I was read to as a child, right before bedtime. I guess that’s where I picked up my love for reading. Although I remember little of what was read to me, based on the numerous books that my mother has save from my early childhood (kindergarten), I can surmise that I was mostly exposed to nursery rhymes, Disney and Grimm’s Fairytales, a variety of children’s question and answer books and children’s encyclopaedias.
Like many primary school children of my era, I was exposed to the works of Enid Blyton after having received a few of her books from my relatives. I loved how compact the book was, the hard cover and the values her stories had to teach. I remember feasting on her o’clock tales as well as Malory Towers, Elizabeth Allen, The Secret Seven, Faraway Tree. Of all her books, I enjoyed Hollow Tree House and the Family series the best because of the poignancy of the tale in Hollow Tree House. As for the Family series, I was fascinated by how one Family moves from living in a caravan to a ship to a boat house. Above all, I remember being fascinated by the passage in the Queen Elizabeth Family tale where the children described the food they ate onboard the ship – the layered ice-cream cake. For many years after reading that particular passage, I searched for a multi-layered ice-cream cake just like the one described in the tale. From my grown-up cousins, I ‘inherited’ their collection of Roald Dahl books which I devoured. From my neighbour, I was introduced to Lois Duncan’s mystery books. As I entered upper primary, I discovered Ramona, Judy Blume, Babysitter’s, Sweet Valley as well as Mary-Kate and Ashley. Although my friends and I had by then formed a bookclub for Enid Blyton where we constantly exchanged books (there were too many to purchase!!), I had gradually turned away from my childhood love for Enid Blyton books to devour my newly found love for Babysitter’s and Sweet Valley. In part, I had turned away from Enid Blyton after having been told numerous times by my father that it was no longer suitable for upper primary reading.
Recently I have noticed newer editions of Enid Blyton stuff popping up in Popular Bookstore and I even found a collected version for the Family Series. Needless to say, I pounced upon that book and devoured it with a vengeance, returning to savour that wonderful passage about the ice-cream cake over and over again. Strange as it may sound, returning to re-read my childhood favourites has become a therapeutic activity as I am transported to the days of innocence and simplicity.
As I entered Secondary school, my fixation on Mary-Kate and Ashley grew. I was constantly adding their books to my growing collection. Reading by then had become almost a consuming obsession as I was rarely seen without a book. I often find it so hard to put down a book because I wanted to get to the end, to know what eventually happened. I liked finishing books because they gave me a sense of gratification to ‘know’ what has happened. I remember clearly that the intensive reading program in school introduced me to ‘The Clay Marble’ by Minfong Ho which I enjoyed so much that I bought all her books. As I matured and realized that I enjoyed reading from a diverse number of writers, my appetite for books increased significantly and I was no longer satisfied with the books I could procure from Popular Bookstore. As much as I enjoyed and appreciated Catherine Lim and Adeline Yen-Mah’s works, I felt like I needed to be exposed to a variety of literature. I became a regular at a neighbourhood library, selecting books with the strangest of titles and forcing myself to read them because of my belief that I should not stick only with familiar writers. In this way, I read a couple of really obscure books which I never really understood. However, reading did not seem like a good obsession at all as I was often caught in class and reprimanded for hiding a novel between the pages of my textbook while the teacher was teaching.
JC life whizzed by really quickly and the amount of books I read decreased significantly. With the content heavy literature texts which I often found boring such as Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Natives and, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, I turned to the seemingly brainless genre of romance where I was allowed to live in an ideal world of relationships momentarily. I particularly enjoyed the works of authors introduced to me by my classmates such as Judith Butler, Sandra Brown and Diana Palmer. However, I was also introduced to playwrights such as Tennesse Williams, Harold Pinter and Eugene O’Neill, where I learnt to appreciate a different form of writing, from what I was used to. For once, a new style of writing was opened to me. I remember especially clearly how I enjoyed The Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, so much that I would even read the poems that I was not expected to know.
Sadly however, as I entered University, reading became almost a torture because the joy that I once found in reading was lost to the mad rush of finishing books in time for classes. With the crazy timetable, the joy I once found in reading was lost to me as book upon book was forced upon me and I hated how I was unable to linger over the stuff I read, thinking through issues and savouring bits of beautiful language. With 5 novels to complete every week, I hardly had time to relish my favourite romance books. Despite the heavy workload in University, I was introduced to a good many fantastic writers whom I truly appreciate especially Christina Rossi, Jeanette Winterson and Langston Hughes, all of whom I like for a different reason. These are the very same writers that I have taken with me into my leisurely reading hours. Apart from literary books, I also developed a new found interest in Jodi Picoult for her interest in exposing social issues and middle-eastern feminist literature, where I learn about the oppression that women faces even in this day and era. This interest in feminist issues was probably initiated when I was introduced to the works of Margaret Atwood, Aphra Behn and Mary Wollstonecraft in particular. It is hard to explain how these writers have all in their own ways caused me to start reflecting on social and gender issues which I am made increasingly aware of. Furthermore, as I was exposed to a whole range of local writers, I have came to the conclusion of the importance of cherishing our local works because of the value we can find in some of these books. Some of these authors such as Kuo Pao Koon and Christina Lim has really captured the essence of the local culture and spirit in my opinion. Reading local texts have also made me realize that we must no longer dismiss them as less than satisfactory writing because, it is in these works that our stylistics and culture can be best captured.
Having said so much, I should probably end of by saying that while I have less time to read now, I am still adding to my library that I am saving for my retirement, where I can like how I used to as a child, read as and when I like to and, as much as I please, in the absence of worldly worries. Reading is an important part of my life and I certainly hope that I will be able to pass on the joy and satisfaction I find in reading to my future charges.
No comments:
Post a Comment