J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
I've never read a convincing kid in any book or story. None. Ever. Theyre always lil Mensa sissies who navel gaze...kids don't navel gaze.
lovecraft68
Bad Doggie
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I thought King did a decent job in It. You know with his little underage scene where the girl runs a train.
SamScribble
Yeah, still just a guru
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Holden Caulfield?
J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
Never knew anyone like him.
SamScribble
Yeah, still just a guru
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Fair enough, JBJ. But it seems that a lot of readers found him 'believable' - if unreliable. And, remember, it is fiction.
D
DesEsseintes
Guest
Frank Cauldhame in The Wasp Factory is very believable. I've known and taught kids like him.
I'd say Will and Lyra in the Dark Materials books, too - slightly idealized, but not unbelievably so.
Also, an obvious point, but it depends on one's own childhood. I was intensely navel gazing as a youth, and a very pretty navel it was too. The childhood unexamined is not worth living, I used to sing, to the tune of Wagner's Liebestod, as I skipped to nursery school.
I'd say Will and Lyra in the Dark Materials books, too - slightly idealized, but not unbelievably so.
Also, an obvious point, but it depends on one's own childhood. I was intensely navel gazing as a youth, and a very pretty navel it was too. The childhood unexamined is not worth living, I used to sing, to the tune of Wagner's Liebestod, as I skipped to nursery school.
patientlee
I won't tell!
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Yeah. It's kind of like when adults try to draw or write like kids.
Carnevil9
King of Jesters.
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I wouldn't call Holden Caulfield a "kid." He was a teenager (probably an old fart by now, if he's still alive), and there are lots of good books about teenagers.
Dickens had lots of kids in his books. Which is exactly where they belong. I hate kids, and I hate Dickens. They were made for each other!
Dickens had lots of kids in his books. Which is exactly where they belong. I hate kids, and I hate Dickens. They were made for each other!
PayDay
unlabelable
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49greg
Literotica Hack
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There was a whole series of kids books written in the 30s by Arthur Ransome, the "Swallows and Amazons" books. I read them in my pre and early teens, so not a discerning reader at the time. But I completely identified with them. For each one I could see a counterpart in someone I knew. I thought that I would do the things they did, if my parents would let me. The ones that didn't seem real in the stories were the adults.
I re-read them as an adult some years ago and saw that the children's characters were stereotypes, of fictional kids. Kids that readers wanted to believe.
Of course for a child to identify with a child in a book doesn't mean the kid in the book was done well, it just had to be what the child wanted to hear about other kids doing.
Kids that I didn't think were real, even when reading them as a kid, were the Enid Blighton "Adventure" books. (Island of Adventure, River of Adventure etc etc.)
Of course I was really simple as a kid, I believed whatever I was told, by adult or child.
But how many actual fictional characters are true to life. I know some are, but look at James Bond, or Alistair MacLean's heros. No one person could be or do all that they do. For an extreme example look at Bruce Willis' character in the Die Hard fanchise. He's what the moviegoers want to believe.
And I think that's the whole essence of the thing. Characters, adult or child, are what the reader wants to believe them too be. Snow White was the most beautiful beauty that ever was, Prince Charming the most handsome of the men ever. And they lived happily ever after - who really believes that.
If real life was all that good, who would read fiction. If everyone's sex life was great, who would read our stories, or write them.
I re-read them as an adult some years ago and saw that the children's characters were stereotypes, of fictional kids. Kids that readers wanted to believe.
Of course for a child to identify with a child in a book doesn't mean the kid in the book was done well, it just had to be what the child wanted to hear about other kids doing.
Kids that I didn't think were real, even when reading them as a kid, were the Enid Blighton "Adventure" books. (Island of Adventure, River of Adventure etc etc.)
Of course I was really simple as a kid, I believed whatever I was told, by adult or child.
But how many actual fictional characters are true to life. I know some are, but look at James Bond, or Alistair MacLean's heros. No one person could be or do all that they do. For an extreme example look at Bruce Willis' character in the Die Hard fanchise. He's what the moviegoers want to believe.
And I think that's the whole essence of the thing. Characters, adult or child, are what the reader wants to believe them too be. Snow White was the most beautiful beauty that ever was, Prince Charming the most handsome of the men ever. And they lived happily ever after - who really believes that.
If real life was all that good, who would read fiction. If everyone's sex life was great, who would read our stories, or write them.
