Sunday, February 28, 2010

Top Ten Best Last Sentences--Spoiler Alert

The requirements for this were that I had read the book and that the last sentence wasn't too-too much of a spoiler. Here's my list:

10.
"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do. You start missing everybody" ~The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

9. "I love you, I love you, I love you." ~I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith

8. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ~The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

7. "That's the story of the gardener and the gentry and now you can think about it." ~"The Gardener and the Gentry" Hans Christian Anderson

6. "If I were a younger man I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount MaCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would make a statue of my self, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who." ~Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (surprisingly, he is not talking about Lord Voldemort...)

5. "Come, Children, let us shut the box of puppets, for our play is played out." ~Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery

4. "But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a boy and his Bear will always be playing."~Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

3. "I am haunted by humans."~ The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2. "A glooming peace this morning with it brings/the sun for sorrow will not show its head/go forth to have more talk of these sad things/some shall be pardoned and some punished/for never was a story of more woe/ than this of Juliet and her Romeo." ~ Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

1. "The End"

Do you have any additions to make to this list? Comment it up!

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Falling in Love with Fictional Characters and the People who Write Them

Mr. Darcy, Sirius Black, Romeo Montague, Holden Caulfield, Will (of His Dark Materials), Newland Archer, Simon Cotton, Edmond Dantes, Jay Gatsby, I love you all. Will you be my valentines?

I think we've all experienced it, falling head over heals for someone who doesn't exist. And sometimes it isn't just the one. The number of characters from the Harry Potter Series that could be included in that list is mind boggling.

Sometimes it's not just a character but a whole book that you fall in love with. And I don't mean "I love this book. it's one of my favorites." I mean in love.

And sometimes its the books author. As the character Mandella from Ten Things I Hate About You says about William Shakespeare "More than a fan. We're involved." Hilarious, yes. But who doesn't engage in this sort of wishful thinking? Especially if Shakespeare looks anything like the actor who plays him in Shakespeare in Love:
Here's a great Moxy Fruvous song about just this. Really catchy and quite funny as well.