More on greatest excerpts, I was going for like a specific scene where you felt the writing was some of the best and/or conveyed a strong message/emotions, of course kept somewhat nonspoilery within reason. I’d love to hear what you guys think!
Personal top five:
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Final chapter of 1984. Don’t want to give to much away for those that haven’t read, but boy this chapter is brutal. It is a veryyyy unique chapter that I haven’t come across again in literature and it is so well done. Bravo to Orwell.
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!Apache attack!< in Blood Meridian.
!Something about McCarthy’s prose is just insanely vivid and here we get this utterly terrifying depiction of a band of tribesmen stampeding towards our characters. This is probably what I would call the “best written” excerpt.!<
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!Aftermath of the second (first on page) death!< in Lord of the Flies. Golding’s use of imagery here is just so beautiful and I’m a sucker for religious symbolism so this hit hard. It’s so terrifyingly peaceful and fits the character >!better than any other send off I’ve read. The final death is also expertly written.!<
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!Eve reveals that she ate from the tree of knowledge!< in Paradise Lost.
!Milton summarizes humanity’s loss of pure love with the greying of a rose that falls from a wreath Adam is making for his love, Eve. Need I say more?!<
- Bridge to Terabithia… you know the moment. Of course this doesn’t hold up to the writing of the others but I’ve never been gut punched so hard by a book.
Some that come to mind for me:
The last paragraph in One Hundred Years of Solitude
The first paragraph in The Haunting of Hill House
The monster‘s tale in Frankenstein
God I was trying to work out which bit of Frankenstein to put but decided it’s all 10/10 and therefore not an extract 😂
One Hundred Years of Solitude wraps up the story like a fever dream and it’s exactly how it needed to be.
You know that „he held let out a breath he didn‘t know he was holding“ thing authors always use? When I was done with the last paragraph of that book, I did exactly that.