Random query of the day

[tree_and_leaf]

Having been reminded, by discussion on wemyss' journal, of the wonders of Anthony Price (and those of you who don't know them, should), it also occurs to me that Tomorrow's Ghost is one of the few books I've cried over. I don't, as it happens, cry very easily, and when I do it's usually more to do with fatigue than emotion, but there you are: Tomorrow's Ghost, the end of Effi Briest, and the final chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (not, however, the death scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).*

Which makes me wonder what books or scenes in books other people find particularly affecting?

* If we bring films into it, then we must add Ring of Bright Water - I was fond of otters, and the killing of a pet one as a pest came as a bit of a shock at eight - and Spock's death scene in Star Trek II.

Comments

[eagles-rock.livejournal.com]

'no two were e'er wed but one had a sorrow that never was said' was almost my subtitle line on LJ, but I thought it too gloomy and frankly misleading, so I went for William Barnes and the misery of familiar places without the familiar people.

Paddington as a refugee; that would have been fine, as long as he wasn't a bear. Darkness Powder Evangelist!

I realise I have read two other talking-animal books - Animal Farm (feels absurd to put that in this category) and Winnie the Pooh (to whom being a bear is quite irrelevant, and which looks incrasingly like a study of mental illnesses) - none of which, like Watership, have anything to do with the animals at all, but I can't see me reading another. I suddenly feel very old.

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, if you ever find yourself having to read a book to a child, Paddington is very good. I particularly tresaure the moment when he got himself into some fix or other and 'called for help, but in a quiet voice so as not to alarm the family'...