Who Are The Protagonists In Observatory Mansions And Books Like It?

I’ve always been drawn to protagonists who are small worlds unto themselves, and 'Observatory Mansions' gives us Francis Orme, a compulsive, statue-impersonating collector whose inner life runs the plot. That central fact—Francis as the reclusive, glove-wearing narrator—sets the tone for the whole book. When people ask what characters in 'books like it' have in common, I think in archetypes: the ritualistic childlike narrator (Merricat in 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'), the solitary chronicler who names and catalogs his surroundings (Piranesi in 'Piranesi'), the split or layered narrator who reads or edits another text (Johnny Truant and Will Navidson in 'House of Leaves'), and the nameless, obsessed confessor who slides into surreal logic (the narrator of 'The Third Policeman'). Each of those protagonists anchors an off-kilter world by being intensely focused, sometimes deluded, and so vivid you almost forgive their flaws. I find that these kinds of narrators turn estrangement into intimacy: their quirks are the map to the novel’s strange geography, and reading them feels like eavesdropping on a peculiar life. Always leaves me both unsettled and oddly comforted.

My hands go straight for the oddball shelf whenever someone mentions 'Observatory Mansions'—and the protagonist is exactly the kind of sticky, peculiar narrator I love. In 'Observatory Mansions' the story centers on Francis Orme, a reclusive, 37-year-old who lives with his elderly parents in a decayed former manor turned rooming house. He makes a living as a living statue, wears immaculate white gloves, and keeps a secret "museum" of pilfered, worthless objects; the novel filters its strange events through his voice and habits. If you want books with a similar feel, pay attention to who’s telling the story: these novels often give us unreliable, solitary, obsessively detailed narrators. Take Mary Katherine 'Merricat' Blackwood in 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'—a girl whose rituals and isolation shape every line of the book, and who makes the house itself feel like a character. 'Piranesi' gives us a narrator who literally names himself after a fantasy — Piranesi — and records a strange, statue-filled House as if keeping a meticulous journal. 'House of Leaves' fractures protagonisthood between the obsessive documentarian Will Navidson and the footnoting narrator Johnny Truant, so the reader experiences both the explorer and the disturbed reader-of-the-document. And in 'The Third Policeman' the central figure is an unnamed, morally compromised narrator who drifts into surrealism and circular logic. These books share protagonists who are odd, inward-facing, and partial to inventories, rituals, or records—traits that make their worlds feel claustrophobic and uncanny. Reading these novels back-to-back feels like meeting a procession of hermits and archivists: people who define themselves by possessions, rules, or stories they tell themselves. Francis Orme fits neatly into that gallery—he’s obsessively tidy about his things and his role as both observer and observed—so if you like narrators who are both grotesque and oddly sympathetic, start here and then wander into Merricat’s rituals or Piranesi’s maps. For me, these protagonists are the deliciously unsettling engine of the books; they make the weirdness intimate rather than merely strange, and I always come away wondering how much of their world is invention and how much is confession.