En smakebit på søndag er et konsept jeg har lånt av Mari på Flukten fra virkeligheten. Alt du trenger å gjøre er å slå opp i boka du leser nå og velge ut noen setninger du synes passer – uten at de avslører for mye av handlingen – før du legger dem ut på bloggen din og legger igjen ei lenke i innlegget til Mari. På denne måten kan vi klikke oss fra smakebit til smakebit, og kanskje oppdage nye skatter?
Selv om jeg fortsatt har ganske lite tid til å lese skjønnlitteratur, leser jeg Neverwhere av Neil Gaiman når jeg har litt tid til overs: Under the streets of London there’s a world most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.
Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: neverwhere.
Neil Gaiman skuffer som vanlig ikke så langt. Smakebiten er fra side 118:
Five almost identically dressed, extremely pale young women walked past him. They wore long dresses made of velvet, each dress so dark it was almost black – respectively dark green, dark chocolate, royal blue, dark red, and pure black. Each woman had black hair, and wore silver jewellery; each was perfectly coiffed, perfectly made up. They moved silently: Richard was aware only of a swish of heavy velvet as they went past, a swish that sounded almost like a sigh. The last of the women, the one dressed all in utter black, the palest and the most beautiful, smiled at Richard. He smiled back at her, warily.
