My name is Danielle and I am a 25 year old senior at Arizona State University. I am married to a really incredible guy named Joey. He lets me get away with a lot. I am a big time gamer, playing on PS4, Xbox, and 3DSxl. I love to read and write, and I have finished the first draft to a few novels of my own. I am going to school to become an optometrist, however. I work as an optician currently and I wanted to stick in that field of healthcare. I have an adorable little ball of fluff named Polly, a 3 year old rescue Yorkie/Schnauzer.
I wanted to do this blog similarly to Leigh Butler's read-through blog on Tor.com. Her blog has given me endless hours of insightful thoughts regarding some of my favorite book series. I hope to delve more into stand-alone novels with this blog.
Anyways! On to the Good Stuff.
Prologue
What Happens
A man, our main character, travels English country in a stuffy black suit. He is reminiscing after a funeral of a character not yet known to the reader. He feels uncomfortable in the suit, but it gives him a piece of mind, as though preparing him for the day. He decides subconsciously to visit his home town in Sussex, a home that no longer existed. He drives and drives and finds his childhood memories coming to the surface. He remembers the house before he sees it coming around the next bend. The Hempstocks' farmhouse at the end of the lane. He walks in without really knowing why, and meets Mrs. Hempstock at the door. She isn't exactly how she appeared in his memory, doesn't remind him of who he thought he remembered. A thought comes to mind and he asks to see the duck pond. She is confused at first, until he mentions that it was called something different at the farmhouse - the sea? As he walks around the back, memories come unbidden to the surface. He is proud of himself, yet continues to test his memory. The ocean, that is what Lettie Hempstock had called it. And just like that, he remembers everything.
Commentary
"I remember my own childhood vividly... I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let the adults know I knew. it would scare them."
The book begins with this eerily accurate quote. Children are so impressionable, always watching and absorbing the information around them. Their brains are like sponges and adults can't think the same way they can. It is interesting because the imagination is so much stronger, the younger a child is. As we age, our innocent view of the world is changed to a more logical - explained - fact of life. I love this quote and it gave me shivers the first time I read it out loud.
Out loud.
I am reading this book to my husband at nights. He doesn't read, but he likes when I share my interests with him. Reading a book out loud is so different than just speed reading through to get into a story. I love to get lost in a book, especially one written by the one and only Neil Gaiman. I honestly could have finished this 178 page book in a couple of hours, tops. I am trying to keep it slow, a chapter or two at night, so I can fully relish a brand new story from a master storyteller.
It is always interesting reading a book by Gaiman. He starts you out in a familiar landscape. In this case its a small town in England, but familiar enough for us to know that this is Present Day Earth. He leaks just enough, slowly enough, to get a hint of something supernatural.
"Can't drink the water from the sea, can you? Too salty. Like drinking life's blood. Do you remember the way? You can get to it around the side of the house. Just follow the path."
If you'd asked me an hour before, I would have said no. I did not remember the way. I do not even think I would have remembered Lettie Hempstock's name. But standing in that hallway, it was all coming back to me. Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me. Had you told me I was seven again, I might have half-believed you, for a moment.
It is a form of magic, dragging up memory from the back of your mind. Like trying to look at a star, so you focus just next to it and it appears closer than if you tried to peer directly at it.
Until next time! Ta~
Danielle
No comments:
Post a Comment