Aspie Book Characters

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I have not yet done any research on schitzofrenia (or however you spell it...) but it seems a possibility. Or he has some sort of multiple personality problem. There was a story in the yahoo news quite a few months back that a group of psychology researchers tried to diagnose Gollum. If I can find it, I'll post a link or something.

Charles Dexter Ward and most of the other narrators/central characters of HP Lovecraft's stories... i'm pretty damn sure, from what i've read of his life story, that Lovecraft was an Aspie himself...

Tolkien almost certainly was one IMO as well, but i can't think of a particular character from his books who stands out as Aspie-ish, tho those mentioned certainly have traits... it's a bit more difficult to judge when dealing with whole fictional races who are physically and mentally different from the average human (tho the "incorruptibility" of the Hobbit race does seem to me a bit like an Aspie characteristic...)

stepping out of the horror/fantasy genre, someone mentioned on here before Tom Joad's brother Noah in "The Grapes Of Wrath" (John Steinbeck), who has a fairly minor part but is described as "not stupid, but strange" or words to that effect... also Denver from Toni Morrison's "Beloved"...

Both the central characters in "Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley), Bernard Marx and John aka "the Savage", if not ASpies themselves, had aspects of their lives that Aspies can strongly empathise with, IMO...

i can probably think of more, but they're eluding me right now...

And, in a sudden flash of insight into an oversight, Serissa realized that Holden Caufield had not yet been mentioned.

Holden Caufield, of "The Catcher in the Rye."



((Or at least that was what I was thinking when I read it. Maybe he's just scizotypal, or something.))

Huh? i didn't find Holden AS at all. He was so social and outgoing! Infact, when I read that book, I thought he was the opposite to AS.

but he never really seemed comfortable socializing. the only person in the whole book he really, genuinely likes to spend time with is his kid sister Phoebe. in any other encounters he gets uncomfortable very quickly and finds an excuse to leave. Holden is a character i've always really empathized with, though he could have some other "disorder" or even none at all.

what about Meursalt, from Camus' <i>L'etranger</i>? or Michael Valentine Smith from <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i>?

Oops - did I put them in the wrong thread?

Carrot from the Discworld - he takes everything literally, supposedly because he was raised by dwarves. But he also memorised the rule book when he joined the Watch and actually tried to follow the rules! I think he's oblivious of social norms, even if he's not afraid of social situations ('cause he's big and tough and nobody messes with him).

Most of the witches from the discworld - but especially Tiffany, since her character is well described in A Hat Full of Sky and The Wee Free Men.

Gandalf?

I'm genuinely suprised. He, in the movies, doesn't seem the least bit AS. Elrond, maybe ghost, but not full-blown. Gollum? I'm tempted to say so, but it could be something else. I've never read the books, but this is based from the movies.

Jason Fox seems pretty normal to me. Then again, my idea of normal is more than a bit out of whack.

Dilbert? He just seems to be the steorotypical engineer with women problems. Thats all I've seen of socializaiton problems.

I remember a Dilbert strip where Dogbert is giving him laughing lessons.

(and in today's strip, Dogbert does anger management!)

Gandalf seems the most likely option. Elrond, in the books at least, is a little more social than he is in the movies. He looses all his social skills in the movies, due to an interesting interpretation done by those who wrote the script.

How about Eamon Redmond in The Heather Blazing ?

I think this is a new one, but what about Dr. Frankenstein from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? I don't know if he was AS or not, but it seems to be a possibility. He had such a narrow-minded obsession create life, then destroy what he had created. Scary thing, but I also see a lot of myself in his character, so maybe that's where I got the idea...?

King Kull, the Atlantean Barbarian ruler of Valusia, who despite his savage rages is socially awkward with the opposite sex, and is given to debilitating depression. Like his contemporary author and friend, H.P. Lovecraft, Kull's creator, Robert E. Howard, was also almost certainly an Aspie. Howard put more of himself in Kull than he ever did with his more famous Barbarian creation, Conan.

Some characters in Tolstoi's books, perhaps, are ASP
Varenka from "Anna Karenina"
Sonya Rostova from "War and Peace"

Good-natured persons, overshadowed by other characters;
Poor and alone in the world, with lack of money, and lack of social skills. They also do not marry, never.

Both Sonya and Varenka have a "ASP" situation. Varenka fancies a guy, Sergei, he fancies her, they go out in the forest for mushroom picking, and they come back - and nothing. They want to talk about important things, love, children, but they only utter words about mushrooms. Here's part of the text:

-------

Sergei Ivanovich sighed and made no answer. He was annoyed that she had spoken about the mushrooms. He wanted to bring her back to the first words she had uttered about her childhood; but after a pause of some length, as though against his own will, he made an observation in response to her last words.

"I have heard that the white edible fungi are found principally at the edge of the wood, though I can't tell them apart."

Some minutes more passed; they moved still farther away from the children, and were quite alone. Varenka's heart throbbed so that she heard it beating, and felt that she was turning red, and pale, and red again.

To be the wife of a man like Koznishev, after her position with Madame Stahl, was to her imagination the height of happiness. Besides, she was almost certain that she was in love with him. And this moment it would have to be decided. She felt frightened. She dreaded both his speaking and his not speaking.

Now or never it must be said- Sergei Ivanovich felt that too. Everything in the expression, the flushed cheeks and the downcast eyes of Varenka betrayed a painful suspense. Sergei Ivanovich saw it, and felt sorry for her. He felt even that to say nothing now would be a slight to her. Rapidly in his own mind he ran over all the arguments in support of his decision. He even said over to himself the words in which he meant to put his proposal, but instead of those words, some utterly unexpected reflection that occurred to him made him ask:

"What is the difference between the 'birch' mushroom and the 'white' mushroom?"

---

So nothing comes from it