expansive fantasy saga filled with parallel universes, complex worldbuilding, magic, monsters, warriors and a fight to very literally save everything.
At the center of all of this is Roland Deschain, the last of a vaguely Arthurian line of warriors called gunslingers (think Jedi Knights with six shooters). Roland’s home, the world and civilization he was sworn to protect, has been wiped from existence by a war, and the universe around him is steadily deteriorating. As the sole survivor of an order of men sworn to protect, he embarks on a quest to find The Dark Tower, literally the center of all things, and defeat the forces that seek to unmake existence.
While the series is eventually populated with a host of memorable characters, as it begins Roland walks alone. He seems simple, the archetypal strong, silent fighter with eyes as cold as the iron in his revolvers. As the series evolves, grows and deepens, it’s not only King’s story that keeps us going, but the deepening complexity of Roland. As the quest advances, he becomes teacher, philosopher, lover, friend, father and, ultimately, savior, all while maintaining his cool gunfighter exterior. He’s mythic but organic, superhuman yet precariously fallible, and it’s his journey, more than any of the story’s many other charms, that makes The Dark Tower great.
Grady Tripp, Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
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| Michael Douglas as Grady Tripp, from Wonder Boys, directed by Curtis Hanson. |
Like Roland, Grady Tripp is on a quest, but he’s anything but a warrior. He’s very nearly a schmuck, a has-been whose world is collapsing around him. His wife is gone, his mistress is in crisis, his agent is in town waiting for a long-promised second novel (his first was a smash hit…nearly a decade ago), the novel in question is more than 2,600 pages long with no end in sight, and one of his students is in desperate need of a mentor.
Wonder Boys is Grady’s story, told in his voice, of how he fought to finish his book and right his life, even as everything around him just kept getting stranger. It’s a brilliantly funny book, but it also has a great deal to say about the general frailty and insecurity of creative people, especially creative people who are attempting to maintain their reputation of brilliance (The book is Chabon’s sophomore novel, his first published effort after being hailed as a wunderkind when his first book was released.). Grady is not the nicest of men, nor the wisest, but he is painfully aware of how far he’s fallen, and it’s his desperate push to lift himself up again that makes Wonder Boys so powerful.
Elijah Snow, Planetary by Warren Ellis
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| Elijah Snow, art by John Cassaday |
Moving into comics for a moment, we come upon Elijah Snow, a 100-year-old yet seemingly almost ageless man with the ability to subtract the heat from anything. He can turn a room cold in seconds, freeze the fluid in your brain and even turn your body rock hard and shatter you with a single punch. He’s also the apparent leader of Planetary, a shadowy organization of superhumans dedicated to excavating the world’s secret history and unlocking humanity’s true potential.
Planetary is an all-too-brief (less than 30 issues) series all about secrets, whether they’re the existence of ghosts, life on other planets or the creation of the universe. It’s also about personal secrets, and Elijah packs more in his being than any of his cohorts. His origins are murky even to himself, as are his motivations. Still, he fights to constantly uncover things, to excavate the impossible, to dig up the things that Powers That Be have long-since buried. Planetary is exceptional for many reasons, but Elijah Snow is without a doubt the coolest (pun intended) part.
Judge Holden, Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian is a brutal, gorgeously primal novel, and at the heart of that brutality is Judge Holden, a hulking, mystical and seemingly superintelligent albino who savors violence and mayhem. Based on an apparently real person who scalphunted Indians with the Glanton Gang in the mid-1800s, Judge Holden fades in and out of McCarthy’s novel like a spirit, sometimes helpful, sometimes vengeful, but always pulsing with an aura of savagery.
Holden’s ruthless spirit is contrasted with an almost impossible intelligence, and an almost supernatural ability to influence nearly every other character for good or ill. His mysterious presence, coupled with McCarthy’s biblical, visceral prose, makes him more than an antihero or antagonist. He’s a monster, alternately embraced and repulsed by the other characters, and he never stops being utterly fascinating.
Harry D’Amour, “The Last Illusion,” “Lost Souls,” The Great and Secret Show and Everville by Clive Barker
Before Harry Dresden, and before John Constantine got his own series, Hellblazer, Clive Barker created supernatural investigator Harry D’Amour. Poor, scruffy and covered with talismanic, protective tattoos, D’Amour delves into only the very strangest of cases, battling with demons and things not of this world with a combination of secret knowledge and Working Joe elbow grease.
D’Amour has his roots in the hardboiled detective tradition perfected by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but the level of mystery that surrounds him, along with his attitudes, his interests and the creatures he faces, are all Barker. What makes Harry cool is not that he’s trying to be cool, but that he’s just working, fighting, scraping to get it done. The odds are always against him, and he always keeps pushing the limits of his own understanding of what lies beyond human experience. This not only makes him a badass, but an avatar for the reader. He’s our ticket to the ether. D’Amour is allegedly appearing as the protagonist of a massive upcoming Barker project called The Scarlet Gospels (which will also resurrect the legendary Pinhead), but at the rate the book seems to be going, there’s plenty of time to tackle every other D’Amour story before then.
So there, I’ve done it. A cornucopia of maleness. Happy Reading.
