That moment when you're reading a book and it leaves you absolutely speechless, breathless almost. Isn't the power of literature awesome, friends?
Tell us of times when this has happened to you.
>>7793385
Reading the best books in the KJV Bible. Not even religious.
>>7793385
A Doll's House when Nora fucks up her entire life. o i was laffin when she slammed that door.
The Bad Girl when Ricardo talks to the breakwater builder and finds out he's the father of the bad girl.
A lot of parts in The Magic Mountain, especially this one:
"I like to think back to the Chaldeans when I'm lying there watching the planets, the ones they already knew about, because they didn't know them all, clever as they were. But I can't see the ones they didn't know, either. Uranus was only recently discovered through a telescope, about a hundred and twenty years ago."
"Recently?"
"I'd call it 'recently' in comparison to the previous three thousand years, if you please. But when I'm lying there and watching the planets, then those last three thousand years seem fairly 'recent' themselves, and somehow I feel very intimate with those Chaldeans, who watched them, too, and wrote poetry about them--and that's what humanity means."
>>7793385
The end of Ulysses almost got me there. Can't remember the last time aside from that, though .
>tfw starting to wonder if I even enjoy literature or if I'm secretly a woman and only read for superficial reasons
>>7793385
>Tell us of times when this has happened to you.
My own work.
I swear to God, I'm going to make literature great again. Sci-fi/Fantasy specifically.
Spare me your memes. This is what my life's about now, and has been for the past year. Quality over quantity; all my effort is going into a singular three-part series that will make people wish they never sullied their minds with GoT and other trash.
In Andrew Roberts' Napoleon the Great, in his return from exile on Elba, the way Roberts' describes him riding across France slowly amassing an army to take back his throne has me the most excited I'd ever been in a book
Two spring to mind:
Stephen's epiphany on the beach in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man got me dancing around the room in joy, I couldn't sit down for a few minutes after reading it. Don't think I've ever been in communion more with a character than at that moment.
The XXX Canto of Purgatorio, where Dante is in the Garden of Eden and Beatrice finally appears to him "dressed in the colour of living flame", striking Dante faint with terror. He turns to Virgil for comfort, only to notice that his guide has been vanished back to hell, causing Dante to cry out and weep uncontrollably:
>As soon as that majestic force,
>which had already pierced me once
>before I had outgrown my childhood, struck my eyes,
>I turned to my left with the confidence
<a child has running to his mamma
>when he is afraid or in distress
>to say to Virgil: 'Not a single drop of blood
>remains in me that does not tremble--
>I know the signs of the ancient flame.'
>But Virgil had departed, leaving us bereft:
>Virgil, sweetest of fathers,
>Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation.
>And not all our ancient mother lost
>could save my cheeks, washed in the dew,
>from being stained again with tears.
The dramatic tension of Dante, having met his long-lost childhood love and receiving his salvation in the middle of Earthly Paradise, crying with grief over the loss of his dearest companion, is astonishing. I cried and wept along with Dante. The most powerful moment in all of literature.
>>7793422
You can do it.
>>7793385
call me a pleb but this has only happened to me with nietzsche and lacan
>>7793591
Why would that make you a pleb? Holy shit, stop letting this boards' idiocy seep into your brain.
The end of Lolita
The end of Suttree and hisnear-death experience in the hospital
Most of Moby Dick
The final lines of Absalom, Absalom andwhen Wash kills Sutpen and his granddaughter
>>7793614
>books 4+ are definitely a poor cash grab
>4 and 5 are the most interesting books
>people always say they're the worst
>>7793385
“But they hushed, all at once and quite abruptly, when he stood still at center stage, his arms straight out from his shoulders, and went rigid, and began to tremble with a massive inner dynamism. Nobody present had ever seen anyone stand so still and yet so strangely mobile. He laid his head back until his scalp contacted his spine, that far back, and opened his throat, and a sound rose in the auditorium like a wind coming from all four directions, low and terrifying, rumbling up from the ground beneath the floor, and it gathered into a roar that sucked at the hearing itself, and coalesced into a voice that penetrated into the sinuses and finally into the very minds of those hearing it, taking itself higher and higher, more and more awful and beautiful, the originating ideal of all such sounds ever made, of the foghorn and the ship’s horn, the locomotive’s lonesome whistle, of opera singing and the music of flutes and the continuous moanmusic of bagpipes. And suddenly it all went black. And that time was gone forever.”
