“We are most artistically caged.”
Vladimir Nabokov
- Frodo and Sam – The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. Kind of an obvious one to start with, but Sam never gets enough attention and he’s seriously awesome. Plus, The Lord of the Rings wins pretty much everything.
- Ford and Arthur – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams. Ford knows everything (and he’s hilarious) and Arthur knows nothing (he’s also hilarious). It’s a great dynamic.
- Roland and Jake – The Dark Tower, Stephen King. These two. THE FEELS.
- Frankenstein and his Creature – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. No-one said they had to be friends. And, wow, this pairing: full of love and hate and repulsion and disgust and drive. Possibly the most charismatic pair in all of literature.
- Eugene and Mortimer – Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens. Their sardonic humour, their ill-luck in lawyering, their generally laid-back approach to life: they are most excellent.
- Cohen and Rincewind – The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett. Though they’re polar opposites in so many ways, they create some really interesting tensions wherever they crop up, and their unlikely friendship is weirdly heartwarming.
- Lyra and Pantalaimon – His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman. They may be technically the same person, but their partnership is great: they work their way through so much together.
- Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi – The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith. They just have such a harmonious friendship: mutually supportive and constructive even when they argue. They each bring something different to the agency, and it’s just nice to read something so peaceful once in a while.
- John Shade and Charles Kinbote – Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov. As with Frankenstein and the Creature, their relationship is terrifyingly ambiguous and manically energetic. It’s this pairing that makes the book sing.
- Laurence and Temeraire – Temeraire, Naomi Novik. I can’t believe I nearly forgot these two, because they are, of course, terrific. Can I have my own dragon, please?
(The theme of this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 