Ecstasy of prose
OMG...I can't believe I never read this book. I love it, and now I'm filled with hope for all the other books that might be out there about which I might feel just as strongly. Why is it so hard to find them? Are librarians immune to readers' advisory? Oh well, back to the breathtakingly beautiful prose...
"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." --The words, sounds, and rhythm are perfect and yet it seems simple and effortless.
"Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." --heartbreakingly lovely
"Our battles were epic and one-sided." air-tight--we know all we need to know, and she didn't waste a syllable
"The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water" --thump, thump, thump
"I could not remember when the lines above Atticus's moving finger separated into words...I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." --The words, sounds, and rhythm are perfect and yet it seems simple and effortless.
"Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." --heartbreakingly lovely
"Our battles were epic and one-sided." air-tight--we know all we need to know, and she didn't waste a syllable
"The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water" --thump, thump, thump
"I could not remember when the lines above Atticus's moving finger separated into words...I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
posted by Erica at 5:27 PM
4 Comments:
Yes! I'm having exactly the same experience.
My reaction when you all chose to read this book: "I seriously can't believe these people haven't read this. I thought everyone has read 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" Yet another reason why public schools are better than private and homeschooling, they require kids to read this book.
Only public schools in my history, this is just one book we never got to. Of course, I probably wouldn't have appreciated it had we read it. I basically made it through high school without reading much of anything that was assigned. I discovered if I listened to what the teacher said I knew enough to pass the tests and write the papers. I voraciously read fantasy books on my own time, but resisted being required to read anything else.
Yeah...I chalk it up to going to public, but not very good public schools. I read more my senior yr of high school (I didn't move to JoCo until my senior yr) than I did probably all years leading up to it. When we were little, my parents thought it was important for us to grow up in a small town (rather than JoCo), and they thought they could compensate for the less-than-stellar education system. When we moved, my brother was going into 9th grade. The difference between our high school educational experiences is like night and day. All that said, I'm glad I'm finally reading this book--I probably appreciate the writing more now, but I would have loved it as a kid as well.
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