My longtime friend David Seldin, now of Boston, posted this on my Facebook page Friday.
The start of your 10/19 column reminded me of my favorite passage from Anna Karenina — actually my favorite passage in all literature — when Levin meets his son:
Beautiful of course — Tolstoy is at his best talking about the intricate shadings of love (well, that and horses). But a phrase David used, "my favorite passage in all literature," caught my attention. While I recently scoffed at the Poetry Foundation asking Chicagoans for one "favorite poem" -- that seemed so specific, almost anti-poetic — a favorite passage in literature somehow seems a different case. Indeed; I knew mine immediately.Smiling, hardly able to restrain his tears, Levin kissed his wife and went out of the dark room. What he felt towards this little creature was utterly unlike what he had expected. There was nothing cheerful and joyous in the feeling; on the contrary, it was a new torture of apprehension. It was the consciousness of a new sphere of liability to pain. And this sense was so painful at first, the apprehension lest this creature should suffer was so intense, that it prevented him from noticing the strange thrill of senseless joy and even pride that he had felt when the baby sneezed.
But first, I asked the Hive Intelligence what their favorite passages were, and why. They came up with a solid selection. Here are four:
The Morgan Library, New York City |
Nancy Nall Derringer (a fine blogger you can find here) cited Vladimir Nabokov beginning Part One of Lolita:
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Nancy explained: "And I love it because it was written by a man whose first language was not English."
Heather Joy Swanson offered the famous opening line of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice:
Lane J. Lubell, being young -- he's Ross' age — cited that bard of impassioned youth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Great Gatsby:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."This sarcasm just sets the tone for the whole book - so unexpectedly funny at times," she said.
Lane J. Lubell, being young -- he's Ross' age — cited that bard of impassioned youth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Great Gatsby:
I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen,’ a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour."I hate to be conventional, but I have to be honest," said Lane.
One more. One of my favorite columnists at the paper, other than myself, is Phil Handler, who offered several passages from Tim O'Brien's great war book, The Things they Carried:
They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.
Alas, we can't get to all the tremendous suggestions. Thanks to all who took the time.
Okay, my turn. Chapter 10 of Moby-Dick, "A Bosom Friend." A wonderful character portrait leading up to, for me, what has to be one of the wryest paragraphs in literature.
Ishmael returns to the Spouter-Inn to find Queegueg, "quite alone" and whittling at his little idol, "humming to himself in his heathenish way."
Okay, my turn. Chapter 10 of Moby-Dick, "A Bosom Friend." A wonderful character portrait leading up to, for me, what has to be one of the wryest paragraphs in literature.
Ishmael returns to the Spouter-Inn to find Queegueg, "quite alone" and whittling at his little idol, "humming to himself in his heathenish way."
We get to know the fierce tattooed Polynesian harpooner who, like so many with an outwardly fierce appearance, turns out to be sweet and generous, with his own nobility, "a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor." He even looks, to Ishmael, rather like the father of our country.
"Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed," notes Ishmael, who is sort of mid-19th century American Everyman smartass.
They share a smoke, and Queequeg declares themselves friends for life, I'll give the first, to set the scene, but it's the second paragraph, beginning "I was a good Christian..." that I'm thinking of when I think of "my favorite" passage in literature, for its wildly-curving train of thought for its good-natured humor and, to be honest, for the sheer relief I felt encountering it after the first 80 pages of the book, much of that spent by Melville prattling on about whaling:
After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper firebrand. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise.
I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth — pagans and all included — can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? — to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of God? — to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me — that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world.
Thanks everyone who offered up favorite passages -- I'm sorry I couldn't list them all, but feel free to add your own in the comments sections below.
Photo atop blog: Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library.