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

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I hardly ever cry at books, even books with astonishingly sad endings. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is my reaction to first reading Arwen’s death in the LortR appendices, and that involved the double whammy of it’s being the end of the story. I can find books very moving and sobering, but I tend to respond with quietness rather than weeping. I can occasionally be manipulated into blinking stoically at films, but generally at scenes of Enormous Bravery rather than romance or death, e.g. I know I’m being shamefully played upon by Peter Jackson in The Two Towers film as the hopeless defence for Helm’s Deep is prepared, but I still love it – and the bit of Anglo-Saxon verse is just a blow below the belt.

Never have read Anthony Price, but my eye was caught by Effi Briest in the library the other day, so I’ll give that a go.

[tree_and_leaf]

Just as a word of warning, the older translations of Effi Briest are quite poor (one reason why the novel never recieved the attention it deserved over here) - the recent Penguin one by Helen Chambers and Hugh Rorrison ispretty good.

I don't generally cry at books or films either, even if I am very moved. And gosh, yes, the Anglo-Saxon poetry in Two Towers. I'm not a great Peter Jackson fan, but that was just wonderful. Funnily, I think the Rohirrim worked better than anything else, in the films, despite the rather silly 'exorcism'.