Whose the most horrible character in any book you've read?

[FreddoBaggyMac]

I've just finished 'The Help' and am very sad about it too [sniff] I miss Aibileen... Anyway I feel the need to make my hatred of Miss Hilly public. I don't think I've ever detested anyone in a book quite so much...

I thought I would create a tribute thread in her honour, listing the most repugnant characters in fictional history. Please help by adding entries to the list!
I nominate MISS HILLY from The Help as the number one entry.

A character in "That they may face the rising sun" by John McGahern. Can't remember the name but anyone who has read it will know who I mean...

The Judge in Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'

Anton Chirguh (sp?) from No Country for Old Men. Just ruthless and terrifying.

Anton is scary ZeroZeroOne, but The Judge would kick his arse without breaking sweat.

Fuschiagroan - I think the narrator of Notes on a Scandal is the most unlikeable I've ever read.

Although there are some on this thread that I've never read who might perhaps usurp that title. Not sure I want to...

Another vote for Barbara in Notes on a Scandal. I felt rather grubby reading that book.

I can't believe no one on Mumsnet seems to have read Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys.

You cannot get a nastier character than Roscoe Rules.

Dorian Grey

Kevin's mother - she grew the sociopath - he may not have been one if it weren't for her.

The Marquise de Merteuil (with the Vicomte de Valmont not far behind) in 'Les Liasons Dangereuses'

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the lead character in 'The Kite Runner' yet. I hated him. He was a pretentious, ratty little coward.

Dexter in 'One Day' was an irredeemable fuckwit but I didn't like that book at all.

I usually quite like baddies so I wouldn't include them in a hate list, but one baddie who really gave me the shivers was a character called Lexo in 'Marabou Stork Nightmares' by Irvine Welsh. Genuinely terrifying man - cruel, calculating and sadistic.

OOOhhh this sounds like so much fun. I'm sorry but hav to have 3.

Mr Colins in Pride and Prejudice. I still cringe all the way through any page with his name on it. It's just awful - in a good way. :)

Voldemort, and all who ride with his evil arse!

Has to be Saruman - destroys vast areas of beautiful middle earth, selfish and cowardly, trying to lick Sauron's arse - disgusting!

Oh god, both William from Pillars of the Earth and Ralph from the sequel, World Without End.

Very static characters if you want to go into it but FUCK were they horrible.

Casaubon from Middlemarch

Re: Holden Caulfield - I found him deeply irritating when I read it as a teenager, but on rereading a year or so ago, I had a complete turnaround. I think he's an incredible character - my whole view of the novel turned upside down. I think teenagers are far too young to read Catcher in the Rye, tbh, I swear I just didn't get it before.

i am reading a thoughand splendid suns and last night got to a really horrible but where rasheed beat, then locked up his wife and baby daughter is a dark room without food or water or milk for days. at the same time he gave his other wife the beating of her life (they had tried to runa way from him and his cruelty). upset me so much (I have a 1yo daughter) i cried and had to go downstairs for horlicks and watch spooks to take my mind of it (this was in the middle of the night, am preg and can't sleep).
what a complete and utter cruel bastard.

Surely Lydia Bennet gets exactly what she deserves? She gets Mr Wickham (who is the embodiment of everything Austen detests in a man) and boy do they deserve each other!

Literary fiction ? what about Michael Henchard in the Mayor of Casterbridge? He auctions off his wife and baby daughter in a drunken rage.

Popular fiction ? anyone read the William Diehl books ?starring? Aaron Sampler? Or the Chelsea Cain novels about female serial killer Gretchen Lowell who removes people?s internal organs without the benefit of anaesthetic? Lovely

Casubon (sp?) in Middlemarch

horrors.

oops sorry, just looked up and seen he's been named already!!!

I've just been reading A Little Princess, and I've been thinking Miss Minchin. Lavinia is pretty loathsome too.

Adult fiction - the man in Room is pretty loathsome.

Fred from The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Takes hypocrisy and self-interest to new levels.

Peter Cleave from Asylum, by Patrick McGrath.
Truly scary man.

Another vote for Casaubon - that character makes me shudder, along with St John Rivers from Jane Eyre - the creepy, overbearing, repressed weirdo.

Oh Peter Cleave - good call. Such a great book. And Fred.

All the characters in The Crimson Petal and the White.
Just hated the lot of them. I wonder what they'll be like in the tv adaptation.