The CWC wants to know:
What's your most exciting reading experience?
posted by Andrew Tibbetts | 12:55 pm
The Canadian Writers' Collective
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9 Comments:
Excitement was never such a full-body experience for me as when I was a kid. I remember the flashlight under the covers into the wee hours illuminating the Hardy Boys or the Narnia books. I remember one book in particular, a mystery in the series Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. I don't remember the title or the plot but I remember being thrilled with the bad guy, a genius on par with Jupiter, the head boy-detective. Despite being on either sides of the law, they admired each other very much. Their conflict was like a complicated chess match that each player was enjoying but also passionate to win. I was still at it when I heard my mother saying, 'time to get up! School!' I had read through the night without noticing. I took the final chapter into the shower with me.
When I stand in line with my kids every few years for the new Harry Potter, I remember that undiluted thrill! My kids are shaking by the time the book is actually in their hands. And I know to wrench it from them, hide the flashlight, and keep a close eye when it's time for them to go to bed.
Reading A Passage to India was a wonderful experience, as was Dracula, but for different reasons. I also fell in love with The Old Man and the Sea.
Probably the Dune books. I was royally pissed off at Frank Herbert when he died. I wasn't finished with him!
I was thrilled when I discovered 'urban lit.' When I was about 12, I read a book called Pinballs (very raw kids lit, since I was past my Judy Blume years and had read every SE Hinton book I could get my hands on). This book, Pinballs, gave me the same feeling I had when I first read The Outsiders; I recognised these teenagers and I saw myself in them. Then I discovered a local writer, a guy named Brit Haggerty, who wrote candidly about the downtown eastside of Vancouver, and it all came together for me: People from Canada do write about things other than the Prairies and the North. That's when I really knew I wanted to write stories, and that these were the kinds of stories I wanted to tell.
I'm trying to remember books that had me excited as an adult, and it's tough! The difference I think, is as an adult writer I read carefully, and analyse, which might take away from the read, a little. David Sedaris had me laughing out loud with Naked. Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road had me forgetting how it was written. Nick Horsby's 'dramady' About A Boy was also a great read.
As a boy, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and his Robot series, had me truly excited. So did Robert Heinlen's alien words, and the novels; Lord Of The Flies, Childhood's End, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Homes, and a not so well known historic fiction, The Eagle And The Raven; a fictional account of England being invaded by the Roman Empire. Wow, there are probably a whole lot more that will come to mind, later. Thanks for stimulating those memories, Andrew.
Excitement as a adult? Is it doomed to dilution with anxiety over responsibility and doubt? I guess that's why people take drugs and drink. But it's hard to read inebriated. So we really need books to possess us, to fill every corner of our minds and push everything else out. I guess my most thrilling reading experience as an adult was reading Anne Carson's "The Autobiography of Red". It hit me on so many levels. There was very little part of me that wasn't engaged, so the thrills got to reverberate deep.
I have enjoyed reading everyone comments!!! xoxo
Lately? This blog -- I love the post I just read, about setting that schoolhouse on fire. :)
Thanks, Diane! And those cautionary vignettes sound like a hoot. Will we be seeing some samples of them soon?
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