(no subject)

[memelaina]

filkferengi quoted ldwheeler's excellent post on "Books that Permeate" http://ldwheeler.livejournal.com/142541.html and added her list. Her list had three that are on my own list - Tolkien, Alcott, and Burnett (but a different Burnett). I think part of what makes these images permeate our lives is the youth at which we read them. We find some of these images again in new forms, and recognize and welcome them, but those vanguard images from our youth always, always remain in the forefront of our brains.

Louisa May Alcott--Little Women. I read this every few years. I've read everything published by Alcott (and that's a big claim) but this still holds my heart and soul.

Frances Hodgson Burnett--Sara Crewe (later rewritten as The Little Princess). I read this at eight or nine in a 19th century edition of my mother's. The images of the attic, the bakery shop, the cold and wet, the magic transformation are still with me.

Tolkien--The Lord of the Rings. ldwheeler says "If I have to explain, you probably won't understand. If you understand, then I don't have to explain." And that's the best explanation there is. I think you had to have read Tolkien at the right time in your life, and at the right time in the history of fantasy. I read him my junior year of high school in 1966. I was 14. There was NOTHING, absolutely nothing, that I had ever read that was like this. I gulped it, I ate it, I lived it, I dreamed it with total obsessiveness and with total lack of any critical faculty. I pity the people who come to Tolkien today after "growng up" on the hundreds of heroic fantasy novels that overflow juvenile, YA, and adult bookshelves. I pity those who see the movie first. They can never experience the true wonder of the original.

Edgar Rice Burroughs--Tarzan of the Apes and A Princess of Mars. What I learned from Tarzan and John Carter was to say "I still live!" in the face of darkness, depression, pain, or panic. These books do not stand up as well to re-reading, but at ten and eleven they were perfect.

C.S. Lewis--Surprised by Joy. My first experience with another being's personal and individual struggle for Christian understanding. He dared to say so many things I felt but could not externalize. He dared to doubt and still believe. I re-read this regularly and there are always new insights.

Comments

[arwensouth.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with you on Alcott, Burnett, and Tolkien. I need to ponder what others I might add, though... Jules Verne, for sure, and probably Hugh Lofting (Everything I Needed To Know I Learned From Dr. Doolittle?), but maybe also Douglas Adams and Anne McCaffrey. And Gene Stratton Porter. And ........

[filkferengi]

[feels all quoted & loved.]

Are great minds thinking alike, or what?

_A Little Princess_ was 6th grade. My mom & I were Christmas shopping at the Penney's outlet when I called out, "Hi, Ermengarde!" My mom wondered what parents had inflicted that name on a child. ;) [I had actually found a doll in the same way Sarah found Emily.]

_Little Women_--I read an abridged version at 10; the unabridged was a delightful revelation a couple of years later. [It also taught me to look for the word "abridged."]

As for _Tarzan_, well, French was the first human language Tarzan spoke [& D'Arnot disappears far too early, alas!] & the first language I took [although Heyer had something to do with that too]. My freshman year of college, when taking that upper division French lit. class, we had to compare Cyrano to someone else as romantic hero. I chose Tarzan: superhuman, totally faithful to a helplessly stupid woman, mistaken identity, etc. The first book holds up pretty well, but the second one has too many trips around the jungle.

I obviously need to read more C. S. Lewis.

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

absolutely Gene Stratton Porter. Michael O'Halloran was one of the books that my mother read us multiple times and that vision of children on the street of american cities and the dichotomy of rich and poor still haunts my vision.

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

the more i think about tarzan, the more i see the threads of influence. it did not phase me that tarzan learned to read from looking at primers. i felt that i had learned the same way (actually i had a LOT more help than he did... ). i utterly bought in to him learning french then english - both perfectly, and in a matter of weeks. i suppose i read these books at that time in childhood, early adolesence when i either thought i knew everything or thought i could know everything if i just tried. tarzan was wonderfully superior to everyone, and, of course, i thought that i was too!

[filkferengi]

It's mostly handwavium, of course, but at least the author included a way for Tarzan to have learned. Besides, it's a cracking action yarn, & easy to get pulled in.