I'm looking for techniques specific to a story with an unsympathetic main character. Confederacy of Dunces, for example. Why does that work, and why wouldn't that work with a likable hero?
Answer
Some great answers, but I disagree in some regards: interesting and compelling and understanding are not enough for someone to carry on reading about a main character. I can find a serial killer interesting and understand his motives, but if he's killing children, it's extremely unlikely I want to keep reading about him unless the author has tricked me into sympathising with him.
In any good book, the reader must sympathise, identify and empathise with the main character, and must want to be completely sucked into their shoes. Without these elements, your main character likely won't appeal, except perhaps as a villain, which is different (but avoid the "absolute evil" approach, as this simply makes him a caricature).
I don't think it's impossible to get the reader to sympathise with all manner of "anti-heroes", no matter how reprehensible. If your main character is so reprehensible that there is no sympathy at all for him from the reader (or even you, as the writer), then you probably should reconsider how your character is portrayed.
The reason for this is because the reader needs to follow this character every step of the way, and will him to succeed in his endeavours. If we have no sympathy for him, we will not want him to succeed. If we don't identify with him, we cannot relate. If we don't empathise, we don't care enough about him to want him to succeed. Worse, we don't care enough to want to even know whether he will or won't.
As an example, consider The Godfather. Right in the beginning, we are introduced to a man in court watching the men who raped and beat his daughter get off with a slap on the wrist. Justice has not been done. So he goes to Don Corleone who is at his own daughter's wedding, and asks the Don for his help. Don Corleone agrees to carry out justice on behalf of the man. We see the respect that Corleone and his family command from people.
Right there, in that instant, you as a reader have taken the side of Don Corleone. You sympathise with him, you can identify and empathise with him. Here is a mobster, head of a powerful crime family, responsible for the murder of many people, yet you sympathise with him, because he's a man of justice, a man with a code of honour that allows the reader to will him to succeed. You want to be drawn into his world.
A common way of invoking sympathy is by putting the character in danger: their life could be in danger, they could be under threat of losing their job, their wife - all manner of devices that immediately invoke sympathy from the reader.
Alternatively, you can portray the character in a way that everyone can relate to: perhaps he's experienced some hardship like divorce, a death in the family, some "wrong" has been committed against him that immediately gets the reader on their side.
Another trick is to use the character's reprehensible traits in a morally justifiable way. For example, consider the example I gave earlier about a serial killer. What if the serial killer only kills serial killers? That's exactly what happens in Dexter, and we are interested because, even though he's a serial killer, he kills only bad people. Suddenly, his actions take on a different moral light, and we actually will him to succeed.
I'm sure there are other ways. Pick up Confederacy of Dunces, and rethink how the characters are portrayed to induce sympathy in the reader. I haven't read it, but I'm sure you'll find what trick the writer used to get you onto the character's side.
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