15 July 2008

Tag, You're It!

I've been tagged by Vintage Vinyl with a unique task. It seems that these are the rules: pick up the closest book, turn to page 123, find the 5th sentence then post the next three sentences. Here's mine:

"The piggish noise irritated me, and for a while it seemed to me that the only way to stop it would be to take the column of skin and sinew from which it rose and twist it to silence betweeb my hands. I feigned sleep until my mother left for school, but even my eyelids didn't shut out the light. They hung the raw, red screen of their tiny vessels in front of me like a wound. "

Pleasant, huh? I don't think part of the task is asking people to figure out where it comes from. That would be way to hard! This is from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. It's one of those books that I reread at least once a year. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.

I'm quite terrible at passing along tags so if you'd like to play along, consider yourself tagged. If you'd like, you can leave your sentences in my comments. I'd love to read them! :)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

i've read the bell jar twice, once for fun (not sure if that's the right word) and once for school. the first time really affected me and i was in a depressed funk for half a day. because its so scary how much you can relate to esther and then she goes crazy. the second time in school, because we weren't reading it straight and discussed the hell out of it, i guess it didn't impact me as much...

the nearest book to me is "the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay":



"He is looking for someone or something that no one will discuss, that he has only inferred, for the unnamed person or thing whose advent or presence has been troubling the company all day. then a hand as massive and hard as an elk's horn, lashed by tough sinews to an arm like the limb of an oak, grabs the boy by the shoulder and drags him back into the wings. "you know better, young man,' says the giant, well over eight feet tall, to whom the massive hand belongs. he has the brow of an ape and the posture of a bear and the accent of a Viennese professor of medicine. He can rip open a steel drum like a can of tobacco, lift a train carriage by one corner, play the violin like Paganin, and calculate the velocity of asteroids and comets, one of which bears his name."

ok odd, that quote happens to be a special part of the book and most of its not like that haha

sleepyhead said...

such a good read. i specialize in women's studies and had to write an extensive biographical/analytical research paper on sylvia plath and the impact of the bell jar on american women. it was probably the most fun i've ever had writing a paper.

if you ever get a chance, you should read the silent woman by janet malcolm. its about the problem of biographers today with providing an accurate/unbiased look at characters in history. malcolm focuses on the relationship of plath/hughes and how hughes has somewhat manipulated sylvia's work. its so good. i have a copy!

Sally said...

I've read the bell jar, quite a good read! Took me a while to get into it though, but once i did i enjoyed it. x

emily said...

i really want to read the bell jar!

AlicePleasance said...

I like The Bell Jar, but I love her poems the most. I don't think at all they're so...mournful.

Solia said...

I've also read it and all of her other works such as Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams which is a collection of her short stories. I've also read her unabridged journals, but unfortunately they were still edited by her husband so a lot of really interesting stuff was left out I'm sure. My book is Choke by Chuck Palahniak "Ursula grabs her skirts up and comes stomping through the cow poop in her wooden clogs. She kicks a blind chicken that's in her way. Somebody snaps her picture, kicking." This section gives a really weird view of the book because the star character only works as a colonial theme park; the rest of the story is set in modern times and is a great read so far...

kater said...

I have cheated a bit. The closest books to me are my Harry Potter books, which line the back of my desk, but they are holding up various strange things like hairbows and porcelain chickens, so here is a bit from Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, which I am reading and which was sitting at me feet:

"That did the trick. Vincent wrote to her mother as soon as she got Norma's letter, defending herself against her sister's accusations, in a letter which is as revealing for what is withheld, as for what is not:

Beloved, beautiful, sad, sick Mother--
I love you. I love you."

I remember loving The Bell Jar at fourteen, despising it at sixteen because I thought every melodramatic teenage girl loved Plath, and learning to appreciate it and Sylvia Plath in college.

Sally Jane Vintage said...

Thanks so much for the comments!

jayne: That's such a great book!

sleepyhead: Thanks for the tip. Sounds like something I would definitely want to read.

solia: I don't know that book but the few sentences you posted make me very curious about it. I might just have to check it out.

kater: I know what you mean about The Bell Jar - I appreciate it much more now that I did when I was younger. Oh, and my Harry Potter books weren't far out of reach either. :)

Jaclyn Johnson said...

I seriously love the bell jar. I know its depressing but for some reason when i was in my teens I totally related to it, def have to re-read. <3 your blog check mine out if you have chance would love to exchange links :)

Anonymous said...

"El colegio se llamaba Inmaculado Corazón y funcionaba en dos casas, la chiquita, en la avenida Angamos y la grandaza, en la Avenida Arequipa. Alrededor de las ocho y media de la mañana empezaban a llegar los niños bien bañaditos, impecables todos menos los Arenas, esos llegaban inmundos, eran inmundos.
Julius ya estaba asistiendo hacía varios meses, cuando a Juan Lucas se le ocurrió lo de la camioneta"

Un Mundo Para Julius - Alfredo Bryce Echenique.

I did my homework, very pleased. This part is actually a brief introduction to a new path on the life of Julius, the main character, quite nice the random selection of the sentences.

Yours is a beautiful recommendation.

Love, love, love
From Venezuela.

B.

Anonymous said...

"El colegio se llamaba Inmaculado Corazón y funcionaba en dos casas, la chiquita, en la avenida Angamos y la grandaza, en la Avenida Arequipa. Alrededor de las ocho y media de la mañana empezaban a llegar los niños bien bañaditos, impecables todos menos los Arenas, esos llegaban inmundos, eran inmundos.
Julius ya estaba asistiendo hacía varios meses, cuando a Juan Lucas se le ocurrió lo de la camioneta"

Un Mundo Para Julius - Alfredo Bryce Echenique.

I did my homework, very pleased. This part is actually a brief introduction to a new path on the life of Julius, the main character, quite nice the random selection of the sentences.

Yours is a beautiful recommendation.

Love, love, love
From Venezuela.

B.

The Band of Four said...

haha i could have guessed that

its my favourite book.