Saturday 15 January 2011

eighty-two

Currently rereading the His Dark Material trilogy (books are a fine breakup remedy). I am quite taken with the bookcovers of the Hebrew version of the series:

Northern Lights
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass
I first read them when I was thirteen or fourteen, and I think that revisiting any book read (and loved) as a teenager is such a powerful experience: it brings back that intense sense of adventure and possibility, of absorbing myself so completely into a different world and into the story itself.

I don't think that 'adult' books are any less imaginative than those for children, but rarely now do I submerge myself in the world of a book in the same way; it's just not the same experience. It isn't lesser, or less-involved... but perhaps it is not quite so consuming - perhaps not quite so selfish (not imagining oneself at the centre of the book, letting the characters be themselves).

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