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Literature: It plucks your heartstrings, tickles you in the strangest of the places, and in the end, leaves you craving for more. A reader will understand what it means, to lie-down on soft curly grass, underneath winter’s sun and… read a book.
I too, have had the moments of ecstasy when a book (or a passage), pleasured all my senses and put me in a state of ‘awe’. In this post, I am sharing some of the finest passages I have ever come across.
First one is from The Hobbit. This is also the first passage of the book. It shows how simply and beautifully you can describe a world that does not exist in reality. This particular passage and the ones that follow, are written in such a way that someone is sitting next to a fireplace and telling a folk tale to a child.
In the book ‘Beatrice and Virgil’, when Beatrice asks Virgil about the pears (as Beatrice has no idea what they look like or feel like), Virgil goes ahead and explains everything about the pears. The conversation continues for a while, creating beautiful imagery.
Animal Farm is a brilliantly written novella. This political satire makes you laugh in every alternate sentence while reflecting the events that led to the Russian revolution. The passage below explains the turn around in the whole situation. A lovely quote that follows soon is not included below, which goes like: The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which.
Let’s move to the Russian literature. Arguably one of the finest novels of the twentieth century, Anna Karenina’s excellence cannot be summarized in one passage. This passage is about – love at first sight. Many people describe that emotion. But rarely they write anything close to what Leo Tolstoy did in the paragraph below.
If I were to decide the best book of the twentieth century, it would be One Hundred Years of Solitude. The beautiful thing about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s writing is that he puts so much inside every word and every sentence that you cannot help but surrender yourself to his spell.
Midnight’s Children. Won Booker prize. Won Best of the Booker too. And I am sure, it needs no introduction. This passage has been taken from the very first page of the book where Saleem Sinai talks about his birth. Magical!
And lastly, a passage for those who believe in the power of words. There cannot be a better example of how a good writing touches your emotions. Just read it.
Deepak Rana 