Hero or Villain?

Following on from my review of Stendhal's The Red and the Black I should say that I sympathize with Stendhal in that I had a similar problem with The Lady in Grey in that the hero, French novelist Guy de Maupassant is in some ways not a very likeable character and he in turn had a similar problem with his hero Bel-Ami.  We all know that a hero has to have a few flaws to come across as human and real - even Superman has to be vulnerable to kryptonite to make the plots more interesting - but too many flaws can make the hero unapproachable.  Maupassant himself was described by his contemporaries as rather cold and distant - his eyes, they say, drank everything in and gave nothing out.  His motto appropriately was 'Cache ta vie' - Hide your life.  He could clearly be very charming when he wanted to be but he had that writer's tendency to play the part of the observer looking at his world from the outside, a trait exacerbated by his training and the influence of the school of Zola which attempted to try to turn the novelist into a social scientist.  It was what made him a very good reporter. 

I am myself trained as a social scientist but there is a difference - one of which Zola was very well aware.  As a social scientist I expect my audience to be as objective as I am whereas as a novelist I wish to engage their hearts and minds.  Stendhal I imagine was attempting something of the sort in trying to write a very cynical and objective report of his own time but in making his hero so cold and distant he disengages the audience and loses their sympathy.  It is hard to decide if Sorel is a hero or a villain.  What makes the difference?  In the case of The Lady in Grey I think the answer lies in the characters around the hero.  They are warm and attractive.  You can get close to them if not to Maupassant himself who remains as enigmatic on the page as he seems to have been in life.  In engaging sympathetically with them I hope the reader finds the characters come off the page.  Did I succeed in making Maupassant a hero rather than a villain?  He comes perilously close to being the latter.  You will have to judge for yourselves.  He was a fascinating character. The Lady in Grey is now available in paperback and in a Kindle Edition.  Not an easy read perhaps but I trust my readers will find it a rewarding one.