This week’s prompt is books that have a strong atmosphere. There are a lot of books that fit this – both in terms of atmospheres that are negative and positive. Some books have you feeling like you’re in a dark, creepy, close place that you really can’t wait to leave, while others have you basking in warmth and sunshine. Here are some that fit a few different types of atmospheres!
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
These three have darker atmospheric vibes. Rebecca is all about Manderley, the estate where the story takes place. In this book, the house and grounds feel like a character in their own right – dark, dense, suffocating and haunted. I read this book years ago, and now when I think of it it’s not the story or characters I remember; it’s the feel of Manderley. Similarly Wuthering Heights‘ setting on the moors is windblown, cold, dark and prone to storms, much like Heathcliff and his relationships. I chose the cover above because that is exactly what the book feels like when reading it. And again, when I think of the book, I feel myself on the moors with the wind whipping my hair across my face as the cold rain bites into my skin. And Warlight, though not quite as much about the feel of the place as the other two, evoked a landscape I hadn’t encountered before. It’s set in post-WWII London for part of the novel, and it does an amazing job of evoking what it was like during that time. So much had been destroyed and not yet re-built, nights were dark, there was a sense of hazy air and fog and a place so changed by the bombs that even those who had lived their whole lives on those streets could find themselves lost as piles of rubble replaced familiar buildings and landmarks. Again, it’s been a while since I read it so the details are fuzzy, but I have that strong image in my head of the desolation left behind war and what it must have felt like on those streets.
Wildful by Kengo Kurimoto
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Though Raising Hare is very much a memoir about, well, raising a hare, it’s also a strong exploration into the natural world around Dalton’s home, and the process of learning it in a new way when she began seeing her landscape through the eyes of her hare. She talks about the areas in the garden that the hare explored, the treacherous fields as they were worked by huge machines capable of squishing tiny hares, the animals that hunted hares at night… all of this was largely outside of her awareness before the hare entered her life, but through her love of this tiny animal, her perception of the natural world around her – both its magic and its peril – was transformed. Similarly Wildful is about discovering nature just outside of an urban landscape and how much is happening there, and how healing spending time amongst the trees and woodland creatures can be. Just like in The Secret Garden, which Wildful reminded me strongly of, which is very much about intertwining caring for nature and nature, in turn, caring for the humans who love it.
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
All four of these are books written by people who have gone to a place that was not their home, and either made a home there or traversed its mundanity in a way foreigners usually don’t. The two most similar are Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence, as they are both about ex-pats buying and fixing up homes in new countries – Italy and France, respectively. They have some similarities, but also differences. Mayes doesn’t live full time in Tuscany in this book, but does put down roots, while Mayle dives headlong into Provence and bumbles around as he finds out how to live in a culture completely unlike his own. But both come to love their adopted home countries, despite (and sometimes because of) their differences. Bryson is one of my favourite travel writers – he manages to weave in the most interesting and unusual facts while also making his books hilariously funny. And yet, when he’s writing about places I’ve been, he also captures the true feel of the place – right down to cultural idiosyncrasies and endearing quirks of its inhabitants.
So those are some of the books that made me think of a particular atmosphere or sense of place, and that were, in my opinion, extraordinarily good at capturing it. What about you guys? Which book or books topped your list this week? Did any of mine make yours as well?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.