When we discuss novels, there is nothing easier or harder to talk about than characterisation. Nothing easier, in that unprofessional readers' expressions of interest or aversion so often fix on a novel's characters as vivid or pallid, believable or not. Nothing harder, in that academic critics (and their obedient students) have long since learned to steer away from the illusions of human reality conjured by fiction. Characterisation is the ordinary measure of a writer's achievement, but you have to look hard to find academic criticism on the subject.

LRB 5 May 2005 | PDF Download