Ever had a literary moment?

[B-Mental]

Have you ever read a book, and thought to yourself, "Wow, this is exactly how I feel!" ? What was the book, the author, and the gist of this sensation.

I'll give you and example.

I was reading Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' and there was a passage where Hemingway and a poet friend were discussing the difference between reading Tolstoy and Doestoevsky(sp). He writes about how Tolstoy is so easy to read and how Doestoevsky is so difficult it makes one's head hurt.

It was the first time an author had written something I felt so truly I could equate with. Does this make sense? Anyone else have these moments, or am I in need of upping my medications? jk

[lavendar1]

It was the first time an author had written something I felt so truly I could equate with. Does this make sense? Anyone else have these moments, or am I in need of upping my medications? jk

It makes perfect sense to me. A few weeks ago when I had to write a response to some Raymond Carver stories and I just couldn't get it going -- pandemonium was all around me -- I reached for a book of Carver's called Fires and I opened it up to a page where Carver was talking about a revelation he had once when he was in a laundromat doing laundry for his whole family. He realized his life as a writer was very different from the lives of the writers he admired--they didn't have to spend every waking hour attending to the needs of others like he was doing at that point. Then he talked about writers like Henry Miller who said that early on in his career he had to write in a borrowed room with the constant anxiety that at any moment the chair he was sitting on might literally be pulled out from under him.

I really related to this, since I'm always having to switch gears and directions as life's rules change -- a situation Carver said he faced daily at that stage of his life. And you know what? Reading that essay really helped me to put things in perspective and to keep trying.

So B-Mental, you don't have to worry about upping your meds...I think you're just fine. :)

[mono]

I entirely agree with your ideas, B-Mental, and find them thoroughly interesting!
I think I have connected in such a way with a few specific writers in very specific works (novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non-fiction, etc.). It feels as though you can relate so well with this writers' concepts, or a fictional characters' feelings, which, I think, can really expand your own horizons.
Some writers I would rather not list - not out of shame, but perhaps some awkward judgments from others; some writers, however, include Immanuel Kant, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Cicero, D.H. Lawrence, and Michel de Montaigne, among others.

[Aurora Ariel]

I have felt immensely effected by many writers and various books I've read.
But there is the strange quality that I , currently, cannot describe; that I have experienced before.It's so powerful, and almost indescribable.There is one poet who I have connected with more than any, and I dare not say his name.Whenever I read certain poems it's like I am swept away into another realm, where I am been guided to some enlightened secret cavern of thought.I cannot speak more it-would take the moment away...sorry I cannot describe how I have connected with this poet!My breath drinks his words.The love I have...no words can currently describe...

[Koa]

I had so many times that feeling! With books, poems songs...it's impossible to think of them all...
that's what art is to me: a way to share feelings in which other people can recognise themselves and feel less lonely...