Uniquely portable magic*

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“Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “… is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”

“I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Elizabeth; “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

[Pride and Prejudice, Chap. VIII]

It’s World Book Day, and I thought I ought to add my own two bits to the general celebrations.

Diehard fans of the reading habit have been posting feel-good messages about books and reading all day. It’s heartwarming to read their posts, bless them.

My love affair with books and reading began with watching my mother read. (Back then I wanted to do whatever she did.) What began as books with pictures graduated to books without pictures by the time I was seven or eight. My mother even got me my very own membership of a library when I was seven. That made me feel all grown up let me tell you.

Many books and libraries later, I now read whatever I can (it’s still mostly books without pictures, although Asterix comics are an honourable exception). Sometimes it’s also books on science (and I actually comprehend and enjoy them!). I share Miss Bingley’s anxious need for a good library and possess a roomful of books accumulated lovingly over the years. Fortunately, my Significant Other Self (whom we shall henceforth agree to call SOS) shares my love of books. I buy books regularly, too, though of late I find I buy more non-fiction reading material. I am not even above downloading free ebooks (I have no scruples where books are concerned).

Unlike some readers, I am not fussy about the format in which I ingest my reading material. I am quite happy even with ebooks and audiobooks. In fact, my Kindle and iPad are among my most prized possessions, and I used my Nokia 6600, too, quite happily as an ebook reader. Audiobooks have made my daily commute fun, and I quite enjoy traffic snarls because they give me more time with books.

My love of books makes me do weird things. I hoard books. I claim they are my retirement fund and are not to be read now. And while I love to show them off to other book lovers and make them go green with envy, I cannot abide the thought of being parted from a single title, even temporarily. In this I am completely with old Will, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,/ For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” I cannot even bear to have my books shifted from Mumbai to our house in Pune. Call me anal retentive, but what can a girl do?

So, we’ve certainly established that I am a reader. But like Eliza Bennet, I do take pleasure in other things, too. In fact, I do think that one should not read ALL the time. Sure, reading does many things — enlarges your mind, develops your character, helps you mature emotionally, psychologically and intellectually, lets you time travel and visit exotic places — all from the comfort of your armchair (or your favourite reading nook). But doesn’t burying yourself in a book make you isolated from your fellow creatures? Yes, one learns about other lives, but what about one’s own life which is put on hold while one agonises over the struggles and anxieties of fictive characters? If technology is making people escapist and causing interpersonal bonding to crumble, how are books any different? How is this any different, in fact, from the ONI technology in Cline’s Ready Player Two? Dumbledore had it right: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live….”

The conclusion then? There’s no conclusion, really. Life is for living. And yet, I read, therefore I am.

*“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” — Stephen King