Torrential Fecundity and Pangs of a Voracious Reader

Every so often I am in a bookstore I strangle the trenchant temptation to buy one more. I am not rich enough to keep splurging on books just to relish the pleasure of holding their spines, sometimes embossed, in my palm or to devour the sight of eye pleasing book covers adoring my table. Like any book lover I too love to stare at the stacks of books resting on my table. Names of famous or obscure authors glistening from spines endow the entire room with an intellectual fragrance. Off and on I also keep fiddling with the bag resting in my cupboard bulging with books that it houses. At home for a long time my favorite pastime was to rearrange queues of my father’s books lined on shelves in an almirah with wooden doors.

Bestowing respect upon my hard earned pennies I try that every book that gets to bag or space around it passes through the stack on table. So long as they are part of this stack they run the chance of being read. Stack stares at me and I return the stare back at stack often resulting in any one of the books forming the stack being pulled out and opened and then yes, read. How liberating will it be for a book to be opened and showered with eyes of its buyer or owner! Every beautiful thing loves to be read and stared if done in a way comforting to the object and a book is not an aberration. Just like a pretty damsel blooms at the prospectus of being the object of desire of the eyes that enunciate its love with an affectionate smile a book too yearns to caress the face of its reader through the palms of words and eyes of thoughts.

Books on my table long to be detached from the dull stack dusted once in a while and be a part of my life and savour the touch of my hands every day till it is read and then again condemned to a pile in bag or a queue in a bookcase. Once read a book doesn’t die because it nurtures the hope of being reread once again by anyone else or its first reader. Books stacked on table feel like a lonely wife no longer sharing any relationship with her husband redolent of conjugation. The insipid lives they live impel them to either accuse the owner of being ignoramus or a cold hearted phoney. If kept too long unread the buyer or owner runs the risk of losing their fidelity and hence may be even virginity at the hands of someone other. They might come back but will carry the signs of mishandling and buggering.

But owner or buyer can’t be held responsible for leaving the books unread deeming the fast pace at which every single day unfolds. No longer are we living in 19th century when books, magazine and papers available locally were the only source of reading. At the most journals from universities could have been added to this list. Even if this were the case any voracious reader (a casual reader always claims to have read everything) would always fall short of reading all he wanted to read. No matter however much one takes in there is always something waiting outside to be grabbed, appreciated, understood and learned. The famous story “Do Bigha Zameen’ by legendry Hindi writer Prem Chand best exemplifies a reader’s dilemma.

Between doing job and fulfilling all other responsibilities we squeeze in reading. We live in 21st century. It only further compounds the situation. Any person with an eclectic range of reading and curiosity has a mountain of authentic information available online in addition to all what he can buy (or borrow or get issued from library) in hard copy. So just imagine the kind of material one has at one time to go through: a couple of books, may be even more, a couple of magazines, newspapers (especially Sunday segments which can last the entire week, the literary review of The Hindu is a month long preoccupation for me) and journals. This is what we can carry with us wherever we go and read it or if in hurry just plough through it.

Now cast your glance on the reading material available online which too we can’t do without. Sometimes when I start browsing the net and that too in a much circumscribed way most often I end up reading a lot of headlines and actual reading reduces to minimum. Our own journal ‘Boloji’ houses a wonderful blend of prose and poetry which one can’t afford to gloss over if one claims to have finer pursuits of interests spanning over a large spectrum of subjects. There is such a monumental repository of information available on online versions of so many international journals, newspapers and magazines whose hard copy we may not get our hands at. This hummock of works worth reading grows larger and wide if we begin to include serious weblogs and web magazines. So at the end of the day we have a huge pile of material we would not want to leave unread but find it difficult to read our way through it. I spend quite a chunk of time taking printouts of articles, essays, book excerpts, book reviews and lectures delivered by luminaries at the highest level when it is not possible anymore to crouch on computer screen. All this printout exercises often lead to sort of books compiled and edited at home. This results in multiple stacks on my table whose stares turn into glares with the passage of time and I feel like a poor polygamous man having to provide for not only just materialistic possessions and romantic aspirations of each one of his wife but also prone to bringing in more with every passing day.

Denis Dutton, Professor in philosophy at university of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand and editor of ‘philosophy and literature’ to some extent has eased up the reading- on-net job by providing millions like me links to a vast range of essays and articles covering a gamut of appealing subjects on one page on his website ‘Aldaily.com’. Despite this breather every morning there are new articles and essays in major newspapers. Then there are books released almost every other day. I wonder how many people are busy writing making it seem like theirs surpassing the number of readers. Even before I could zero in on a book there are five new releases. There is a huge stock of old and contemporary books yet to be bought and read (quite an ambitious dream) despite having to stand the sight of stacks on my table and new releases only aggravate the situation.

Last Sunday Times of India was luring its reader to buy Amartya Sen’s latest ‘The Idea of Justice’ by publishing an excerpt and interview with the acclaimed economist and philosopher. People like me are likely to fall victim (I will try to come unscathed). After having read Orhan Pamuk’s ‘Istanbul’ I had long decided to read another one of his books but that day is yet to come. In an article in ‘Intelligent Life’ Tom Shone examines the relation between booze and writing. What made writers like Dylan Thomas, Malcolm Lowry, Brendan Behan, Patrick Hamilton, Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis lushes? Was it alcohal that had these writers write elegant prose or not is debatable but readers too can experiment by establishing a link. If only that helps in gulping all what stares at face. If not, still we have Sara Nelson’s ‘So Many Books, So Little Time’.

