I’m reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss at the moment. I’m not very far in but really enjoying it, it’s just so beautifully written with wonderfully constructed sentences.
Some writers have massive talent for storytelling, some for plot lines, some for painting scenery, some for bringing characters on a page into full three dimensional people that you feel you know and miss when you’ve finished the book. I’m not even 75 pages in and already this seems to have all those, but there was one paragraph, very early in the book which almost had me in tears with it’s truth and honesty, ability to take me into my own past and plunge me deep into my own children’s mentality once again:
‘Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree a castle.
Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.’
Of course I’m a hypocrite, having just spent nearly 8 quid on a sonic screwdriver ready to be a birthday present for Davies when actually a stick painted with a blue splodge on the end would do the job just as well, but having watched four children play together for hours today with a couple of bucketfuls of water, some empty plant pots, a garden table and some towels building camps, castles, beds, boats and beaches the above words really touched me.
Touched me too – seemed to conjure up that timeless feel of childhood summers where you play a game every day and go to bed dreaming of it and planning what you will do next time.
Comment by Ali — 01 August 2007 @ 9:29 pm
Lovely sentiment indeed.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Sonic-Screwdriver-Torch/dp/B000F487KQ
Comment by Roslyn — 01 August 2007 @ 9:51 pm