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kasche(Best quote ever, by the by.)
So, I think it was last week that I walked in my favorite bookshop, planning to get that copy of Stephen King's IT that I thought I'd seen - I was curious to reread it, but my own old (Italian) copy got lost who knows where (and who knows when) - and walked out with Fahrenheit 451 instead.
Which I kind of fell in love with.
Seriously! I'd read it already, actually, but it was so long ago (middle school, the few sweet years when we had a library in our village - I remember devouring so many books, probably - in part, at least - just because I could. Tiny village! My first library! ♥) that I hardly remembered any of it, save for one mental picture, Faber showing the tiny tv to Montag. (I have no idea why it's that one, though.) Plus, it was the Italian translation (duh, of course) and while, all right, that doesn't make it a different book... still.
Not that I minded, though. In fact, I was quite happy it was that way. I could vaguely recall the scenes (and my mental pictures for them) as I went, but I didn't remember enough to know the ending, or even what was going to happen next. It's the best kind of rereading there is. ♥
But you know, as I read I kept thinking that I wanted to talk about this, because I was reading it and loving it (and developing a healthy crush on Montag ♥), but now... I don't really know what to say, or even if I want to say anything at all. Isn't that how it is sometimes, with good books? You want to share the love you have for them, but at the same time you want to keep to yourself why you love them so much. Mostly because you don't really know how to explain it yourself.
So I will give you the bit of the book that made my curiosity for the book first become hunger instead. ♥ Why, but it is the first paragraph!
Oh, that last phrase about the smile I just so loved! And I believe there is one fic by a certain Anne that I might want to get acquainted with... again. ♥
Eta: Okay, so one thing I do want to say. You know, I really was fascinated by the idea of being able to recall all the books you've ever read - or even just one, but perfectly. Word by word, the punctuations, the paragraphs, everything - and that persons became "books". Kind of. That you had to take care of yourself not just because of you, but also because of what you were carrying.
(I didn't wonder long which book might be "mine", though. ;P)
So, I think it was last week that I walked in my favorite bookshop, planning to get that copy of Stephen King's IT that I thought I'd seen - I was curious to reread it, but my own old (Italian) copy got lost who knows where (and who knows when) - and walked out with Fahrenheit 451 instead.
Which I kind of fell in love with.
Seriously! I'd read it already, actually, but it was so long ago (middle school, the few sweet years when we had a library in our village - I remember devouring so many books, probably - in part, at least - just because I could. Tiny village! My first library! ♥) that I hardly remembered any of it, save for one mental picture, Faber showing the tiny tv to Montag. (I have no idea why it's that one, though.) Plus, it was the Italian translation (duh, of course) and while, all right, that doesn't make it a different book... still.
Not that I minded, though. In fact, I was quite happy it was that way. I could vaguely recall the scenes (and my mental pictures for them) as I went, but I didn't remember enough to know the ending, or even what was going to happen next. It's the best kind of rereading there is. ♥
But you know, as I read I kept thinking that I wanted to talk about this, because I was reading it and loving it (and developing a healthy crush on Montag ♥), but now... I don't really know what to say, or even if I want to say anything at all. Isn't that how it is sometimes, with good books? You want to share the love you have for them, but at the same time you want to keep to yourself why you love them so much. Mostly because you don't really know how to explain it yourself.
So I will give you the bit of the book that made my curiosity for the book first become hunger instead. ♥ Why, but it is the first paragraph!
It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.
Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.
He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered.
Oh, that last phrase about the smile I just so loved! And I believe there is one fic by a certain Anne that I might want to get acquainted with... again. ♥
Eta: Okay, so one thing I do want to say. You know, I really was fascinated by the idea of being able to recall all the books you've ever read - or even just one, but perfectly. Word by word, the punctuations, the paragraphs, everything - and that persons became "books". Kind of. That you had to take care of yourself not just because of you, but also because of what you were carrying.
(I didn't wonder long which book might be "mine", though. ;P)
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on 2008-08-07 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-08-08 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-08-08 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-08-09 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-08-09 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-08-07 09:51 pm (UTC)I am sure reading it in English is slightly better. Like reading Dante in Italian, his words are poetry and a translation can never quite be the same. English isn't quite Italian but there is a poetry to Bradbury's words. I love you quoted the first part! Powerful.
Montag would love your village library.
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on 2008-08-08 09:16 pm (UTC)Oh boy, I have become such a snob when it comes to English ;P I can't read the translations anymore, I have to get myself the originals! When I'm reading a translated text, I spend half the time trying to guess what the phrase really might have been like. That doesn't help a lot for immersing oneself in books, I have to say. ;)
Awww... it was nothing much, really. But oh, I loved it so much. :D You never forget your first, ain't that it? ;)
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on 2008-08-07 10:27 pm (UTC)I remember when I first grabbed it off a book shelf in a store, flipped to the first lines and began reading it. And reading it. And I sat down in the isle and kept reading it till I finally bought it. So good.
I don't really know what to say, or even if I want to say anything at all. Isn't that how it is sometimes, with good books? You want to share the love you have for them, but at the same time you want to keep to yourself why you love them so much
That is how it is. It is hard to explain, hard to share, but that is just the way things are.
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on 2008-08-08 09:31 pm (UTC)But it's good to see people really sharing it, is it not? ♥