>>7793613
>when Wash kills Sutpen and his granddaughter
same
>>7793621
we both know that you don't speak ancient greek stop trying to shitpost this hard you seem like one of those reddit types who come over here for a little vent session.
>>7793385
>"enjoying" literature
you completely miss the point. Please stick to romance novels and John Grisham from now on.
>>7793652
>here's your reply
>>7793619
They suck
>muh nuncle
>muh war is bad
>muh introduction of major players when this shit should be wrapping up
God I'm glad the show has cut that shit out
>>7793422
>going to make literature great again.
>Sci-fi/Fantasy specifically.
:^)
>>7793533
I agree on Dante. It really was a life changing moment for me too. Helped me get over my ex.
Moby Dick does this to me and I'm only 20 chapters in
The part in moby dick when he talks about the weaver, I read it at my grandfathers funeral for full autism points.
Another recent one was Hemingway's for whom the bell tolls when El Sordo's group is killed by the planes.
>>7793385
>reading Stoner for the first time about a year ago
>just took a week off afterKatherine Driscollleft because I was too depressed to read
>finally pick it back up
>pleased to read a few of the funniest chapters in the book (when Stoner lectures advanced Medieval Poetry to a intro class just to piss Lomax off)
>really enjoying myself
>suddenly Katherine's name again
>years later she wrote a book
>dedication is to W.S.
>have to leave the library because I'm violently weeping
I still haven't recovered.great book
>>7793622
what is this from?
>>7796033
denis johnson, train dreams
So so so so many parts of this. There's a few lines in chapter 12 that made me put it down and go for a walk.
Usually the ending of books get me. i remember particularly being amazed at One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Plague, and Gravity's Rainbow (call it a meme, but the ending is like little else i've ever read).
Steppenwolf left a large impact on me, as i was going through a very similar state of mind as Hesse was when he wrote it. Sometimes, when I'm low and particularly cynical about something in my life, i think back to those lines "Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest".
As for the beauty of language, i find an appreciation of that comes more from poetry than works of prose. But there is one instance that sticks out in my mind. In Faulkner "As I Lay Dying". I rad this once, read it again, and come back to it fairly often just to read it out loud.
>“No,” he said. Then he saw her arms unfold and her right hand come forth from beneath the shawl. It held an old style, single action, cap-and-ball revolver almost as long and heavier than a small rifle. But the shadow of it and of her arm and hand on the wall did not waver at all, the shadow of both monstrous, the cocked hammer monstrous, back-hooked and viciously poised like the arched head of a snake; it did not waver at all. And her eyes did not waver at all. They were as still as the round black ring of the pistol muzzle. But there was no heat in them, no fury. They were calm and still as all pity and all despair and all conviction. But he was not watching them. He was watching the shadowed pistol on the wall; he was watching when the cocked shadow of the hammer flicked away.
>>7796083
shit, that's from"A Light in August"
my bad
>>7793385
The moment in Stoner where Stoner experiences the decline of Archer Sloane for the first time
>>7793614
Only the first book was interesting.
I couldn't even finish the second.
He also keeps his fans waiting far too long; and in his state of health, it's not like he has time on his hands.
The endings of Araby and The Dead in Dubliners. All of Pedro Paramo.
>>7793422
post an excerpt
stoner
The end of pic related, where "Satan" says how you are only a thought wandering through empty eternities.
>>7796024
By far the most affecting moment in the book. I cried, but maybe more out of joy than anything
>>7793396
what are the best books
Sonya's monologue at the end of Uncle Vanya is one of the most powerful things I've read.
