favorite book moments

This will have to spread out over a few posts because I probably won’t remember all of them, and I’m sure I’ll add more as I read more. This comes from a conversation that I had with a friend about moments that stand out to me in books. Since I read obsessively, there are many moments that I’ve read that stand out in a way reminiscent of my lived memories.

So the first favorite moment comes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. {Side note: It should be the third book, but since most of the publishers annoyingly number by the story chronology, it is often number 5}  There’s a character named Eustace Scrubb and he is obnoxious through the first part of the story. Like super obnoxious. Most of the story takes place on a ship (hence voyage) and the first time I read it, I wanted to throw him overboard. That was until the middle of the story.

See Eustace turns into a dragon and while the mean part of me thought he deserved it for being such a jerk, he’s so miserable that I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. And I felt really sorry for him when everyone starts to get ready to leave the island they were on because they would have to leave Eustace behind, and I don’t like for people to be alone.

So here comes my favorite moment.

Eustace meets Aslan and Aslan tells him that he needs to take off his dragon suit so that he can get all cleaned up. So Eustace begins to peel off his dragon skin, but he can’t quite get enough of it off. So Aslan offers to help, and Eustace lets him. Aslan pulls off almost his entire dragon covering in one go, and Eustace goes through a lot of pain, but it’s the kind of pain that helps him to grow. And he even helps pull of the bits that he can despite his pain because he knows that this is the only way that he can stop being a dragon and reconnect with his friends.

I love this part because I know I have much that I hold onto that I don’t really like simply because I’m too chicken to face the pain of letting it go. But when I read this part of Eustace’s story I feel that maybe I can face that pain too and come out better for letting all that other stuff go.

So there’s part one of my favorite moments in books. I’ll post another later.