How often does a phrase from a book float across your mind like a cloud? I was huddling under the covers the other day sick with flu and fever and I got to thinking about Bridget Jones, a 30 something Londoner who is single, and worries “I’ll die alone and be found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian” (Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding) It made me smile and realize I was probably not in imminent danger of being eaten by my pet, a lab mutt who is too well fed, well mannered and lazy to eat me. It also put me in the mood for a cup of tea.
How often do literary allusions cross your brain? I rarely walk in the woods in the cross between fall and winter without thinking of Mole, ill-advisedly; setting off for the Wild Woods (Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame) I look at a bare branch silhouetted on a cloudy sky that regardless of temperature, reminds me of snow, weasels and stoats, being hunted, finding a friend and a warm fire, all in less time than it takes to tell. It’s not just a line, or a passage, it’s the whole feeling of the book. Sometimes it’s a conscious memory of the book and sometimes it’s an undercurrent of the experience. I think the impressions some books have made are so strong that it almost becomes as real as a memory.
What are some of the moments from books that run through your head?
(Kelly Prewett, Hemphill Branch Library)
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