The Most Moving Book is...

Stan D (08.05)

The close of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"... It is one of
the most moving moments in English language literature.  Its absence is only
one of the many reasons John Ford's touted film version is so horribly
inferior to the novel.

Martin W (14.9.03):

most moving book: Last Exit to Brooklyn. It's a book that shows life absolutely clearly and people at their worst, and yet it's written with more obvious love for life than any other book I know. If you claim to love people you have to love them as they can be in this book, I think.

Charlotte (6.03): The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian. I defy even the most hard-hearted of people
not to cry at the bit at the end where the protagonist buries a fried egg
under a bush. Ali Smith's Hotel World is also a blubfest.

From Zoe (4.03): Most moving book - 'Dibs in search of self' by Virginia Axline. Very
inspiring.

From Paola, Italy (4.03): i'm a traditionalist: L.P. Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN.And FOSCA by Ugo Tarchetti, but I doubt it has ever been translated into
English.bye

From Maddie (3.03): Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop. Or Wise Children. Both play games with the form, while not alienating the emotional heart. Having said that, "The Smile
of Winter" which is an early-ish Carter short story has always made me
[re]understand what loneliness is all about.

Atonement was the last book that made me cry. The Autograph Man was the last
book I was sad about finishing.

Or what about The Great Gatsby? "So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past." I wonder whether I've been seduced by
the language of this quotation, the alliteration which demands my attention,
or whether it's entirely the sentiment. That whole paradoxical American
Dream thing, trying harder and harder to be the best, and still failing
horribly. But it always makes me think of Donne: "Ask not for whom the bell
tolls, it tolls for thee". Somehow the same doom-laden rhythm seems to kick
in.

I have to admit, though, to the fact that books that have moved me have been
the ones that play most obviously on my emotions. Although I'm perfectly
capable of laughing at Titanic and its mediocre attempts to make me cry, in
the right mood I can weep at, well, anything. Including the moment in Pride
and Prejudice when Darcy attempts to communicate his 'true' feelings to
Elizabeth, in the letter that starts off all bitterness and ends in charity.

Anon (3.03): Generation X by Coupland.
Amazed there are actually two people in the world who think it is , but the
laying on of hands scene at the end just connects.

From C.S. in Malmo, Sweden (1.03): Well, from the top of my head:
Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown

From M.J. (1.03): Erm, in response to the most moving book I have ever read it is probably a
toss-up between Coupland's Generation X and his Shampoo Planet (widely acknowledged
to be one of his worst early books but there's no accounting for taste). An
amoralish but sympathetic protagonist, cool little slogans. Erm, my copy of
Shampoo Planet has the self-help-ish bits underlined. Does that make me sad?

C.S. in Malmo (9.2.03): I just have to add The Drifters by James A. Michener
to the "moving books" list.
The person that, when just finishing the last sentence of the book,
doesn't just want to leave everything an go traveling isn't born...