A book that will induce feelings of awe & wonder at its greatness — maybe due to the epicness of the scenes painted, or the great prose, or it’s thematic underpinnings (man against fate, grandness of nature & god or any awe-inspiring theme).
I have a quote by Darwin in his autobiography who found awe in nature:
“In my journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, “it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.” I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the breath of his body.”
I’m reading Moby Dick right now, in case someone decides to recommend it, but it need not be a book similar to it.
by surya_heals
3 Comments
You may enjoy **All The Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy**. I don’t even like westerns at all, but I enjoyed this a lot and I think it really hits the vibe you’re looking for. It has some portions of untranslated Spanish but that’s part of the feeling of the piece (if you don’t speak Spanish, of course).
*War and Peace* has a lot of these moments. One that immediately comes to mind is a scene where a major character leads a battle charge and is shot down. And while lying in the mud bleeding to death, he finds himself studying the enormity and expanse of the sky; and the smallness of himself and this whole war he’s involved in. Quite a few folk in the book have religious or near-religious epiphanies where their whole worldview gets switched or tilted by events.
I thought the prose in “Whalefall” by Daniel Kraus had a lot of awe in it. A teen diving in search of his father’s remains gets swallowed by a whale. The writing is very descriptive about the universe, life, the ocean, family, and grief.