Lost Mountain pgs 85-162

The most striking thing I found in this section of reading was the very last sentence we were asked to read. "It doesn't look like such a harsh way to live, does it?" This was a quote from the ecologist, Richard Olson on the subject of an ecologically sustainable living environment. I have to agree. Given the chance, I would love to live in a place like that, where I knew that I was not harming the environment. This is a very clever way to end the chapter, because it gives the reader a profound emotional response. It makes the reader question, even if only for the time that it takes to turn the page to the next chapter, how simple it would be to live an eco-friendly lifestyle. This sentence has this power because of the placement. When reading, an importance is placed on the first thing that is read, and on the last. If I were to write a list of twenty words, you might remember the first two or three, and the last two or three. the ones in the middle would be forgotten almost as soon as they were read. For an author, this means that the way you start out and end your chapters is even more important than the content found in the middle. That makes this type of ending sentence all the more powerful, all the more effective.