Anyway, back to my favorite books. I started a list the other day, not of books that I like, or even love, but of the books that while I was reading gave me shivers, made my breathing ragged, with excitement, with anticipation. Books that made my chest feel light and hollow, like bubbles of some intangible thing was trying to make me expand with the sheer amazement that the books provided.
(these are in no particular order)
1. I have to start my list with Contact by Carl Sagan. Not because it was the first, but because it is one that is important to me. I already discussed this book in a previous post, so I won't go much more into it.
2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. This book thrilled me. Not because of the plot or the setting, nor for the characters, though they were all very well done. The opening is a high class birthday party for a Japanese business man in the house of the vice president of a small unnamed South American country that wants to cater his favor. The action is a hostile takeover by a group of guerrilla rebels. The plot is the two groups, captors and captives, blending until lines are being forgotten. This book thrilled me because of the language. Possibly the first novel I have ever read where it was the language that I love more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I love these characters, their plight entrances me, and the ideas entrance me. But I have a feeling that I love them because the language is gorgeous. The language is simple and yet lush, at the same time. It was like the beautiful song of the title, every word soars higher, until the unpredictable and yet inevitable end.
3. The Riddle Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip is a fantasy trilogy. McKillip is a master of describing things without you even noticing. You are reading, and suddenly realize that you know what everything looks like, but you aren't quite sure how. She also amazes me with the fact that her plots move slowly, but she somehow still holds interest. I attribute this to her incredibly complex characters. Riddle-Master is my favorite of hers, though it is hard to define why. Part of it is probably the way that magic, rather than being portrayed as something otherworldly and strange, is like water, air, or fire. It is simply a part of the world that though not always taken for granted, is generally just there. It can be simple, for instance, a character learns to transform himself into a tree. But there is no magic words, no hand or wand waving. The magic is simple. If you can think like a tree, you can become a tree. Stand in one place, let your thoughts reach to the sky and your feet into the earth, and one moment you are a man, and the next you are a tree. And the magic of the story is all like that. Simple ideas that blossom into awesome from one word to the next.
4. The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Those familiar with Bradley probably won't recognize much of her in this novel, though there are some themes that might carry over. It is not fantasy, it is not science fiction. This is a novel that consumes me because of the characters. I fell in love with them, and I felt everything that they did. And it wasn't just because of the two main characters. The novel centers around Mario and Tommy, two circus performers in the time at the beginning of the end of the age of the traveling circus. They are trapeze artists, and they fall in love. The two main characters are compelling, but they are surrounded by a large family of smaller, yet also complex and interesting side characters. You feel that each one of them has their own story, and it is a fascinating story, if only the "camera" angle was a little different you might be able to have an entirely different novel.
That is all I am going to do for now, I will revisit this subject later though, with some more of those books that took my breath away. :-)
I've not read any of the books you talk about here, Rob, although Bel Canto is on my list of things to read this year. However, I totally understand that feeling one gets from some books; that giddy light-headedness that makes me say "Oh, this is magic, and I want to go back!" Reading The Hobbit the first time was a moment like that for me.
ReplyDeleteThere are certain authors that always make me feel that way as well, like Alice Hoffman. Everything she write feels like poetry, and makes me want to have a much more beautiful life than I actually have.
I love Alice Hoffman, and I always feel like I need to read more of her. ;-) I remember reading something by her, thinking it was the first novel of hers that I had read, I think it was Practical Magic, and then discovering that I had read Green Angel several years prior. It gave me a happy feeling.
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