there's always a reason why a classic is a classic. when i read fiction i want to be enchanted by not only the story but how it is told. i want to hear the music in the prose. i got harper lee's "to kill a mockingbird" out of the library over a month ago and kept renewing it, always picking up other books to read instead. last night i started it and i'm once again captivated (i read it first when i was about 15). this is what holds me and carries me along:
"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three - o'clock naps, and by nightfuall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum".
1 comment:
I loved that book. I read it as a teenager also. You have inspired me to read it again. Definately right - a classic.
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