Off Centre.

36 We are now in a position to develop certain criteria of how to identify an eccentric person: (i) An eccentric person has as her only point of reference herself and her own values. She furthermore is (ii) indifferent to objective values and thus, we might add, indifferent to other people’s interests. Finally, (iii) other people have, as a result of the first two features, immense difficulties understanding the eccentric person, since they cannot assign her to any given categories. This sense of incomprehension will give rise to a discomforting feeling which leads them to distance themselves from this strange person by means of labeling her as “eccentric.”

37 Literature, perhaps not surprisingly, employs many eccentric characters. However, when it does, this does not mean that these are already eccentric texts. An example of a literary text which has an eccentric protagonist is the series Pippi Longstocking (1945-48) by Astrid Lindgren.[8]It is quite an interesting aspect that children’s literature often employs eccentric main protagonists. But there are numerous other examples to be found in the vast history of literature, ranging from William Shakespeare’s Richard III (1591) and Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605/15) to more recent books such as Sylvia Townsend-Warner’s Lolly Willowes (1926) and Austerlitz (2001) by W.G. Sebald. The main protagonist, Pippi Longstocking, is a prototype of an eccentric personality, according to the criteria developed above: it is not hard to comprehend that for Pippi the only point of reference indeed is she herself. She decides what is “appropriate” in a given situation and is totally indifferent to other people’s interests and values. This becomes clear not only in the way she treats adults, but also in every other aspect of life: her house, the way she dresses, her pets, her super-power. This is why other people, especially adults, have a very uncomfortable feeling with regard to Pippi because they do not know how to handle such a strange person. Tommy’s and Annika’s parents, for example, do not want their children to play with Pippi, since she is so unusual – or, we can now say: eccentric.

38 In this context, we encounter a new aspect which is worth pointing out. Throughout the last section, it might have appeared as if eccentrics were incapable of inspiring love or maintaining personal relationships. Tommy and Annika, however, and also numerous other characters, sympathize with Pippi and certainly Pippi is capable of real friendship. So, there is a possibility for non-eccentrics to get involved with eccentrics beyond the mere classification and dissociation from them. There even seems to be a certain attraction coming from eccentric individuals if one is willing to approach them and does not just distance oneself from them. Thomas and Annika, for example, experience this attraction at the beginning of the book, when they are watching Pippi from afar and afterwards in their first personal encounters with her.[9]This attraction of the eccentric, although a crucial phenomenon in this context, would need much more analyzing than I am presently capable of, given the scope of this paper. I will therefore leave it at these very preliminary remarks.

6. The eccentric text

39 Apart from literary works which employ an eccentric person as a main character, there are also distinctly eccentric literary texts. They may feature eccentric characters as well, but one can, as probably Pippi Longstocking again is a good example of, perfectly well write a non-eccentric literary work and employ an eccentric protagonist.

40 What is an eccentric text? To answer this question by means of an illustration, I will take a closer look at Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-7) in the next section. I will now spell out the features I take to be essential to an eccentric text. I will do this mainly by drawing an analogy to what it means to be an eccentric person.