What the soul sings

[dolorosa_12]

When I was a child and teenager, I consumed stories with an urgent, hungry intensity. I reread favourite books again and again until I could quote them verbatim,* I wandered around the garden pretending to be Snow White or Ariel from The Little Mermaid or Jessica Rabbit.** I had a pretty constant narrative running through my head the whole time I was awake, for the most part consisting of me being the character of a favourite story doing whatever activity I, Ronni, happened to be doing at the time. (No wonder I was a such a vague child: every activity required an extra layer of concentration in order for me to figure out why, say, the dinosaurs from The Land Before Time would be learning multiplication at a Canberra primary school.) The more I learnt about literary scholarship, the more insufferable I became, because I would talk at people about how 'URSULA LE GUIN WROTE A STORY WHERE EVERYTHING HAS A TRUE, SECRET NAME AND THEN ANOTHER USE-NAME AND ISN'T THAT AMAZING IN WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT IDENTITY?!?!' For the most part, I don't inhabit stories to the same extent, and they don't inhabit me to the same degree, although there are rare exceptions to this.

The rare exceptions tend to be things that sort of satisfy my soul in some deep and slightly subconscious way.*** And the funny thing is that although I can write lengthy essays explaining why something both appeals to me on this hungry, emotional level and is a good work of literature (indeed, I have been known to dedicate a whole blog to this), I can also remember a specific moment when reading/watching these texts and they suddenly became THE BEST THING EVER. I can remember exactly what it was for all of them.

The following is somewhat spoilerish for Romanitas, Sunshine by Robin McKinley, Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, The Demon's Lexicon, The King's Peace by Jo Walton, Parkland by Victor Kelleher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Robin Hood: Men in Tights,
Ten Things I Hate About You, Cirque du Soleil, Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks and His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.



Romanitas by sophiamcdougall:
The first chapter is from the perspective of angsty, privileged, Imperial heir Marcus. The second chapter is from the perspective of fugitive slave Una. I read both chapters, and my first thought, while not quite 'NOW KISS!', was pretty incoherent: 'THESE TWO NEED TO GET TOGETHER NOW AND I WILL KEEP READING UNTIL THEY DO!'

Sunshine by Robin McKinley:
'Remember that three feet more or less makes no difference to me,' says the (starved) vampire Constantine to the (terrified) human narrator, Sunshine, while they are trapped in a room together. I know that this was the moment, because I apparently paused, wrote down this quote in my diary, and followed it with 'SWEET, DINOSAUR-RIDING JESUS!'

Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein:
There's a chapter where some of the characters are preparing to perform in the Arena, and there's a line saying something like 'All the pain and fear of their lives was forgotten for a moment. In the Galax-Arena, they were free', and although I didn't understand such concepts when I was ten years old, my brain somehow managed (in two seconds) to understand that 'oppressed, exploited people find spaces within which to exist where they are (briefly, in a compromised, complicated manner) free and resisting passively'. This is such a powerful concept to me, and it's basically my driving literary passion these days.

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper:
I read this series out of order (beginning with the second book), but the moment that did it for me was the morning of Will Stanton's birthday, when he opens the door of his (twentieth-century) house, and steps out into the snow of the medieval era.

The Demon's Lexicon by sarahtales:
(Somewhat paraphrased) 'The demon world is cold and barren. They're always trying to get into ours.' Demons and other otherworldly beings who love and need humanity are fascinating to me.

The King's Peace by papersky:
This is a weird one, but I can still pinpoint the exact moment. The narrator, Sulien, who has spent her entire adult life trying to convince the recalcitrant nobility of her land to put aside their differences, forgive one another for all insults and violations and unite behind the highly competent ruler Urdo, has just realised that in order to follow her own advice, she is going to have to accept the surrender of, and make common cause with, the man who raped her and murdered her brother. For some reason, I really, really like stories where characters have to overcome extreme antipathy and awful history in order to work together.

Parkland by Victor Kelleher:
Humans. In cages. Watched over by sentient leopards, giraffes and other animals. Human-chimpanzee hybrids. 'BC - Before Cage - we were savage, murderous beasts. We're so much safer behind bars.' Oh, my heart.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
I'd like to say it was the moment in the first episode when Darla was revealed, but I wasn't genre-savvy enough as a twelve-year-old to realise what a trope-reversal it was. The moment that really did it for me, was, oddly, the two-part Season 3 finale, 'Graduation Day Parts 1 and 2'. (Oz: 'Take a moment to consider. We survived. [...] Not the Ascension - high school.')

Robin Hood: Men in Tights (shut up, this film is flawless):
'Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.'

Ten Things I Hate About You:
Cameron is being shown around the school by Michael, who is pointing out the various cliques. The film is self-aware enough to poke fun at this clichéd trope, and the cliques are things which are unlikely to exist in the real world (white Rastas, cowboys, 'audiovisual geeks').

Cirque du Soleil (which is totally a text):
This, always.

Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks:
'People who read are always a little bit like you. You can't just tell them, you have to tell them why.'

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman:
'Lyra and her dæmon...'

Do you have moments like that?
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*Which led to a very awkward moment in Year 5 when our teacher was reading Hating Alison Ashley out loud to the class, but would skip bits from time to time - whereupon I would correct her.
**(whose appeal was less that she wasn't 'bad, just drawn that way' and more due to the fact that she wore an awesome dress)
***I've seen people describe fanfic like this as 'idfic', but for me this tends to be a phenomenon of professionally published fiction.