Starting with chapter forty-seven; beginning at the end.
I can't tell you how many times I've re-read this book. How many times it's seemed the most obvious choice for me to have by my side. It's my favorite of the eight, the one that I keep coming back to. The title that I can visit again and again without feeling a fade, losing the connection, or knowing the ending.
But the strange thing is that whenever I read this, it becomes immediately clear that I've forgotten the way the book begins. Every time I find myself a few chapters in, it feels like I've never seen these words before in my life.
Like it's different and new,
even though it's exactly the same.
I understand why it happens, because the things I remember about this book, the things that stay with me are the things that happen later on. That even as much as I'm enjoying the beginning (..again), the situations that come up down the line will (as they always have in the past) somehow wash over the opening moments. It's not a bad thing - I mean, that's what happens most of the time. First chapters are all setup - they introduce characters and suspend your disbelief. They open the door and pull you inside. Opening chapters seem almost forgettable just by their nature.
And yet this is a book that I know. Characters I've already met. Here is a house that I've lived in before, a bed that I've slept in as my own. And yet here I am -- infatuated all over again. Stirring clouds into my coffee as if it were the first time I'd ever tasted it.
...How could I have forgotten this feeling?
Strangest of all, though -- is this question that keeps asking over and over in my mind. The one I can't answer, the one I may never know for sure...
Does this book remember who I am?
I can't tell you how many times I've re-read this book. How many times it's seemed the most obvious choice for me to have by my side. It's my favorite of the eight, the one that I keep coming back to. The title that I can visit again and again without feeling a fade, losing the connection, or knowing the ending.
But the strange thing is that whenever I read this, it becomes immediately clear that I've forgotten the way the book begins. Every time I find myself a few chapters in, it feels like I've never seen these words before in my life.
Like it's different and new,
even though it's exactly the same.
I understand why it happens, because the things I remember about this book, the things that stay with me are the things that happen later on. That even as much as I'm enjoying the beginning (..again), the situations that come up down the line will (as they always have in the past) somehow wash over the opening moments. It's not a bad thing - I mean, that's what happens most of the time. First chapters are all setup - they introduce characters and suspend your disbelief. They open the door and pull you inside. Opening chapters seem almost forgettable just by their nature.
And yet this is a book that I know. Characters I've already met. Here is a house that I've lived in before, a bed that I've slept in as my own. And yet here I am -- infatuated all over again. Stirring clouds into my coffee as if it were the first time I'd ever tasted it.
...How could I have forgotten this feeling?
Strangest of all, though -- is this question that keeps asking over and over in my mind. The one I can't answer, the one I may never know for sure...
Does this book remember who I am?
[Listening to: DJ Format, "We Know Something You Don't Know"]
Comments