best literary characters of all time

Recently I was scanning one of those standard “100 Greatest Novels Ever Written” lists. It was a respectable list: 1. Don Quixote, 2. War and Peace, 3. Ulysses…

Then I started wondering about how the books would differ if you were asking about the greatest characters in world literature. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza would be up there, sure. But while the characterization in War and Peace is fine, none of the characters are especially fascinating (Dostoevsky’s characters are surely more interesting than Tolstoy’s, though I’m not actually sure Dostoevsky is the better novelist).

Dante is another such case. Even the most memorable characters in Dante last for a couple of pages, other than Virgil and Beatrice, who are interesting in ways other than their characterization within the poem itself. Satan is probably the most interesting character in Dante, and even he just appears for a few dozen lines, if memory serves.

Who’s the best character in Shakespeare? Quite possibly Falstaff, although those plays are definitely not the very top of the line in the Shakespearean corpus (though certainly good enough). I’m not one of those people who love Hamlet, though I suppose you could make a case for him. I find him faintly annoying, I’m afraid. Iago is more interesting.

But one of the most interesting literary characters of all time must be… Sherlock Holmes. It’s not that wild a claim. The Hound of the Baskervilles did make the “100 Greatest Novels” list, after all. And more importantly, if the test of a good character is one who not only exceeds the author who created him/her, but exceeds the specific works in which he/she appears, I think Holmes is tough to beat. Almost everyone of every age group can find him interesting. And he so exceeds the limited Doyle corpus that one could easily imagine thousands more Sherlock Holmes stories being written. He’s also a much darker and more intricate character in the books than in any of the films. Any Sherlock Holmes story is difficult to put down once you’ve started.

I don’t want to call Holmes the best character ever until I can think it over and make sure I’ve not missed anyone absurdly obvious. But Sherlock Holmes belongs on the ballot.