Books, books, books ... Part I

Well, I used to be an avid reader when I was in Primary School ... I read a lot of fairy tales ... I remember my first, I think, fairy tale was The Elves and the Shoemaker ... I could recall feeling something like happiness when the shoemaker leaves tiny clothes for the elves who make shoes for him ... I was too young to understand the feelings that I felt when reading that book, but looking back, I think one of them was happiness ...

I think right about Standard 4 to Standard 5, when my mother moved me to a school right smack in KL, which was near her workplace, I used to stop by the public library and borrowed books ... I can't remember all the books I've borrowed, but I remember reading To a God Unknown, by John Steinbeck ... Can you imagine a 10 to 11-year-old reading a novel of that nature? I recall a naked lady that is very fleshy ...  That is all I can remember of that novel ... I remember reading a Victor Hugo novel, but I don't think it was The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, nor was it Les Miserables ... Or maybe it was Notre-Dame ... I don't think I even finished it ...

Anyway, from Primary to Lower Secondary, my reading taste changed ... I stopped reading fairy tales, and became interested in crime thrillers ... So much so that I wrote a murder mystery novella when I was 14 ... What did I do with it? I threw it away ... Ah, the impetuosity of youth ... The novella was never finished, anyway, but I did write about three siblings who lived next door to a mad scientist who invented, of all things, a machine that could shrink matter ... Look, I did not steal the plot to 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' as I recall watching the movie much later after I wrote that story ... What happened to that story? It was in the same book I used to write the murder mystery ... Who knew, the time when the movie was released coincided with the time I wrote the adventure story of the three siblings – Morgan, Montgomery and another brother whose name also starts with M ... Michael, maybe ... Morgan happens to be a girl ... Funny, isn't it? How things seem to coincide ... For me, I just believe it's all Providence ...

Well, from Primary School to Lower Secondary, I read A LOT ... Then, when I hit 17, I started reading romance novels ... But of course ... My first was Something Wonderful by Judith McNaught ... I still remember what happens in Chapter 10 ... Ah, the dashing and virile Jordan Addison Matthew Townsende, if I'm not mistaken, because my copy is long lost along with probably hundreds of books that I had thrown away in the stupidity of my youth ... Yes, sacrilegious ... Anyway, Something Wonderful and that bloody Chapter 10 was my, ahem, sexual awakening ...

I stopped reading a lot when I turned 18 ... In college, I only read the novels/plays/poems assigned to us ... Yeah, I used to write a lot of poetry in College ... Pretentious Prick ... Stupid Voice ... Unabashedly Ostentatious ... Stupid Voice ... Schizophrenic ... Now, you've done it, you stupid voice *Choking Stupid Voice* ...

Then, I completely stopped reading after I graduated and entered school to teach ... Until today, I don't read that much ... The very latest book I have read is Go Set A Watchman, by the late Harper Lee ... Below are books that I have kept over the years ...

To Kill A Mockingbird is and always will be my No. 1 all-time favourite ... Go Set A Watchman is a little too political for my taste ... Its setting is rather unfamiliar because I only know about the civil rights movement from Hollywood movies, and those aren't much of a help, are they? Favourite character: Is and always will be Atticus Finch ... I hate it when my photos are not sharp, dammit ...

Off all the books I saved from all those years when I was an avid reader ... I will re-read Amazing Stories from the World of Crime, but recently I re-read The Cartoonist ... I think I know why I saved this two books ... The first because I'm into crime thrillers, and the second is because I identify with the protagonist ... I understand completely what Alfie goes through, because up to today, I feel the same way at times ...

No, this is not my first Classic, but my mother bought this for me when I was 14, I think, one of the very few things she's done right, beside letting me watch whatever I want to watch on TV ... I think I learned the words 'vehement' and 'taciturn' from Jane Eyre  ... Yeah, I carried around a mini Oxford dictionary to every class in school (Lil F**king Show-off) ... But if you ask me to read this novel now, most probably I would say "F**K OFF" ... No, the language has become a little too tedious for me ... Yeah, I'm a lazy shitbag, kill me ...

Ah, yes,when I said crime thrillers, I meant Agatha Christie ... My first Agatha Christie novel is the one on the right ... I read it and was hooked ... I read a A LOT of Hercule Poirot's murder mysteries ... Miss Marple doesn't do it for me ... I don't know, the Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head and wonderful moustache has somehow become my favourite ... I've donated all Hercule Poirot novels except these two ...

The plays we studied in College, among others ... I played Malcolm in Act 4, Scene 3, if I'm not mistaken ... The only line I can recall is "Let us seek out some desolate shade and there weep our sad bosoms empty" ... Nobody in my class wanted to play Malcolm and MacDuff because it's basically two men talking at length under a f**king tree ... So, I volunteered to be Malcolm ... Let me tell you, memorizing his lines was utter torture, but one of my classmates was impressed that I could memorize it all when it was our turn to stage the Scene ... I played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest ... Why did they give me all the f**king boring roles?

I cannot recall any of the poems we studied in College ... I think Daffodils is Wordsworth ... I had to do a paper on a poet, and I chose Ted Hughes, the husband of Sylvia Plath, and yes, I have read and own a copy of The Bell Jar ... Oh, yeah, back to poetry ... Erm, ask me to recite a line and all you'll get from me is a blank stare ... Oh, hang on ... 'I wondered lonely as a cloud' ... No, I did not Google it ... Yeah, I did, just to make sure ... Brainjuice, you're a f**king show-off ...

The one on the right is for showing off ... The only Walt Whitman poem I like is A Clear Midnight ... The one on the left is for my paper on Ted Hughes ... Erm, don't ask me to name all those men on the cover, except perhaps Wilfred Owen ...

More showing off ... I've never liked Emily Dickinson, so I don't understand why I bought this collection ... The only poem I like from the one on the right is Macavity ... Watched Cats when I was in the UK a long time ago for the second and third years of College, and I think it was Macavity they recited ... Nope, can't remember ... Anyway, the most interesting poet I recall, even though I can't remember any of his verses, is e.e. cummings ... Could be the one who influenced the stylistics of my writing ...

One of the novels we read in College ... Putting this up just to round off this post ...

And why have I put up some of the novels/plays/poetry I have read? Easy, because I intend to donate them all ... Books are not meant to be stacked on shelves, gathering interminable dust ... They are meant to be read, over and over and over ... I think the only books I will keep are the two from my childhood, and To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the novels we read in College ... And also probably The Clocks by Agatha Christie ...