Marking a passage.

Isn't it funny how when you're reading certain passages jump out at you and you think: 'Yes! that's how I feel', or, 'I did that once', or, 'I understand that'? I guess that's what every writer is striving for.

I've been reading a lot lately with a highlighter in my hand, highlighting passages that jump out at me and then marking that page with a Post-it and going back later to write it in a notebook, all in an effort to remember what I've been reading because at my great age I easily forget things. 

I recommended the same technique to Youngest who has his GCSE's coming up but then remembered he doesn't actually read anything; he's the only member of the family who doesn't.

"I'll read your English texts to you," I offered. So, that's Romeo and Juliet, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Poems of Conflict and Animal Farm. Of course he was horrified. "It's either that or you'll have to re-read them yourself," I said. "Or, I suppose I could get you the audio books." He plumped for the first option: me reading them to him, probably because it requires the least effort on his part.

So, now in addition to my own reading, I'm reading the GCSE set texts out loud every evening. I suppose it's good practice because I have to read my own work at an event soon and now I can hear what my voice sounds like outside my head. 

When I'm reading Animal Farm, I stop now and again to check he's still listening. "What was the name of the farmer?" I say, or "What is a faction?" or "What did they call The Battle of the Cowshed?" Actually, that last one was a trick question just to see if he was still awake. It's been really lovely, reading to him in his room, lying next to him on his bed. It reminds me of when he was little. I feel it's an honour he will allow me to do this at his great age, and mine.

The other honour he bestows me is that he doesn't mind dancing with me. We have a little routine: we dance round the kitchen together every night after dinner. It's the highlight of my day, his too, I think. When my friend Jay came round with her son a few Saturdays ago to watch a Jekyll and Hyde film with us as part of their joint revision it was so terrible and so dull -

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde_(1931_film) 

that the four of us gave up on it and danced round the kitchen instead, which was fantastic.

Here are some passages from books I've marked recently. Just to make it more interesting I haven't included which books they are from. Perhaps you will know, or can guess...

"I feared that if I stopped too long anywhere I might lose faith in what I was doing, give up once more, and be left with nothing."

"What's to be done with the lost, the dead, but write them into being?"

"But there was no possibility of doing anything, so she forced herself to read, while her little hands twisted the smooth paper knife."

"The author names the manifestation of her illness - the hallucinatory images of fear and loathing - the Thing."

"The writer is most present in the text at the moments we most completely forget about him."

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. In case you were wondering, the farmer in Animal Farm is Farmer Jones.