my literary doppelgangers

godric from uncle freddy’s book of the same name. godric is a wonderful mix of the sacred and the profane. he pursues maidens and God with equal vigor. when his hagiographer tries to exalt him, he humbles himself by creating a new etymology for his name. godric, he tells the bright eyed gospel groupie, means “God’s wreck.” though i have not done the research, my guess is that the etymological roots of gentry are quite similar.

the whisky priest from graham greene’s the power and the glory. if you pushed him, uncle freddy would probably admit that godric is a reflection of this man. the whisky priest is painfully aware of his own sin, yet still fosters a reluctant belief in the God he professes. though he despairs of his ability to become an incarnation of God’s sacrificial love, somehow God makes him just that. he is as obsessed with the sacrament as he is with getting soused. in short, he’s my kind of guy.

rob gordon from nick hornby’s high fidelity and the american movie of the same name. i know this identity is completely devoid of originality, since with rob hornby may have created the archetypal postmodern man. however, i must confess that i can really relate with his existential struggles with women, as is characterized in his admission that he’s been “thinking with his gut since i was sixteen" and is "convinced that my guts have shit for brains!,” his occupational inertia (“i’m not even sure i want to be an architect”) and his penchant for bad break-ups (say it together now: “charlie, you f*cking b*tch! let’s work this out!).

eddie o’hare from irving’s widow for one year. while i have never summered on long island and would be unable to write a book like sixty times, i see a lot of myself in eddie. as a writer he is passable, but not proficient. he has a depth of feeling that he is completely unable to convey. and, though weighed down by a persistent melancholy, he’s never quite able to surrender hope.

i’d love to hear about your doppelgangers. yes…even yours sybil.