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When do you fall in love with a book?
Perhaps not typically, but exceptionally, memorably: when do you realize that this book has wormed into your heart and you suspect it shall stay there? I'm reading right now Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I think I have loved it since I read its name. I've been craving gothic literature lately—we've had some delicious overcast, unseasonal weather this summer and all I can think to read is dark, atmospheric, dangerous works. My search for such lead me to stumble upon Castle and from cover to premise I was hooked—and then crushed, because my library did not have it. So I bought it—which is a rare occurrence these days, and I could have read it through ILL or the local college library, but this one I knew I needed.
Reading it I have been apprehensive, thrumming with emotion that hovers undecided between pleasure and fear. Because I think I love it, but I'm afraid I've judged too quickly; because I love it, and am afraid I'll read it too fast. I empathize with the sisters (and how refreshing, to see agoraphobics in fiction!). It's delightfully subversive (the haunted house is beset by spring sun; the crazy lady in the attic is young, beautiful, and a gardener), rich with quirky humor that doesn't dispel but actually accentuates the story's creeping darkness—like laughing dolls: apparently cheerful, but really quite unsettling. Ah, it is wonderful—yet I worry it will disappoint, or be too short; that I'm projecting hopes based on the beautiful cover, that I should have saved a rare book purchase for something else. Yet—I think not. I think I adore it.
When Harry Potter was more or less a phenomenon, my family finally invested interest in the series and read the first few chapters of the first novel aloud together. I remember sitting in my parents's bedroom and hearing and being in Harry's living room with Hogwarts letters pouring through the fireplace and I thought: Yes. Yes, magic. Yes, I love this book. Already, yes.
Story of O begins brutal and unapologetic from the very first page: the strong, sparse narrative and already sex, already power, hitting the reader before he can blink. I opened the book and read a page and thought: Yes. This is one of the best books I have ever read.
Some of them take a bit longer. The opening of Maledicte is the only part of the novel which doesn't quite work for me, and there was no immediate click between me and the book. But as Maledicte stands in the study that first night, rude and beautiful and young, he burns like a light out of the shadows that swathe carpets and bookshelves and I said: Yes. And I cherished every word to follow like the most beautiful bitter dark chocolate.
Many of my favorites I love at the end, when I finish the book and close it, hug it to my stomach and sit in silence for a moment to remember what I have read and how I have loved and why. Many I realize I adore midway through, but there's no moment that sticks in my mind and says: Now. Yes. This. But We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it seems, has been Yes since the book sat closed and untouched in the store. A book which would not leave my thoughts until I owned it? Yes. A protagonist who scurries home at once proud and terrified under the judgmental eyes of strangers? Yes.
Yes. Yes, all of it, yes, and I love when a gut instinct proves right. Of course it could go downhill from here, but right now I am midway through and riding on a wave of nervous passion, and I love it.
And you?
Perhaps not typically, but exceptionally, memorably: when do you realize that this book has wormed into your heart and you suspect it shall stay there? I'm reading right now Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I think I have loved it since I read its name. I've been craving gothic literature lately—we've had some delicious overcast, unseasonal weather this summer and all I can think to read is dark, atmospheric, dangerous works. My search for such lead me to stumble upon Castle and from cover to premise I was hooked—and then crushed, because my library did not have it. So I bought it—which is a rare occurrence these days, and I could have read it through ILL or the local college library, but this one I knew I needed.
Reading it I have been apprehensive, thrumming with emotion that hovers undecided between pleasure and fear. Because I think I love it, but I'm afraid I've judged too quickly; because I love it, and am afraid I'll read it too fast. I empathize with the sisters (and how refreshing, to see agoraphobics in fiction!). It's delightfully subversive (the haunted house is beset by spring sun; the crazy lady in the attic is young, beautiful, and a gardener), rich with quirky humor that doesn't dispel but actually accentuates the story's creeping darkness—like laughing dolls: apparently cheerful, but really quite unsettling. Ah, it is wonderful—yet I worry it will disappoint, or be too short; that I'm projecting hopes based on the beautiful cover, that I should have saved a rare book purchase for something else. Yet—I think not. I think I adore it.
When Harry Potter was more or less a phenomenon, my family finally invested interest in the series and read the first few chapters of the first novel aloud together. I remember sitting in my parents's bedroom and hearing and being in Harry's living room with Hogwarts letters pouring through the fireplace and I thought: Yes. Yes, magic. Yes, I love this book. Already, yes.
Story of O begins brutal and unapologetic from the very first page: the strong, sparse narrative and already sex, already power, hitting the reader before he can blink. I opened the book and read a page and thought: Yes. This is one of the best books I have ever read.
Some of them take a bit longer. The opening of Maledicte is the only part of the novel which doesn't quite work for me, and there was no immediate click between me and the book. But as Maledicte stands in the study that first night, rude and beautiful and young, he burns like a light out of the shadows that swathe carpets and bookshelves and I said: Yes. And I cherished every word to follow like the most beautiful bitter dark chocolate.
Many of my favorites I love at the end, when I finish the book and close it, hug it to my stomach and sit in silence for a moment to remember what I have read and how I have loved and why. Many I realize I adore midway through, but there's no moment that sticks in my mind and says: Now. Yes. This. But We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it seems, has been Yes since the book sat closed and untouched in the store. A book which would not leave my thoughts until I owned it? Yes. A protagonist who scurries home at once proud and terrified under the judgmental eyes of strangers? Yes.
"—the sugar bowl on the sideboard, the heavy silver sugar bowl. It is a family heirloom; my brother prized it highly. You will be wondering about that sugar bowl, I imagine. Is it still in use? you are wondering; has it been cleaned? you may very well ask; was it thoroughly washed? I can reassure you at once. My niece Constance washed it before the doctor or the police had come, and you will allow that it was not a felicitous moment to wash a sugar bowl."
Yes. Yes, all of it, yes, and I love when a gut instinct proves right. Of course it could go downhill from here, but right now I am midway through and riding on a wave of nervous passion, and I love it.
And you?
