The year has been progressing slow in terms of books read. Meanwhile, I have saved on my phone a thousand beautiful essays and stories. Saved to be savoured peacefully. Some really long essays. And a few short stories. Some short articles, and some books. And then, when I have a stretch of time available or desire to lose myself in a story, I shake my phone like a mint case and read the one that falls out the top. So that's what I've been doing. Savoring mints. Mints don't get counted on this blog. Only completed books make it to the recent reads page.
And I remind myself again that books read is not the right metric. It is a good general indicator, but not the correct measure. The correct measure would be a bit more subjective. Such as how I feel about my reading? Am I exploring more? Am I reflecting, and taking the time to write about what I read? Am I enjoying the process?
The answers change so much through the year, if not the questions themselves over time. And that, that exactly is the right metric. Am I growing and changing?
Bending Time
Sometimes, going through old notes I find so many reading lists and things worth exploring. It is a bit of despairing feeling. There'll never be time enough to read what all I wish to read. Unless I learn to bend time. I am hoping that one of the books I read will teach me how to do that.
And then this afternoon, I found another way to bend time meanwhile. Listening after a long time to some songs that I used to listen to non stop years ago, I was back in time. Everything that song evoked was rich in color - present in my mind and thoughts. Was I transported back in time, or was the time bent and brought to re-exist around me?
Aren't such stuff, such music, fragrances, good writing, art, tunnels or warps in time? Enter here, read this, listen to this music, smell this, and voila, bend the time. Over and over again.
So may be, no need to despair. Sometimes, one instance is deeper than the average depth of rest of the lifetime, and perhaps that is the linear programming function to solve for. Maximize intensities of moments. Maximize collecting these time bending experiences. Everything else, the average, the mediocre, the never-ending lists, there is no limit. What one cannot conquer in distance, perhaps one tries to conquer in depth?
Memoirs and other Personal Non Fiction
I am currently reading quite a few: Simone De Beauvoir's The Prime of Life, Doris Lessing's Walking in the Shade (both part two of their respective memoirs. I read both their first parts last year). Even though I am making little progress, and I'm not even sure whether I'll finish them soon, I am enjoying alternating between them. And then, in similar vein was the book of short stories by Edith Wharton which again seems drawn from something close in her life. Every once a while, one of the characters is a writer, and the settings and scenes are very unique, and perhaps depict the perpetual question that the author tries to answer - of perusal of art vs living of a life.
It pretty much continues on last year's theme of reading autobiographies, personal essays and memoirs. One of the other reasons I realize I enjoy these writings is because they open up ways of seeing. Life as closely observed by other people who carry with them powers of superb expression. The way they see the world, it is not explicitly mentioned at times. But it gets revealed in turns of phrases, by what they take for granted, and by what surprises them. Things so close to them. It can be fascinating this way to get under their skin and look at world the way they look at it. You come away richer for perspective, and wiser for someone's deep thoughts.
The rewards of such readings are then in the process. One can read quickly, or one can dwell, take time out every few minutes to note down their thoughts and the meta that opens up in your head. That makes progress slow. With other things, it just means a few pages a day. But aren't they very rewarding pages?
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And yet, because of that, because of the way they take their lives so seriously, and whatever they are upto so seriously, a heaviness gradually creeps in, making it difficult to go on and on. The spillover is sometimes quite sad and negative, and can weigh you down. For such times, standing out in sharp contrast to these two memoirs is the posthumously collected writings of Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt). I enjoy Doris Lessing and Simone De Beauvoir, but Adams, and another of my current exploration (Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue) shine with joy and cheer. Sometimes, that is what one needs to lift up the day.
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Apart from these, there are a few other open explorations.One of them is Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. I have been getting in and out of it for over a year now. Everything I read there, I feel like quoting or noting down. Reading it sequentially, I sometimes reach stretches that pull me down a bit, gazing into the nothingness and finding, nothing - making me spill over around me. I close it then. And that little helps the book's progress.
Still, since I touched upon it, I'll quote one bit:
Passage 11
(Litany)
“We never know self-realization.
We are two abysses – a well staring at the sky.”