Friday nights - the best nights for a date with a horror/mystery movie/book. I have some interesting movies/books lined up and can't wait to devour them. Now to the next prompt:
Talk about the opening of your favorite book.
I had three answers pop in my head as soon as I read the prompt. Yeah, you guessed it right, I don't have one, but three most favorite books and a lot of close seconds! So, I did some pattern searching and found that most of my favorite books had lush natural scene descriptions as the opening for the books. Some of them were Ponniyin Selvan (all five books) , Anne of Green Gables (and other books in the series). Or they described something very ordinary in life in the first couple of pages (read Agatha Christie novels, Anuthama novels and more). Of these, I love the nature descriptions best because they encourage me to imagine right from the start and make me get into the book pretty quickly. Its harder with ordinary life descriptions since I start comparing it with the experiences I've had in life.
Talking about the opening of one book, my best choice would be Ponniyin Selvan - Kalki has done an amazing job of it and I literally experienced what the hero Vandhiya Thevan sitting atop his horse across the Veera Narayana Eri experienced. I read it 15 years back but the experience is still so fresh. I guess that is the mark of a great author!
Also, Anne of Green Gables' opening is worth a mention! I was able to imagine Green Gables and the White way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters without any issues at all - though not as impactful as Kalki's, this one was sweet in its own subtle way. Sadly, I haven't read any other author (including my favorite JK Rowling or Arthur Conan Doyle or Michael Crichton) that has had such a powerful impact. Even other books by the same authors haven't had this impact - Sivagamiyin Sabatham and Parthiban Kanavu were way more disappointing to me since I had a very threshold for Kalki and other Anne books never touched me as much as the first one did. Even though I like Naindha Ullam, I'd have loved it more if Anuthama had spoken about Sri Lanka and the beauty of those places before jumping into the dynamics around Mythreyi. But I'll take Anuthama any day even if it doesn't explain about the natural scenes as much I want. :)
What is your favorite book's opening? And any recommendations for books to read?
3 comments:
I loved the Chronicles of Narnia series, not because of the opening scenes, but loved the way Narnia was created and the animals with the intellect. I would definitely love to live in a world where animals would be friendly to humans. You can attempt to read it. Anne of Green gables first book was really awesome.
Couldn't believe your last post was 7 months ago. Common Blogger!!!
Ann, yeah I love Narnia too... I need to reread them :)
And yeah, need to get into more blogging :| getting super lazy :( How have things been with you?
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