Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.
This week Billy asks: You're having a costume party with the theme "Book Characters." Who would you go as?
Dressing up as a character from a book involves an interesting paradox. One must choose a character who is sufficiently recognizable and distinctive, but also a character who is not similar to many other characters. I might want to dress as Dallben from The Chronicles of Prydain, but if I do, how would anyone tell that I wasn't dressed like Gandalf, or Merlin, or any number of other wizardly characters.
Some characters are well-known, but their usual outfit is so ordinary that it is almost not a costume. If you dress as James Bond, what form would the costume take? He's a well-known character, but there's not a whole lot about his regular attire that is obviously notable. Would one just wear a suit and carry a martini? Maybe a shoulder holster with a Walther PPK under your jacket (or perhaps as an homage to the books, a .22 caliber Beretta with a skeleton grip)? Would this be recognizable as that character by most people?
On the other hand, if you pick a very distinctive character that is obscure, then it is kind of a wasted effort, because then you're just an incomprehensible spectacle that might look interesting, but doesn't spark any recognition. Dressing up as Martel from Scanners Live in Vain would certainly result in an unusual looking costume, but few, if any, people would know what they were looking at.
So the challenge is to pick a character who is distinctive in the way they dress, not so obscure that no one knows who they are, and not someone who would be confused with another similar character. So I'm going to pick a character who has their name on their costume: Mark Watney from The Martian. The only real problem would be assembling a convincing looking Mars-suit, but since he has a name tag on it, everyone will know who I am.
Previous Book Blogger Hop: 124 Is the Sum of Eight Consecutive Prime Numbers
Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: 126 Is the Seventh Magic Number in Nuclear Physics
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