That book meme

[asra]

I've been wanting to do this for a while. I may not be terribly regular about it since classes start next week, and once students arrive they find ways of monopolising all my time. I'm always excited about books, but I'm particularly excited at the moment because Amazon says my copy of Michael Ondaatje's Warlight will arrive by June 1st. (I'll probably find lots to say about Ondaatje in the course of the meme, so I won't go into specifics now.)

Nicked the meme from wendelah1; all questions under the cut. Book-lovers, please consider doing the meme. I'd love to see what everyone else likes to read.

Before I start, a prelude: one of the reasons I love Rory/Dean from Gilmore Girls so much is that Dean falls for Rory because she's so addicted to books.



1. Favourite book from childhood.

This list would probably be endless if I got started on it. The earliest books I remember reading were a series of illustrated books about a cat named Misty. Once I was a bit older, I devoured every book ever written by Enid Blyton. My favourites were the 'R' mysteries, and even as an adult, I love the idea of Barney, with his pet named after a Shakespeare character, living a nomadic life looking for his father, whom he knows nothing about except that he acts in Shakespeare's plays. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys introduced me to detective fiction with teenage romance included. (Fun fact: my first ever fanfics, before we even knew that such a thing existed, were extremely gen-cesty Frank and Joe fics that my high school bestie and I wrote for each other. Teachers were extremely suspicious when they caught us together in otherwise empty classrooms, scribbling away in our notebooks.) Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle ensured that I'd never lose my love for detective fiction, and Biggles introduced me to the concept of m/m slash, although I didn't know what it was at the time. I still remember with startling clarity the ~something I felt (in Biggles Flies South, I think) when the guys are locked up together in a cell by the baddies and Algy falls asleep with his head on Biggles' leg.)

Then I graduated to sci-fi and fantasy: Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, and, of course, Tolkien and C S Lewis. If I absolutely had to pick favourite books from those days, I'd pick 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Lord of the Rings. A bit of blathering about them below.

I was just thinking of Clarke's series since I read marciaelena's gorgeous fic from now until the end of the world (Sam/Dean, dystopian), and the end reminded me of this exchange between Dave and HAL at the end of 2010: Odyssey Two (the film, but it's adapted from the book).

Dave Bowman: Hal, do you read me?
HAL-9000: Affirmative, Dave. Where are you? I cannot see you on any of my monitors.
Dave Bowman: That isn't important now. I have new instructions for you. I want you to point the AE-35 antenna unit towards Earth.
HAL-9000: Dave...that will mean breaking contact with the Leonov. I will be unable to relay my Jupiter observations according to program.
Dave Bowman: I understand. The situation has changed. Accept Priority Override Alpha. Here are the AE-35 coordinates. Please do it now.
HAL-9000: Instructions confirmed, Dave. It is good to be working with you again. Have I fulfilled the mission objectives properly?
Dave Bowman: Yes, Hal. You've done very well. Now, there is one final message for you to send. It is the most important message you have ever sent. I want you to keep repeating it as many times as possible.
HAL-9000: What is going to happen, Dave?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.
HAL-9000: I'm afraid.
Dave Bowman: Don't be. We'll be together.
HAL-9000: Where will we be?
Dave Bowman: Where I am now.
HAL-9000: Lock confirmed on beacon Terra One. Message commencing.

(The message is:)

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
USE THEM TOGETHER.
USE THEM IN PEACE.

(The first 11 words are common to novel & movie; the last 7 appear only in the movie.)

(Source: Wikiquote)

This series ruled my imagination for so, so long. This bit, the idea about consciousness evolving to a place that we in our current stage of evolution can't even begin to imagine, fascinates me so much. (There's a similar notion in Carl Sagan's Contact when Ellie 'travels' to meet an alien race; they appear to her in the form of her dead father.)

LotR would take me several posts to write about, so for now I'll just say that I really really wanted to be Eowyn, lol, and Aragorn was my teenaged fantasy of the ideal man, and Galadriel... she transcends words, am I right? I did love the film adaptations a LOT, despite their flaws. I had a soft corner for Aragorn/Frodo before the films came out; the ginormous size difference put me off, heh. (But hey, if size difference is your kink, I'm so not judging.) I still love Viggo Mortensen in everything that he does, and Cate Blanchett will always be one of my favourites.



Oddly enough, Clarke references Tolkien in 2010: “Well, Io is Mordor: Look up Part Three. There’s a passage about ‘rivers of molten rock that wound their way… until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.’ That’s a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.”

To end, one of my favourite passages from LotR.

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.”



1. Favourite book from childhood.
2. Best bargain.
3. One with a blue cover.
4. Least favourite book by favorite author.
5. Doesn't belong to me.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or TV tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favourite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favourite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.

P.S. Nominations for Everywoman are open. Go forth and nominate!