Francis Bacon says in his famous essay ‘Of Studies’: some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. So far as first two kinds of books are concerned we should have the spark of intuition and inclination ignited in our subconsciousness to help us take right decision. Shashi Tharoor once claimed to have read as many as 365 books in a single year between his 13 and 14th birthday and here it takes me a month and sometimes even more to complete a 350 page book belonging to third category of books as described by Francis Bacon. The book I have just finished reading ‘The Saint, the Surfer and the CEO’ by Robin Sharma falls into first category for me. Book turned out to be a disappointment against the expectation. It could have been in any category depending upon who the reader is. The previous read ‘Above Average’ by Amitabha Bagchi belonged to second category. The book I am currently reading is ‘The wonder that was India’ by A.L. Basham. I have no idea which category will it go to as I have just started it though I would want it to embrace the third category.

The real essence of reading begins to impregnate our mind with apparent motion and drive only when we do complete and absolute reading. Books demanding this absolute reading leave behind a better language, fermented thought process and of course a pool of knowledge which always remains green even in the face of most acute draught of revisiting and recalling. The cursory running of eyes through the writing is at best picking up the pieces not reading. To be able to read one has to drown not only in the lake of words writer has created but also feel the touch of layers of emotion that words help construct. When we descend into a pool of cool, soothing and clean water every pore of our fiber feels the touch and we just don’t want to come out. Same is true for a good book. A good book teaches a lot but it is the process as we unfurl the pages that has us in ecstasy and rapture. Pages of a book are nothing short of gushes of balmy breeze. Books which stay longer with us are two pronged indicators. They tell us who we are and what they are. In the similar vein essays and lectures are like bath tubs. What if small but splashes of water can be equally exalting.

To me every book becomes worthy of reading for two absurd reasons: one, I bought it and second I have started reading it. More often than not both cases emerge from my proclivities, curiosity and sometimes obligation and need. So even if the book has landed itself in my hands without my having to spent money for it, it becomes difficult to abandon it once the first hello kiss is done with. If it is too obtuse and obfuscating i.e. Bacon’s first category, then I somehow try to give it the respect of wading through it at a little quickened pace. In this case greater than reading it is the sight of the last page that encompasses the dual feeling of nostalgia and achievement though quite effete. To which side of emotion does the balance tilt is contingent upon the relationship book had cultivated during the reading period. If the achievement part weighs more it means book fell short of our expectation or vice versa. If the reading turned out to be absolute and complete it is impossible for the reader not to be engulfed by a sense of nostalgia interspersed with sprinklings of achievement at the end of reading of final sentence. You never feel the same string of emotion with an article though an essay or lecture could be sometimes quite hobble-enabling and strangely fulfilling. Try reading Rabindranath Tagore’s lectures delivered in China in 1924 where he went at the invitation of Beijing Lecture Association and see how Nirad Chaudhary’s ‘The Autobiography of an Indian’ seems easy to be traveled through. Here is a lecture pitted against a book from one of the finest craftsmen of the words. Comparatively articles are most often short and don’t demand much time and pressure on mind.

It is the compass of our inclination and curiosity that helps us in deciding which books to buy and read. Same for every other form of reading material but even in this circumscribed periphery we have so much to cover that often we are left wondering which first and which later. Once a decision is made about strictly our kind of reading the question that dangles before us is: how much of reading is too much and enough? Or should we take the pursuit of reading too seriously in a world that thrives on pragmatism? As I said a voracious reader will have to confront the pangs of regret of not being able to keep pace with his desires all his life. Does this reading which needs solitude and which can be quite tantalizing for other family members help the reader beyond a point? Should a reader read anything that he loves to read or only what can help him in his professional or personal life? Answers to these questions are very simple but need courage to be surfaced.

Once Emerson said of a certain person that he did not read much because he had not ceased to think suggesting reading is too often a sign of weakness rather than strength of mind. To make the matter worse Plato attributed the weakening of memory to the art of writing. On the other side of the divide we can argue that we don’t read to copy others but to learn from others and help us sharpen our mind. The age old argument that formal education may help us land jobs and earn money but we may still be dead to the influence of art, poetry and nuances of life still prevails and may be with even more relevance.

Though anyone can read anything one likes but still the word ‘reading’ gains its weight only from literature being read existing above a certain bar in terms of its ability to stimulate one’s intellect. How reading cheap literature can have an adverse impact evinces in what Wordsworth had to say. According to him no grandeur in nature or in books delights him who has entirely surrendered himself to the influence of scrappy reading. Yes, Darwin confessed to have read trashy novels. May be he did find relaxation in them after a day’s enervating work. But then most certainly he did not entail that in his ‘reading’.

That brings me back to where I started. Every visit to a bookstore is hard attempt at self restraint. The moment I set foot in a strange game begins. Dynamics of feelings, emotions, pragmatism, responsibilities and economics start to manifest in my ramble. Eyes firmly fixed on books, feet swanning, I wander around. I pull out books that catch my fancy, cast a glance on the back cover to find price and to read the introduction on back page or flaps. Then I proceed ahead. I leaf through few pages, sometimes end up reading a couple of pages. I try my best not to buy any book unless that was the motive to be there. Some books strike my fancy and mind alike. I see the price. The overpricing of the book helps in wriggling out of the quandary but if price hovers around the range where normally I am comfortable, ambivalence strikes. I recall the stacks on my table and get the required strength to be able to scamper off. Once I am outside bookstore I feel triumphant at having saved some money and time for the annoyed stack. I start walking with the determination to down the stacks on my table and relief that next time I won’t have to escape the temptation. I will yield to it reckoning what Oscar Wilde had said once.