That was one AMAZING chapter!

Here’s the question:

What are some of the most amazing chapters you’ve ever read? Chapters that stand apart from all the rest and stick in your mind forever. The book doesn’t even have to be that good to have one of these in it, that’s for sure. Case in point…

Recently, I read Peter Straub and Stephen King’s follow up to the wonderful The Talisman, called Black House. It’s not a terrible book, to say the least, but there are things about it that I really don’t like. First is the annoying narrative. It sounds like a polite Alex from A Clockwork Orange. It just doesn’t work for me. Second is the irritating way King has of spending too much time focusing on the streets and alleys of townships. I get bored after 100 pages of descriptive narration of what the damn town looks like. Get on with the story and characters already! Even with those gripes, I liked the book. It blends The Dark Tower story arch within its world and they fit pretty nicely. I never tire of learning more about the struggle to keep all the worlds alive by keeping the Crimson King at bay. All things serve the beam, right?

Anyway, there’s a chapter where a small biker gang goes in search of the evil, and hidden, Black House. The house is in the woods off of a rural highway and keeps its way hidden from human eyes…unless it wants another tasty morsel and allows someone to see. Unfortunately, it doesn’t want these cool bikers to find it and proceeds to kick their asses even before they pull into the drive. The house is alive with the Crimson King’s malice, and they way Straub and King translate this awareness is something I’ll never forget. A raven named Gorg, a phantom Hell Hound with eyes of fire and acid drool, and the Black House itself, always a blur of ever-changing shapes and power that looks like heat waves…it’s some damn cool writing. It’s a pretty good book with a perfect haunted house chapter.

Another, and my last, example is a chapter in Anne Rice’s The Interview with the Vampire. It’s a story arch completely abandoned by Rice and Neil Jordan for the film, which I personally think is a mistake because it would’ve translated brilliantly. This chapter has to do with an epiphany Louis has about God and the immortality of Vampires. In it, he decides one evening that he cannot accept everything Lestat tells him about the nature of Vampires at face value. So, in an effort to learn the truth, he walks into a Catholic church to see for himself the power it may have over him, which turns out to be none. He has a vision of him standing in the center of the church and it decaying and crumbling to dust all around him. He sees that he is more immortal than religion itself and that the silly beliefs of man has no power whatsoever over him. Whether there is a God or not is still open to debate, but God is not man, and man has nothing on him. The way it’s described is incredible. I could see his vision as if it were my very own, and because of that, I could almost feel the immortality and godlikeness that Louis feels at that moment. Great, great stuff.

So, if I haven’t bored you to tears so far, and you’ve gotten to this point (or just noticed a tiny end sentence and decided it might be worth reading), then try to describe single chapters that just blew you away.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Possession, by A.S.Byatt....
The main character finds an old letter, penned by his favorite author, stuck into one of those dusty old books from the stacks at the back of the library, and the letter suggests that this author had a highly secret affair with another popular writer of his day. Chasing down the rest of the story, he meets another student who is studying the "other popular writer" and things get interesting. There is one chapter where they are actually running around in a graveyard at night in a thunderstorm, looking for a package of lost letters... if you've studied the Romantics, that chapter alone will bring you to braingasm. The epilogue is also an amazing piece of writing, and the single most moving bit of fiction I've ever read.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

damn that sounds intense...might have to check it out.

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Δύο άτομα. Μια μάχη. Κανένας συμβιβασμός.

My favorite single chapter in literature can be found in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. The chapters of the book aren't numbered, each is events seen from one character's point of view and the heading simply bares their name so we know who's thoughts and perspective we're privy to. My favorite in the book and in everything I've ever read is Vardaman's third chapter, which I beleive is the nineteenth overall. I will transcribe the entire chapter here:

Hysterically funny when it is taken at first glance as a sort of non-sequiter when you turn on to that page. But if you go back and look how Vardamn's slow little mind works, the conclusion that his mother is a fish actually follows a logic. He doesn't know much, but he does know the fish they catch in a stream and eat are dead. And they smell bad. He knows his mother, Addie Bundren, is dead. And her decomposing body is starting to smell pretty bad too. In a previous chapter we learn of Addie's coffin falling off the wagon while they were crossing a stream, floating downriver until they could catch it. Fish stink and are dead, mom stinks and is dead, fish swim in the stream, mom swims in a stream, ergo "My mother is a fish."

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Slay, this may stun you, but we're in total agreement about King's city-planner streak. And about the Rice chapter, also: total agreement. The brilliance of Rice's writing is in those little gems of philosophy that she hides within a fun storyline and very appealing characters.

