(no subject)

[seekingferret]

What are your favorite book chapters? My post on the third chapter of Sally Rooney's latest novel had me thinking.

Here's a few of mine:

"Penelope", the 18th and last chapter of Joyce's Ulysses, the one where Molly Bloom monologues without punctuation for dozens of astonishingly insightful pages.

The 36th chapter of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the one where Elizabeth reads and rereads Darcy's letter, each time the letter meaning something different.

The 25th chapter of Bujold's Memory, the one where Miles wrestles with Haroche's bribe and figures out how to trap Haroche.

"Carbon", the last chapter of Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, the one where the elements stop being a literary device and suddenly everything fits together into a worldview.

"Cetology" in Melville's Moby Dick, the one that's a whale biology textbook.

Edit Oh, I forgot to mention "With the Choedan Kal", the last chapter of the 9th book of the Wheel of Time, which pulls together all sorts of strands from earlier books into an incredibly satisfying conclusion that leaves room for forward motion.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

I love the idea of having favourite book chapters, because it's so foreign to my perspective. I do not notice chapter breaks at all when I'm reading; my brain just stitches it all together into one endless narrative. I could choose favourite scenes or moments or digressions, but a favourite chapter is something I wouldn't even know how to begin coming up with! What makes a chapter make the list of favourites for you?

[seekingferret]

Yeah, I think for the most part I also don't register chapters, or I'll register chapters as scene changes but not as structural changes. Most of these I listed are exceptions, I think, because they do something architecturally interesting that makes you notice them as separate narrative components. Something in the way the story is told, or something about how this piece of narrative is set apart from the rest of the story, that is deliberate and which is memorable and interesting and helps the story work.

But not always. I don't think there is anything about the 25th chapter of Memory that is particularly distinctive in the storytelling, except that it's such a beautifully constructed storytelling moment where Miles enters the chapter as one person and exits as a completely different person.

[queenlua]

"Time Passes" from Woolf's To the Lighthouse immediately came to mind.

[seekingferret]

Ooh, I want to read To the Lighthouse.

[queenlua]

it's an excellent read, and that chapter is imho absolutely unforgettable once you've read the book. hope you get a chance to read it someday :D

[batdina]

I'd definitely go with "Cetology", though with Ulysses, I'd go with "Scylla and Charybdis", aka the library chapter.

I'd have to think further because my memory is in tatters right now. But the chapter of David Copperfield where Steerforth dies might be right up there.

[seekingferret]

I think my next favorite chapter in Ulysses is Oxen of the Sun.

[nnozomi]

The Play chapter--Rowan and Patrick watching the finished version--in Antonia Forest's End of Term.

[snippy]

The chapter after the SPOILER, when Lymond is collecting what's left of his wits and energy to help everyone escape, in Dorothy Dunnett's Pawn in Frankincense.

The first chapter of Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress, when you learn in advance that the subject of the entire book, a revolution, is a failure - but only if you're paying close attention.

The chapter in Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia where the protagonist is describing how awful the rest of the world seems after being in Islandia.

The chapter in Nicola Griffith's The Blue Place that is in Sweden when Aud is trying to get back to her friend.

[lokifan]

"Hermione's Secret" from Prisoner of Azkaban - I found the Time-Turner sequence so exciting and such a great series of reveals.

I don't usually think in chapters, though.