Brings me to tears.
>>7796742
>yfw it's animated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpaRouocBes
>>7793613
Fly them.
>>7796024
I came here to confirm the poignancy. Got damn. I sort of teared up just thinking about the introduction when I had finished the whole thing too, Stoner is easily my favorite book rn
>>7793614
>Takes 11 years to write books 4+5 as a cash grab.
>ADOS probs wont be released till long after the tv series ends. Didn't finish TWOW before start of season 6 so now less incentive for people to buy the books.
GRRM may have his issues but fucking over the books isn't one of them. Otherwise we'd have seen the end of the series already and it would have Jon and Dany riding Drogon into Valyria to restore the freehold.
>>7796289
third book really picks up though, just as good as the first book imo, whereas i thought the second book was incredibly meh
>>7793385
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
just left me breathless idky
>>7798696
sequels are always cash grabs.
book 4 was five years after book 3. it was an obvious decline in quality. there's plenty of info out there on how much trouble he had writing it. it sorely needed a stronger editorial hand.
>>7793385
Na I usually just masturbate to shemale porn after reading my books. Especially the really long books that I have to work diligently to finish reading. I read that last sentence and before I allow myself to process my thoughts I start masturbating to shemale porn. To each his own I guess I won't tell you how to enjoy your books and you shouldn't tell me how to enjoy my books and shemale porn.
>>7798896
>Edgar Allen Poe
I bet you have a really nice vagina.
>>7796945
Job, Ecclesiastes, Matthew, Exodus
>>7793385
Valjean's Death in Les Mis (before I saw it on stage), Marlborough's Death in Churchill's Apologetic Biography, "My heart was breaking" in The Remains of the Day, several parts of "For Whom the Bell Tolls", the last few Chapters in Blood Meridian, the last few Chapters in Stoner, the end of Silence by Endo, the first time I read Dune and Paul becomes what he is meant to be (probably 13 att), the end of Mishima's Runaway Horses, the end of Kim "I am thy chela", Plutarch's Life of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and his tribute, On the Marble Cliffs by Junger.
The Brothers Karamazov quite a few times. Ending of Steppenwolf. Fitzgerald has a few passages in Tender is the Night and This Side of Paradise that left me staring at the page for what seemed like hours, simply a product of beautiful prose.
>>7793385
There a book in my native language called 'de kleine Johannes', or 'little Johannes' in English.
In the end he returns home as a docter to treat his father who on his deathbed. At first he doesn't notice because he had been away for so long. The doctor wants to perform an autopsy by disrespectfully slicing him open like a pig.
I will not have it,' said Johannes. He drew a deep breath and set his teeth, staring firmly at Pluizer, and put out his hand against him.
But Pluizer came nearer. Then Johannes gripped him by the wrists and struggled with him.
Pluizer was strong; he knew that; nothing had ever been able to resist him. But he did not leave go, and his will was steadfast.
The knife gleamed before his eyes; he seemed to see sparks and red flames, but he did not give in, and wrestled on. He knew what would happen if he yielded. He knew—he had seen it before. But that which lay behind him was his father, and he would not see it now.
And while he panted and struggled, the dead body lay stretched out motionless, just as it was lying when the silence fell; the white of the eyes visible through a narrow opening, the corners of the mouth curled to a ghastly smile. Only as the two knocked against the bed in their wrestling, the head gently moved a little.
Still Johannes held his own. His breath came hard and he could not see; a blood-red mist was before his eyes—and still he stood firm.
Then gradually the resistance of those wrists grew weaker in his grasp, his muscles relaxed, his arms fell limp by his sides and his clenched hands were empty.
When he looked up Pluizer had vanished. Death sat alone by the bed and nodded to him.
'That was well done, Johannes,' said he.
'Will he come back again?' whispered Johannes. Death shook his head.
'Never. Those who have once defied him, never see him again.'
Here he takes a stand against Pluizer who resembles a demon.
