Biblio File

Our Favorite Literary Wafflers

waffle
Mmmm, waffles! Photo via Flickr user Emily Carlin.

 

Instead of going literal on National Waffle Day (although we’d love to hear about your favorite actual waffles in books), we decided to go literary.

We asked our NYPL book experts to come up with characters who make readers suffer along with their agonizing indecision — in other words, the best literary wafflers! Here’s what they said.

archie

Archie has never quite decided between Betty or Veronica... or has he? Follow this clumsy, big-hearted guy as he waffles around modern-day Riverdale, beginning with Archie, Vol. 1, The New Riverdale by Mark Waid. —Laura Stein, Grand Central

 

 

 




 

eliot

It’s hard not to feel sorry for (and also kind of amused by) the titular character of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. He certainly fits this description:

And indeed there will be time... for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea... Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

—Christina Lebec, Bronx Library Center

 

forgive

In Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her?, Alice Vavasor is torn between her “perfect” fiancee, John Grey — kind, loving, cultured, and above all wealthy (but unambitious and oh, so dull) — and her cousin George, the “bad boy” to whom she was formerly engaged. George is well described by Lady Caroline Lamb’s celebrated assessment of Lord Byron: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. You can certainly sympathize with her, but can you forgive her? —Kathie Coblentz, Rare Materials

 


 

 

jeeves

In P.G. Wodehouse's Wooster and Jeeves stories, upper-class nincompoop Bertie Wooster is a classic ditherer. Without Jeeves — his indispensable, problem-solving valet — he’d barely function in the world. A fun-filled, satirical romp through early 20th-century England, and is Wodehouse at his most iconic. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street Library

 

 

 

 

mole

Adrian Mole is one of my favorite waffling teenagers! In The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend, British teen Adrian Mole chronicles his day-to-day affairs. Adrian’s diary predates Bridget Jones’ by a good decade and a half and is just, if not more, rip-roaringly funny. —Kate Fais, Bloomingdale

 

 

 

 

 
hamlet
As well as being Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is also "the prince of procrastination." His tendency to overanalyze rather than act (to kill or not to kill Claudius...) leads to tragic consequences. —Elizabeth Waters, Mid-Manhattan

 

 

 

 

 

 

​In Margaret Drabble’s The Waterfall, NOBODY can decide who they love or how to act. Sample line: “Were I drowning, I wouldn’t raise a hand to save myself, so unwilling am I to go against my fate.” And that deliberately echoes George’s Eliot’s The Mill on the Flossin which Maggie can’t decide — or isn’t permitted to decide — her own fate either and actually does drown. (Also there is every Russian novel, ever.) —Anne Barreca, Battery Park City

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!

Comments

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Wishy-Washy Character

How about Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind with her famous line when pressed to make a decision of "Tomorrow is another day."