Favorite/Most Memorable Scenes From Books

The sunny, bright Saturday full of promise in "The Regulators." To this day, whenever I think of horror done just right - I think of a perfect, sunny, day.

The flayed back of Phèdre nó Delaunay, and how a masochist can save a nation in "Kushiel's Avatar."

The rainbow snow in "The Farthest Away Mountain." Because with a little ingenuity and a lot of pluck you can live your own adventure.

And the first time Lord Henry meets Dorian Gray, in "A Portrait of Dorian Gray" because there hasn't been a character since that's been so effortlessly manipulative, sly and cunning.

KRCox said:

What moments do you remember right away from your fav books?

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What moments do you remember, KRCox? You can't just ask, you have to join the converation. Otherwise it becomes an "author survey" and we move it to the Writers' Café .

Betsy

Betsy the Quilter said:

What moments do you remember, KRCox? You can't just ask, you have to join the converation. Otherwise it becomes an "author survey" and we move it to the Writers' Café .

Betsy

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I have a terrible memory. But I remember when The old man in Riverwind the Plainsman died. It was a very sad moment.

KRCox said:

What moments do you remember right away from your fav books?

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Too many to mention...

- Sam Spade's first conversation with The Fat Man concerning the Maltese Falcon

- Frodo's first encounter with Strider in the Prancing Pony

- Ben Gunn's plaintive plea for cheese on Treasure Island

- Marlowe meeting Moose Malloy in Farewell My Lovely

- HAL singing "Daisy, Daisy"

KRCox said:

I have a terrible memory. But I remember when The old man in Riverwind the Plainsman died. It was a very sad moment.

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I'm not familiar with that book...but I have difficulty coming up with "moments." Probably if I looked at specific books I could come up with something.

Betsy

Three that come immediately to mind:

When Anne Shirley hears the words “Gilbert Blythe is dying”  and her world comes crashing down.

The final scene in Pet Sematary when he hears Rachel’s footsteps shuffling through the kitchen door and her hand on his shoulder ...  “Hello Darling”

Claire screaming in anguish when she finds Jamie’s grave marker . ( DragonFly in Amber)

The ending of Midwives by Chris Bohjalian; the ending of A Tale of Two Cities; and the pig-blood prom scene in Stephen King's Carrie.

Off the top of my head, two come to mind without thinking. The first encounter with the Rachel in Moby Dick. While there are parts of the book I skim, that was beautifully poignant, the moment they realise it's the other Captain's children who are missing. From Susan Cooper's Greenwitch, Jane's wish for the Greenwitch. It's been years since I read that book (I lent my copy and it vanished  ) and I can still quote it.

For me it's not specific incidents but more an overall feeling of time, place, and characters. For instance, I can remember specific incidents out of the James Herriott books, but what attracts me is the whole of 1930's England, the practice of the country vet, and the characters of Herriott, Sigfried and Tristan. That's true of every favorite book or series of books. If I really think about it, I can come up with a particular incident, but what makes that book or series a favorite is the overall impression.

The first three that come to mind for me:

- Judas's death in Christopher Moore's Lamb

- This moment toward the end of Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum (probably not nearly as meaningful taken out of context like this):

"The world is . . . different." Oats's gaze went out across the haze, and the forest, and purple mountains. "Everywhere I look I see something holy."

For the first time since he'd met here, he saw Granny Weatherwax smile properly. Normally her mouth went up at the corners just before something unpleasant was going to happen to someone who deserved it, but this time she appeared to be pleased with what she'd heard.

"That's a start, then," she said.

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- The pun Roger Zelazny sneaks into the middle of Lord of Light: "That's when the fit hit the shan."

Howard Roark from THE FOUNTAINHEADby Ayn Rand standing naked on the cliff over the river.

Haven't read it since I was a boy, but that has stayed with me.

In Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED, I can't remember the name of the female lead character (Dagny?) but there's a scene where she's travelling on a train, sitting with her feet on the opposite bench, and I remember the phrase about the "blade-like elegance" of her legs. (As a writer, I won't ask for more than that people decades later remember a throwaway phrase from me so vividly.)

People who say Rand wasn't a good writer are usually reacting to her politics (I did too, though not in the way they do: I became a Chicago School economist) but she was a perfectly serviceable writer in her political works, and in her earliest pieces, ANTHEM, about collectivism taken to its logical absurdity, and WE THE LIVING, about the brutalities and immoralities of the Russian Revolution, she rose to poetry.

I'm the worst at remembering scenes. What I do remember was being scared every time someone sneezed after reading The Stand.


William mentioned Frodo meeting Strider. That was a great scene.

I immediately thought of the scene in the final book of Robin Hobbs's Tawny Man Trilogy, Fool's Fate, when Fitz and Molly are reunited. I actually cried.

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Nick when he meets Daisy for the first time in Gatsby. The wind catching and floating Daisy and Jordan from the couch. Beautiful.

Curiously, the moment I remember most from one of my favorite books actually wasn't in the book at all - it was modified in the editorial stage. This would be the scene in Salem's Lot where Jimmy falls on the knives in the basement at the board housing. In the original version he's attacked by rats. I believe one of them even crawled in his mouth. Anyway, read that somewhere in something about Stephen King and the image has always stayed with me.

Also, the leg scenes in Misery.

TJDanko said:

Nick when he meets Daisy for the first time in Gatsby. The wind catching and floating Daisy and Jordan from the couch. Beautiful.

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I haven't read The Great Gatsby for a hundred years (a prime example of how education turns even a poet off the language!), but I remember the infinitely sad moment with Daisy in Gatsby's dressing room, whirling up a storm of his shirts, her last moment of abandon as she resigns herself to life with her dull, brutish husband.

Andre Jute said:

I haven't read The Great Gatsby for a hundred years (a prime example of how education turns even a poet off the language!), but I remember the infinitely sad moment with Daisy in Gatsby's dressing room, whirling up a storm of his shirts, her last moment of abandon as she resigns herself to life with her dull, brutish husband.

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I know! It's been over over twenty years for me, but I remember Daisy and the shirts vividly. I worry about returning to these books sometimes, whether they hold up or not.

Maybe I'm an "in the moment" reader, because earlier today I was trying to think of some of my favorite or most memorable scenes from books that I've read and came up blank. So I wondered if anyone had any to share. It can be a book that you've written as well. Just interested in what sticks in the mind (and why it doesn't seem to for me).

Actually, Joel, members can't post from a book they've written.  Discussion of books that members have written is for the Book Bazaar or the Writers' Café.  But I'm sure authors here have read books, too, so they'll be able to join in. 

I'm concerned about spoilers....

Betsy