It is not every day that we come across a creation that
completely engrosses us, cuts away every thought and makes us inhabit a
different world - or perhaps I am hard to please. But I take heart in
the fact that at least every once in a while,
this does happen.
As recently as last week, I think I ran
into my book equivalent of a soul-mate. While Ayn Rand has been a
consistent love in my life, and Jane Austen and
the Bronte sisters have been like-minded friends; somehow nothing had
ever resonated so closely as did Mr. Julian Barnes’ words in ‘Sense of
an Ending’. Perhaps, these are the workings of time. At the point
when I read this book, it was like meeting the
little person who lives inside my head. It also made me wonder if those
are the books we like most- the ones that make us feel, ‘if I wrote,
this is how I’d sound’. This was a book where I savoured each idea, each
word- and comprehended each as clearly as
if it were my own. Does that happen to you? Does it happen that for
once, you are not eager to force your eyes and mind to run through the
words because you can’t wait to see where they take you; instead- you
wish to amble, retrace, loiter. The author’s ideas
of life, art, history- I wish I could have them all by heart to cite at
every appropriate instance (while we’re wishing- I wish I’d written
them!). The book has several intertwined threads of separate lives wound
around the recurring themes of philosophy,
history and their relationship with reality – which, when woven
together, wrap one is a blanket of seamless beauty. There are some works
of art you can reach out and touch, and then there are some that
envelope you with their many, many dimensions! Just as meeting your soulmate makes you wonder about all the past worthy and unworthy dalliances you've had, so did I find myself reflecting on my reading choices over the years.
Every book has a personality; it is like meeting a
person – oddly enough, a personality born of the reader’s perception,
and not the author’s! In effect, every book is a rendezvous. There are
some narratives that are familiar as an old
friend – thoughts heard once before; in fact, hasn’t it happened to you
that you can almost hear an entire narrative in a dear friend’s voice!
Then there are those pacy, whirlwind affairs that we rush into, where
logic takes a back seat and it’s a pure head
rush. Remember Perry Mason? And of course, almost all of us have gone through a 'Sidney Sheldon phase'! My favourites over time have been those books that are like friendly banter on a lazy afternoon… words that swing you on a hammock with sunshine
and good cheer for company. A languid Summer’s day that seems like it’d
go on forever, yet, all too soon is over-
but not without leaving a lingering warmth. That’s how I feel when I am
idling on Corfu with Gerald Durrell or taking my imagination for a
stroll at Blandings Castle. :) Some other books I’ve ‘met’
are enigmatic and wary… they reveal themselves slowly- and so do they
exert their power. It is not until you’ve reached midway that you
realise you’re inextricably hooked. Sartre’s Nausea
did that to me – I was labouring through word by word, digesting each
idea, wondering if I really had the appetite – and then suddenly at some
point, there was a connection. This is the love we savour slowly – a
love that almost wasn’t to be; but is
Some books, or entire genres, are so unlike
ourselves that we really don’t expect to like them. Biographies – Auto
or otherwise- was a genre I had stayed away from, on these very grounds.
Why should I be interested in someone else’s real
life? My own life as a protected and pampered child was sailing so
smoothly, that I could only turn to fiction to learn of its
vicissitudes. I hardly expected any person’s real life to match, let
alone surpass, the romance and adventure of fiction! In fact,
I recall I once took up Feynman and did not get beyond page 20.
Shocking, I know. But you see, back then- I read about the radios, and I
thought- “This is just mechanics!”. Today, I can see a curious mind, a
passion for the world we live in and above all-
the zest to experience Life! I was always an avid reader, but my
poison was the classics! It took me a couple of heartbreaks, struggle
for acceptance and a taste of the real world to begin relating to stories of other peoples’
lives - to appreciate that truth is indeed stranger
than fiction! That’s when I started appreciating Biographies. That's also when I realised, whether you're reading a book or writing one, empathy is perhaps the most important constituent. When they
speak of the ‘pain’ you need to create beautiful art, they speak of
experiencing battle, emerging with war wounds and painting the epic for the world to see. Your paint may be pigment,
your brush may be words, your strokes may be dance- but the life in your
art is always that unspent anger, unspilled joy, that resonates within
you and everyone who has experienced Life!
