Literary deep thoughts

Last night a little after the witching hour I finished up the book Monkeewrench. I couldn’t put it down. My mother in law had warned me that this would be the case. And apparently every book in the series is like this.

The story takes place in both Minneapolis and rural northern Wisconsin. But that isn’t why I liked it. While it is nice to have a clear mental picture of where the various scenes take place it is not a local only good read.

From the first page I started to connect with the characters and to “fall” into the story. I had a moment of panic/disappointment early on due to a plot device but as it turns out it didn’t effect my ultimate enjoyment of the story. I didn’t want to stop reading. I didn’t want the story to ever come to an end.

Which got me to thinking.

I read because I love that feeling of falling into a story. Of being transported into an entirely different world. Of loosing myself in someone elses life. It’s not that I don’t like my own life, it’s just fun to escape the worries and tribulations of daily life and to take a mental vacation to a different place.

When I open a book for the very first time and begin to read I get excited about the adventure that is in store for me. The emotions, the sights, the smells. Will I laugh out loud? Will I cry? There are infinite possibilities before me each and every time I open a book.

I know, I know, I’ve babbled about this before. But I get such a high from reading a good book. Even better than drugs since there are no nasty after effects. It’s hard to believe there are people in the world that don’t like to read. I respect the choice don’t get me wrong, I just don’t understand it.

Sure you read a lot of duds. But it’s SO worth it because every few books is usually a gem. Or at least a book that changes or enriches you in some way.

Another reason I enjoy reading is for those beautifully crafted sentences that can take your breath away.

Great Gatsby:
That anyone should care in this heat whose flushed lips he kissed, whose head made damp the pajama pocket over his heart.

Lolita:
It occurred to me that I had a fine brain in beautiful working order and that I might as well use it.

Whatever, wherever you are, in minus time-space or plus soul-time, forgive me all this.

You know, what’s so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.

The Marriage of Sticks
Whisper in my heart, tell me you are there.

The Alienist
Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it maybe the larger part) always comes out of our own mind.

The Angel of Darkness
She has a quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities that take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren’t the stories by way of which the greater tale of this planet will, in the end, be told………..

The Corrections

The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the opportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for its privileges: that the finite and specific animal body of this species contained a brain capable of conceiving the infinite and wishing to be infinite itself.

Being Dead
The world’s small, breathing denizens, it’s quaking congregations and its stargazers, were fools to sacrifice the flaring briefness of their lives in hopes of paradise or fears of hell. No one transcends. There is no future and no past. There is no remedy for death – or birth- except to hug the space between. Live Loud. Live Wide. Live Tall.

Eldest

I suppose I wont see you for a while, so farewell, best of luck, avoid roasted cabbage, don’t eat earwax, and look on the bright side of life.

Life Expectancy
They find meaning in their quiet faith, in one another, and in the little miracles of their daily lives. They don’t need ideologies or philosophies to define themselves. They are defined by living, with all senses engaged, with hope, and with a laugh ever ready.

She was motivated not by what others had done to her, not by envy, not by a conviction of moral superiority, but by life’s possibilities.

No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make. There is always cake.

The Notorious Dr. August
They say that we will soon understand time, that Albert Einstein and his theories will do away with it. But I love time. It keeps everything spread out, like music. A piano sonata without time would be just a loud, cataclysmic bang. And if time separates you from things you love, it also protects you from experiences that are too painful to hold close.

Ok I’m done now

Have a great weekend.