I have read a lot of books. Most of which I don't remember. But there are scenes, even after so many other books since, scenes I cannot forget. They occur to me at odd times. Jane Eyre in her curtained window seat on a day too rainy for play -- I see it when I touch a velvet curtain. The rain on a house which has pulled its roof down over its ears like a hat -- when the rain kicks up the dirt "like gunfire" (The God of Small Things). Phillip Tempest and his portrait in the hall of Rosamunds grandfather -- when I see a man with dark sideburns and brooding eyes (Long Fatal Love Chase). And from the same book: the ship, the boardwalk at Nice, the balcony from which Rose escapes. Or how about the cabinets full of things, down the Rabbit Hole? The last party at Gatsby's and the Library there? Edmund Dantes in prison with Abbe Faria? John, Michael and Wendy learning how to fly?
Somebody told me that people won't remember the things I say to them, or the things I do around them, but will remember only the way I made them feel. I think perhaps these scenes are the same way: I remember them for the way they made me feel.
So now, I want to know, what scenes in which books do you remember best?
I guess I might as well attempt to participate in this "diablog", so it goes:
ReplyDeleteI tend not to remember scenes so much, but rather settings, houses, fields, etc. And it is actually a little odd, since I tend not to kind of skim the parts describing the setting, yet all the same I have detailed images of various settings, such as the down from Watership Down, or the train station from Atlas Shrugged. Darcy's estate from Pride and Prejudice. The island from Lord of the Flies. Often times if I go back and reread the descriptions of these places closely they are quite different from what I have in my mind, but rarely does that actually change anything in my mind. I just figure the author must be looking at the wrong thing and continue with my own image of it.