I hope you are all having a happy Thanksgiving surrounded by loved ones! One thing I’m thankful for is having had the chance to interview several of the winners of our worldbuilding short fiction contest over the past few months. It really was so great getting to know these accomplished writers better and learning more about their writerly habits and process.
Another thing I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving is beautiful writing. It’s just crazy how much gorgeous, poetic prose is out there for readers to enjoy. I thought I’d share some of my favorite beautifully written books—perhaps it will inspire you to pick a few up and join me in feeling thankful for all the lovely prose that there is to read.
Here are seven books full of beautiful prose.
1) White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Astrid is the only child of Ingrid, a single mother who uses her beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother but their world is shattered when Ingrid breaks her own rules and falls in love, and then is spurned by her lover. She murders the man and gets life in prison. Meanwhile, Astrid begins her journey through various foster homes that each come with new laws to abide by and lessons to be learned. Astrid faces her impossible circumstances with determination and humor, striving to find her place in the world.
I first read White Oleander at age twelve and was blown away by the writing. The book is written in a poetic style, which I had never been fond of in the past, but Fitch’s prose was so achingly beautiful that I couldn’t help but be drawn into Astrid’s story.
Here’s Astrid’s heart-wrenching description of a pearl necklace:
“The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.”
2) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This novel paints the portrait of a single day in a woman’s life. Externally, Mrs. Dalloway is busy with the last-minute preparations for a party, but on the inside, she is far more than the perfect hostess. As she readies her house, she is brought back to old memories. Back in the present, she reexamines the choices that brought her to this particular point and looks ahead toward the uncertainties of growing old.
I was assigned to read this book in college and was warned it would be a chore. While the stream-of-consciousness format can be a bit hard to follow at times, I absolutely adored the novel. Clarissa Dalloway is a fascinating woman—easy to write off as a high society hostess but with such capacity for joy and life.
Here is an excerpt as Clarissa thinks of her past, and her ability to find great joy in the simplest things in life:
“What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air.”
3) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Richard Papen transfers to an elite Vermont college in the hopes of shaking up his life. There he fixates on a group of eccentric misfits—particularly on the beautiful Camila. He worms his way into their classics class and falls under the spell of their charismatic professor. Their professor leads them down a path toward a fascinating way of thought and life that is far above their banal contemporaries, but after something goes terribly wrong, Richard must decide how loyal he truly is to his new social circle.
I have sung the praises of The Secret History many times before on this blog. It is, after all, one of my favorite books. It was recommended to me by a friend and I knew right away that this was going to be one of those books that would forever change how I looked at writing. Tartt’s prose is absolutely top-notch and sucks you right into the story from the first line.
Here is that incredible first line:
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
4) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nick Carraway’s life gets turned upside down when he befriends his mysterious, charismatic neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby throws lavish parties at his Long Island mansion that the toast of the town attends until all hours of the morning. But Nick finds that Gatsby has attained his wealth for one reason—to get back into the good graces of his former love Daisy Buchanan, who just happens to be Nick’s cousin.
I was first assigned to read The Great Gatsby in high school. Due to the demands of my extracurricular activities, I put off reading the book until the night before the test (don’t try this at home, kids!). But luckily I was able to sail right through the novel and adored every second of it. I’ve read the book several times since and always admire the way Fitzgerald described Gatsby’s parties, making the reader feel like they were there too.
Here is a quote about Jay and Daisy that is gorgeously written:
“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”
5) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
In Sussex, England, a middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. The house he grew up in is long gone but he finds himself drawn to the farm at the end of the road where he met a remarkable girl named Lettie Hempstock when he was seven, along with her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of her in decades but as he sits on by a pond (a pond Lettie always referred to as an ocean), his forgotten memories come rushing back. And it is a past too strange, frightening, and dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a young boy.
I have pointed to this novel before as a great modern fairy tale, as well as mentioned several other Gaiman novels in my other blog posts. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors—he manages to write in a style that feels young and very old all at once. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of his books that I have reread multiple times (not the toughest feat at 178 pages), and the gorgeous prose has always left me emotional and eager to grow as a writer.
Here's a quote where our protagonist muses on the difference between adults and children:
“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences. I was a child, which meant that I knew a dozen different ways of getting out of our property and into the lane, ways that would not involve walking down our drive.”
6) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy grew up at the exclusive boarding school, Hailsham, secluded in the English countryside. Throughout their time there, they had to follow mysterious rules and were constantly reminded by their teachers of how “special” they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman, and Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. For the first time, she begins to look back at the past they share and understand just what it is that makes them so special, and how it will shape their remaining time together.
I’ve mentioned this novel a few times before—both for its strengths as a coming-of-age novel and Ishiguro’s brilliant worldbuilding. In a blog post discussing beautiful prose, I couldn’t help but include this novel. Kathy provides a relatable perspective to follow through the story and the poetic way she observes the world will make your heart ache.
Here’s a comparison she draws to herself and the man she loves:
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.”
7) Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
It is New Year’s Eve in 1937 and twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is sitting in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when she meets a handsome banker named Tinkey Gray sitting at the next table. The encounter thrusts Katey into the upper echelons of New York society, where she will need to rely on her wit and cool nerve.
This is yet another novel we have discussed before—back in my post about great historical fiction books. It will take you right back to the glitzy glamour of 1930s New York. The poetic prose in this book paints an elegant picture that makes you wish you could step into a time machine and visit the past.
Here’s an excerpt that muses on youth and life:
“In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”
I hope you will continue to enjoy your Thanksgivings, and that perhaps this post will inspire you to track down some of these books and feel grateful for their lovely prose. Whether you’re a reader, writer, or both, there is nothing quite like the enjoyment that reading a particularly beautiful line elicits.
Soak Yourself in Fiction
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