Oh! It's the climax of the first "character flees from awfulness" segment of the story, where Jo is finally found by all those trying to rescue him. Note how I can quote it extemporaneously, because it made such an impression on me.

Esther is an odd bird. I don't always like her when we're reading her narratives; but I like her very much when all the other characters look at her. It's very rare that I can read a first-person narrative and really believe that the narrator knows herself so poorly.

The reason I came back to Bleak House -- I "read" it in college, and realized later I had zero comprehension of it -- was that scene where they are chasing the mother of the dead child. My teacher read it out loud, and I never got over the coolness of the narration: "the mother of the dead child", and no histrionics. That was what made me have to go back 5 years later and read it properly, myself, and boy was I glad I had.

And last night I finished House of the Scorpion, which Nutty had generously left with me. Excellent YA novel, full of thoughtful policial, social, and scientific speculation about the drug wars, and the implications of cloning and genetic manipulation. Good stuff.

Is that by Nancy Farmer? I keep meaning to pick up one of her books, and that one looked particularly interesting.

Bleak House is about eight or nine hundred pages in small close-set Penguin edition. I read most of it in two days after a two-week vacation, because it turned out to be just the wrong kind of prose for train rides from London to Venice to Berlin to Prague to London. So I had assignment catch-up to do, and I lay down in bed and read for two days straight.

It was wonderful.

And it has one of the most magnificent opening paragraphs ever.

Is that by Nancy Farmer?

Yup. I was impressed and may look for more. Will also pass it on to the soon-to-be fifteen year-old niece.

And it has one of the most magnificent opening paragraphs ever.

YES! Micole and I, after many months and years of disagreeing about literature, are one. Happy sighs all around.

Nancy Farmer

Yes. I read The Ear, The Eye and The Arm a couple of years ago and adored it, and am spreading the love. (I have not read House of the Scoprion yet myself.)

I love House of the Scorpion because it was sort of deliciously twisted for a YA book. I loved the fact that the country was called Opium. Matt was so broken, sad and confused.

If you liked that, you should try M.T.Anderson's book Feed which is also Sci Fi for the YA set. In the book, parents have a feed directly installed in the brains of children that allows them immediate cranial connection to the internet. So amazing.

Oh! It's the climax of the first "character flees from awfulness" segment of the story

Y'know, I think this is what's missing from reality TV. ("Joe Millionaire rides up to the house on horseback. The women flee from awfulness. The End.")

None. Go. Do.

Done.

The good thing about this kerfuffle? It got me to check in with this thread, which I haven't read often for reasons that escape me.

Anyhow, despite 21 years of reading, I've barely touched the canon. Mostly, I've read children's books, non-fiction, and random modern literature. (My college degree is in journalism, with a creative writing minor. I'm not sure I read any novels I hadn't done in high school or read on my own.) I deeply love all the Shakespeare I've read or seen performed, but that's about six plays. My only Dickens is an abridged Great Expectations in ninth grade. I've only read excerpts from Chaucer, Milton and Dante. And I was all proud of myself when I finished Tess of the D'Ubervilles last month, because it was the first Classic I had read in a long time.

I am a lazy reader with a short attention span, which I freely admit. Anyone want to recommend anything to me?

Yeah, Billytea, that was Herriot. I just read the book and saw the movie of the "Long Goodbye"...liked them both, for all they're so different...that thing about the cat food, bwah!