| Wednesday, December 24, 2003 |
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QY Rediscovers the Bookworm in Herself
It had always been there, deep within her. And then she went to JC. It was more of an excuse than a reason really; that she had no time to read regularly. She probably read less than 5 books in those 2 years, and at the end she had to admit, regrettably, the awful, horrible, even shameful truth: She had grown accustomed to not reading regularly. She'd probably read less than 5 books in 2 years. In secondary school, she often wondered how people could survive without reading regularly. Now she knew why. But she was determined to change that fact. So she visited the library at White Sands, and borrowed some book called the Prince of Abissinia which she thought would be interesting...but (with no offence to the author of the aforementioned book) soon found the story of a prince who had everything but yearned for freedom boring. So she returned the book.
Then she found J.D. Salinger (author) at library@orchard. Book title: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour - An Introduction. Odd name for a title, she thought, but saw rather interesting bits as she flipped through it. She borrowed it. She was hooked. And thus the borrowing of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour - An Introduction became the event that revived the bookworm in her. The catalyst: J.D. Salinger. She wondered why in the world this name sounded so familiar, flipped to the front of the book, and saw, under the heading "Books by J.D. Salinger", The Catcher in the Rye. GASP. So this is the author of The Catcher in the Rye! The book she had heard mentioned so many times, but still did not know what it was about. She resolved to get ahold of a copy of The Catcher.
Almost on second thought - in fact, it was on second thought - she stepped into a bookshop in Tampines Mall called San Bookshop that "Sell[s] and rent[s] New & Old Books" (as it says on the plastic bag they gave). Confronted by almost ceiling-high shelf-fulls of fantasy books, most of which looked like sci-fi trash and pathetic rip-offs of Lord of the Rings, she thought to herself, "What unedifying stuff," and was disappointed. Even more so when she turned around and saw chinese comics and chinese romance novels. She'd read enough of english romance novels in her days and avoided them like the plaque now. Trash. And chinese ones? Well, her parents were avid readers too and she'd spotted quite a few of those in the house. She often picked them up, finding the covers, with rather realistically drawn portraits of attractive young men and women, appealing. She'd read the blurbs on the back, and they seemed just like the english ones. Comics? Well, she felt that a lot of comics these days are stumbling, what with almost-naked nubile young girls frolicking on the cover and inside too. There is some good in some of those comics, but on the whole, hard to find. Like a needle in a haystack.
Undeterred and undaunted (it takes more than a few shelves of unedifying material to deter a determined bookworm - pun unintended), she ventured on within the small shop space. Then she saw It. The Shelf with the Good Books and the Classics. And there was The Catcher in the Rye! She grabbed it, wanting to buy it. It was like an oasis for her. A Child Called "It". The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Haven't you heard? She was the brilliant poet who went bonkers and stuck her head in an oven. Those creative, tortured types...), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, which she picked up briefly; a wonderously thick book, volumes of emotions of a human being who passed before her. It cost more than $30. Too much. She returned it to its place on the shelf. Gerald Durrell! And...JAMES HERRIOT! She literally gasped when she saw that name. They had the whole collection (well, almost, with one or two books missing): All Things Wise and Wonderful, All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, The Lord God Made Them All, and even "blank">James Herriot's Dog Stories. The cover wasn't very nice, really, not like the ones in her secondary school's library, with cute cartoon illustrations. Heck, it's JAMES HERRIOT! Her other favourite author beside Roald Dahl! She just had to buy it. Along with Going Solo by Dahl, which she intended to give her little piggy mortal (because he had been behaving like a pig of late). Because 1) a book is a gift for life, 2) she loved Dahl's works and wanted it share them with the world! 3) this is a very good book and 4) it has planes, and her mortal loved his planes. And also Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, which a church frend had asked her to help procure from the library at Pasir Ris (White Sands). She'd thought, heck, might as well buy it and lend her. Buying a good book can never be a waste of money. She'd save The Catcher for another time, plus all of the other Herriots. And the Durrells. And the Dahls, oh, the Dahls.
After the visit to the bookshop, she returns home almost itching to go to the library, with the only snitch being that she didn't have the family's library cards with her.
And this is how QY rediscovered the bookworm within. |
posted by esther @ 2:50 AM  |
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