I was reading, absorbed in an assault on K2 by a team of Japanese mountaineers, my lungs constricting in the thin burning air, the deadly sting of wind-lashed ice in my face, when the record -- Le Sacre du Printemps -- caught in the groove with a gnashing squeal as if a stageful of naiads, dryads and spandex satyrs had simultaneously gone lame. T.C. Boyle
About This Quote

If you’ve ever been reading an interesting book and suddenly became engrossed in it, you know what I mean. The air around you becomes heavy and there is a heaviness in your chest. The more emotionally invested you become in the book, the harder it is to breathe and the tighter everything feels. You can feel your heart beating and your chest is constricting.

All of a sudden Le Sacre du Printemps by Serge Gainsbourg starts screeching out of the speakers on the stereo and the song “I was reading, absorbed in an assault on K2 by a team of Japanese mountaineers” comes screaming out of nowhere and gives you such a shock that for a moment you don’t know where you are or what happened. I was reading, absorbed in an assault on K2 by a team of Japanese mountaineers is a song that belongs on a soundtrack to a movie about mountaineering where there is a climactic battle with an evil villain. However, this song does not belong in a movie but in this quote from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying which describes how he felt while he was reading before he got engrossed in his book.

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