asakiyume: (Hades)
asakiyume ([personal profile] asakiyume) wrote2016-01-04 03:03 pm

That thing where

You dip into a book, and the part you read happens to be an iconic part of the story.

... I don't actually know if the part I read is iconic, but I bet it is. I just bet.

The book, which I've never read, is Angela's Ashes. The healing angel has to read it for school and doesn't want to, so I said, We'll read 20 minutes tonight. (That was last night.) Then this afternoon when he got home from school, I quit work for ten minutes to read another little bit. Yesterday the two brothers had to pick up leftover bits of coal from the street to light their Christmas fire, and their bag had a hole in in it, so the coal kept falling out, and then it started to rain. The rain was the icing on the cake of desolation, and we laughed like the heartless creatures we are at the awfulness.

That wasn't the moment that I think was iconic though. It was when the dad tells them that their new baby brother was brought for them by an angel who left the baby on the seventh step. Seventh from the top or the bottom of the stairs, the narrator asks. The top, the dad explains, because angels come down from heaven, not up from someplace as miserable as their flooded kitchen. And later the narrator sits on that stair waiting for the angel and imagining talking to him.

... That was beautiful and I figure it has to be iconic. Just chance that the healing angel (speaking of angels) should pick that section.


[identity profile] mnfaure.livejournal.com 2016-01-05 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
I read the book, but it was many years ago (maybe not as many as that...maybe while living in Mayotte? Can't remember), and I don't remember a whole lot about it. :-/

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2016-01-06 12:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Some books linger and some books don't. What's sad is how even books you *like* can fade.

[identity profile] mnfaure.livejournal.com 2016-01-06 12:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, thinking back on books I really, really liked, for some of them I have a hard time recalling main character names, etc. I still have a feel of the book, if you will, but sometimes, not a lot of specifics remain.