Today’s passages from The Bridge of Madison County

Updated on July 8, 2009 By Ken Begg 15 Comments

P. 107

“With her face buried in his neck and her skin against his, she could smell rivers and woodsmoke, could hear steaming trains chuffing out of winter stations in long-ago nighttimes, could see travelers in black robes moving steadily along frozen rivers and through summer meadows, beating their way toward the end of things. The leopard swept over her, again and again and yet again, like a long prairie wind, and rolling beneath him, she rode on that wind like some temple virgin toward the sweet, compliant fires marking the soft curve of oblivion.”

— Robert James Waller

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  • jzimbert

    Today’s passage from The Rising
    P. 98-99

    “An island would be the logical choice, but even those have animals and birds, so the safety and security would be relative. I considered just drifting, far from land. But I don’t know if even that would be safe. There’re things like sharks to consider. I imagine a school of zombie sharks or an undead killer whale could make quick work of a boat.”
    -Brian Keene
    (Sorry Ken)

  • fish eye no miko

    The leopard swept over her

    Whoah, whoah… This is all prairies and meadows and stuff, then suddenly there’s a leopard? Shouldn’t it at least be a species native to North America?

  • Sorry, Fish Eye. Here’s some context:

    Page 82

    “It wasn’t that he hurried. In fact, he didn’t hurry at all. There was a gazellelike quality about him, though she could tell he was strong in a supple way. Maybe he was more like a leopard than a gazelle. Yes. Leopard, that was it. He was not prey. Quite the reverse, she sensed.”

    –Robert James Waller

  • roger h

    Adultery is so romantic when women do it.

    Sanford was just born the wrong gender.

  • To call that “bad writing” is an insult to all the bad writers out there. Next to that, Twilight looks like a Nobel prize winner.

  • Ericb

    Are you actually reading that book?

  • jzimbert

    Why no Amazon link?

  • Dude, there are some things even I wouldn’t try to make money on.

    I read–if that’s the right word–the book–if that too is the right word–a looong time ago (because it was so popular at the library; more popular than any book ever, even Twilight). It’s hard to forget all the amazing writing in it, though.

  • I will say, though, that if Morgan Freeman read this as a book on CD, I would buy that in a heartbeat.

    (A workmate suggested William Shatner, and that would be hilarious. Freeman would be even funnier, though, assuming he read it dead straight.)

  • Dave Marshall

    Funny you should mention Twilight, Nathan, because the first time I ever read this quote was in a review of Breaking Dawn. Apparently Edward moves just like a mountain lion while he’s hunting them, and the similarity got a good laugh from the reviewer. Unconscious Waller reference by Meyer or the insidious influence of Jabootu? You decide. (Here’s a link, though it’s NSFW due to language.)

  • Rob

    I saw the movie years ago — don’t really remember much of it, except that there was Johnny Hartmann music in it (wonder if that boosted sales of his stuff?) — anyway, that excerpt sounds INSANE — is the rest of the book like that?

  • MatthewF

    Every rose has it’s thorn
    Like every night has it’s dawn
    Like every cowboy sings a sad sad somng

  • Ericb

    It really doesn’t say much for the guy’s sexual prowness if she has time to ponder all those metaphorical digressionas while they’re having sex,

  • Ericb

    And, wow, I didn’t know that the novel was written by a guy. I thguth that something so hyper chick-lit would have been written by a woman.

  • Blackadder

    Jabootu was obviously moonlighting as a literary muse for both Waller and Meyer.

    The film version of Twilight could gag a maggot. I don’t have the stomach to actually read the book.