Equilibrium, you will find that the first chapter of that book is torturously slow, dry and unpleasant. It's like that for a reason, and it gets better and better from there.

Holden, that's gorgeously eloquent. Haven't read that book, but the structure sounds very appealing.

I’m not stunned that you agree with me…we both think that we’re both drop dead gorgeous.

I appreciate you posting your thoughts in this thread, and really like the sound of that book. I’ve never read anything by that particular author, but will soon after I read…

…this. I agree, once again, with you.

The way you wrote that, Holden, makes me want to read it right this very moment. I actually got gooseflesh reading your description. It may sound hilarious, but it also seems very personal and heart wrenching. I can’t wait to wrap my mind around it.

Hey, I don't have this English degree for nothing.

I will trade you my Philosophy degree for your English degree.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I read As I Lay Dying for my degree as well. Strange twist on the slave narrative, i likey.

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Don't tell anyone, I only read junk, only on holidays

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

I did that once. Unfortunately it was bin day and the dustman threatened to phone the police.

Never did get those credit card statements...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Not that kind of junk........silly

There is a book, a collection of poems, by the Finland swede Johan Ludvig Runeberg that is called "Fänrik Ståhls sägner" ("Sgt. Ståhl's legends"). It's in two parts, the first from 1848 and the second from 1860. It's about the Russo-Swedish war 1808-09 when Sweden lost Finland to Russia. The first chapter/poem of the first part is called "Vårt land" ("Our Land") which later became Finland's national anthem. But the poem that moved me the most was the seventh one about Sven Dufva, a not too bright but strong and brave son of a peasant farmer. Dufva signs on as a soldier since he's constantly told he's not good at anything around the farm anyway. In the army he is laughed and shouted at because he can't learn how to march and he can't tell the difference between the different commands. When the troops march out to fight the russians Sven is told to stay behind, nobody thinks he will be useful anyway. But Sven follows them thinking that if he can't fight together with the army he'll go on his own instead. Then there's a big battle over an important bridge that the russians want to conquer and the finns are driven back by them. The officers command the troops to retreat but, as usual, when Sven Dufva hears this he mixes the command up with "Attack!" and fearlessly throws himself into the battle and singlehandedly holds the russians back. When the other officers and soldiers see this their fighting spirits are raised again and they rush to help Dufva fight the russians back. They finally win the battle and when the general goes looking for Dufva he finds that the brave soldier has fallen and died after being shot. Then they realize that the bullet knew better than them what kind of a brave hero he was because it hit him not in his head, but in his brave and noble chest.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Slay - I liked Black House, as I have always been a Talisman fan, and l;ove reading about 'ol Jack. I too loved that chapter you mentioned, I read it twice.

Some others I like....

Imajica (Barker) - So many cool chapters in this great book, but the ones covering Gentle's time in the second dominion were incredible and twisted and strange. Loved it. Loved the whole book....

****.

****.****

I just got the paper and have found out the family I lived next door to for 8 years was in a horrible car accident and one of their kids was killed....

I'll have to finish this later....

Today sucks

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wow... *hugs* sedai

Wow. I got goosebumps just reading your description. Thank you for sharing that, Piddy. I doubt I'd have ever heard of it if it weren't for you.

Stephen King can write some pretty boring stuff, but sometimes he shines. I've only read a couple of Peter's work outside of this collaboration (Koko and Ghost Story), and they were quite fun. In related news...this might make you happy.

I love Imajica, and Clive Barker novels in general. I've read every piece of fiction he's put out, but didn't really start liking him a lot until Weaveworld. Now, he can do no wrong, as far as I'm concerned. His last ghost story, Cold Heart Canyon, was friggin' great! If you haven't had an opportunity to give that a read, take my word for it...you don't want to miss it.

I hate hearing about children dying. That's one of the main reasons I never watch local news. So sad.

I'm glad you liked it.

My parents have this old and beautiful edition of "Fänrik Ståls sägner" and I sat down one evening and looked in it. It has really nice illustrations as well. I had always heard about the story about Sven Dufva but never read the actual poem, so I did, and I was very moved by it. I wish that you guys understood swedish or that I could find a good english translation because it is so beautifully written.

Apparently Runeberg, national poet of Finland, has been compared to other great european romantic poets like Keats and Shelley and gained some recognition and fame abroad as well. I don't know how well known he is in the rest of the world, but naturally here in the nordic countries we know about him.

The books are called "The Songs of Ensign Stål" or "The Tales of Ensign Stål" in english, so forget what I said before they were called.