It's hard to explain why a particular character strikes a chord in the reader, which made this year's Hodges Figgis/E&L books competition something of a challenge. It's harder still to explain it when the character in question is a disreputable type, a rapist, robber and thug. "That I am drawn to the character of Alex in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange is as much a shock to me as I'm sure it is to readers," writes TCD's Mark Byrne, making his bid for the "understatement of the competition" title. To the sound of sensible people locking their doors, Byrne says he shares Alex's ambition, his intelligence and his "steely self-confidence" but that he regards his propensity for violence as "undesirable". So that's all right then.
Byrne could possibly find a soulmate in Aidan McCarthy of Leeds University, who nominated Patrick Bateman, the serial killer hero of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho: "A man who is completely aware of his actions, and of what he is - a girlfriend refers to him as `the boy next door', so, sotto voce, he describes himself as a `fucking evil psychopath' . . . Imagine living in the world of this man." Well, no, let's not.
Meanwhile, apprentice solicitor Nicola Sheehan opted for her namesake, Nicola Six, in Martin Amis's London Fields. Nicola Six meets a horrible end; Nicola Sheehan is about to become a solicitor. Some connection, perhaps?
Actually, not everyone opted for psychotics. Some people went to even further extremes. Why, in the name of all that is reasonable and balanced in the world, would anyone feel a particular kinship with Noddy? Step forward and keep your hands where we can see them, Sheenagh Daly of TCD: "Big Ears is a dark character who is suffering from some kind of psychotic disorder. I have always admired Noddy for tolerating the presence of such a disturbed individual."
Wait, there's more. "Noddy is a sociable individual who charges only sixpence for his taxi services . . . He gives lifts to Toytown's villains Sly and Grobbo, to Mr Tubby, to Martha Monkey, to Miss Pink Cat and to Mr Jumbo, an elephant . . . I aspire to be as popular as him some day." This is either irony slapped on with a trowel, or evidence of a severe case of Not-Getting-OutEnough Syndrome.
Two people chose Peig. "Peig, the ultimate good-time island girl . . . Blasket Spice," as Eithne O'Connell terms her. "The handy tips for life I got from that sprightly 80-year-old woman I cannot begin to list." Ruth Lysaght, meanwhile, draws comparisons between Peig's difficulties with cows and dogs and "my misadventures with a difficult herd of Mayo sheep". The female heroines of 19th-century literature occupied the minds of a number of entrants. Hannah McCabe opted for Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice; "strong, independent, intelligent, `modern' woman, knows her own mind, accomplished", and that's just Hannah, apparently. Elsewhere, Miss Havisham of Great Expectations served as an image of how one reader did not want to end up in later life, while Jane Austen's Emma provided proof that being "handsome, clever and rich" does not guarantee success in love. Success in lust, perhaps, but not love.
Skimming quickly through some of the other entries, the eponymous heroine of Educating Rita proved a sympathetic role model, somebody wanted The Lord of the Ring's Gandalf the wizard as a grandfather (blimey, there's always one) and we will spare the blushes of the TCD student who found herself on page 17 of The Great Gatsby: "a slender, small-breasted girl (with a) wan, charming, discontented face". Sure, some people like wan, discontented girls.
Choosing the winners was particularly difficult but, in the end, the judges gave the first prize of £300 in book tokens to TCD's Jennifer Mellerick for her witty piece on Philip Marlowe (printed on this page).
The second prize of a £200 book token goes to social studies student Cathy O'Keeffe for her piece on Peter Pan ("You've never had a filling, never trudged a trolley through a supermarket, you don't know the heartbreak of a broken love affair or the disappointment of a broken dream.")
The third prize of a £100 book token goes to the DIT's Eithne O'Connell for her nicely-judged dissection of Peig. ("If you feel life is in crisis, Peig is the perfect Prozac. Consult any page randomly and there she is eloquently describing the latest death, sickness or eviction recently experienced.")
Our thanks to all who entered. The winning entries will form part of a window display in the Hodges Figgis store in Dawson Street, Dublin.
