Though I can rip through a good plot driven novel it’s still great characters that draw me and I think it has something to do with knowing someone and trying to understand the mystery and complexities of our human nature. I think Vancouver novelist Madeleine Thien expresses it well in this passage from her novel Certainty.
"She asks him the question that has followed her here, that remains with her still. “Do you think it’s possible to know another person? In the end, when everything is put to rest, is it really possible?”
“By know, what do you mean?”
“To understand.”
“Understand, yes. But to know another person.” He pauses, “Think of knowing like beauty. The lines that we see are clear, we can trace them, study them in minute detail. But the depth that emerges is still mysterious. How to explain why it reverberates in our minds? When we know another person, I think it is just as mysterious. Knowing another is a kind of belief, an act of faith."