Books preserve the great ideas of great minds in any
generation, brilliant, eccentric, dystopian and sympathetic. Yet
reading has encouraged me to read more than just books. In fact the beautiful
irony of reading is that it often encourages people to learn about the world not
just through the pages of a book, but also by interacting with the world
itself; reading not just words but also nature, people, animals, astronomy,
economics, ethos, politics and science the best way we can and try to interpret
it. Admittedly, this is not an easy process, because understanding something is
very different from simply knowing it. Still, reading has broadened my very
definition of it, so that right now I think everything can and should be read. The
aim is simple: to learn how to live, and why.
As a child I read plenty of Enid Blyton books and especially
liked one called The Tower in Ho-Ho Wood.
I also remember reading Aesop Fables, a pocket book of the original version of
the Little Mermaid which I found quite horrifying, a Manga comic called Slamdunk from which I gained an enduring
interest in drawing, and Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes really is my
favourite book; I didn’t understand the sense of humour when I was younger, but
now that I’m older I find it absolutely delightful. Some of it probably had to
do with the illustrations. There was also an encyclopaedia that I still have
with wonderful pictures of animals, planets and the sea. Through it I became
very interested in geography, landforms especially mountains, and life on Earth
in general, interests that have only grown keener over time.
In my teens I unwillingly read some books on electronics and hydraulic systems because my father asked me to, though I was secretly
proud to have understood how a water-wheel worked even before it was taught in
school. I also read magazines like Female, VOGUE and Seventeen. Naturally, that was also the age
of the Harry Potter books; I found them very thrilling and could not put them
down. But many of the books I read in my teens were murder and spy-fiction books by Agatha Christie, Sidney Sheldon, also books like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Espionage
was fun enough, but these books sparked a curiosity about human nature in me
and I developed an inquisitiveness about people, their thinking patterns and backstories. Psychology does not interest me as much now, and I
have not read a murder book in years.
I hit a plateau in Junior College. I rarely read anything
then and most of the Literature texts I studied I never finished. The
only one I read through was George Orwell’s 1984,
because I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I became a fan of Orwell
since then. I also read his essay, Politics
and the English Language, a piece I respect as an accurate observation of
the way the English Language is often used, and hence its rules always govern my
style of writing. The most important change that occurred to me from reading
his work was probably my interest in political science and current affairs. I
became very interested in topics such as poverty and government control, things I thought
and talked about a lot at the time. On hindsight I realise that knowledge
learnt from reading does not have a genre, though the source itself might.
The texts in NIE that I really enjoyed were those in Dr.
Poon’s Post-Colonial Literature
course, including the contributions from the class through elearning, mainly because
I was very interested in the discussions we had about globalisation. Before
that, Great Expectations by Charles
Dickens was something I could really relate to; I was in love with Joe Gargery and it was the first time an
English book ever made me cry.
Currently, I don’t read much at all. I have one book on interior design and one book called The Philosophy Book published by Dorling
Kindersley Limited (London) which I love, but I scarcely read beyond that. Even
so, I find a sense of comfort in books, the same way one can feel comforted by
the smell of an old book. I like being surrounded by books and for me it is
almost like a back-to-the-womb experience. I would like to make time to read
about physics and astronomy though because I find the universe and my smallness in
comparison highly fascinating. I'm also currently eyeing a book called Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent) at Kinokuniya just because the title was so catchy, and also a few non-fiction books on cooking and some joke books, but that's where my reading starts and ends nowadays.
I think in life people always try to strike a balance
between knowing something, understanding it and then acting upon it. And then sharing the knowledge for the community. Hence I believe in
reading things that are both informative and applicable to the day-to-day.
Books are certainly a good source for reflection and understanding, but
everyone reads in one way or another. I think everyone is hence knowledgeable
in one thing or another. It is good to question the meaning of reading itself; we
don’t have to stop at books.
The irony of it all, to be studying all those texts and not actually "read" it in JC. Doesn't it make you wonder about how much of the texts you teach in your class students read? But you are right, we do need to think about what we read and that includes the world. Learning to read literature gives one ways to read the world. Think: Look at the world through postcolonial lens and one sees different things and sees differently.
ReplyDelete