Characters
As in Prater Violet the main character, Isherwood himself, is a moderately successful author of fiction. He is fascinated by people and travel and pleasure.
Other characters include Mr. Lancaster, Waldemar, Ambrose (based on Francis Turville-Petre), Hans, Aleko, Geoffrey, Paul (based on real-life male prostitute Denham Fouts), Augustus, Ronny, and Ruthie.
Read more about this topic: Down There On A Visit
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events undecided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“A criminal trial is like a Russian novel: it starts with exasperating slowness as the characters are introduced to a jury, then there are complications in the form of minor witnesses, the protagonist finally appears and contradictions arise to produce drama, and finally as both jury and spectators grow weary and confused the pace quickens, reaching its climax in passionate final argument.”
—Clifford Irving (b. 1930)
“The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)