On Reading a Book
Someone gave me the book, "The Kite Runner" about a month ago, who said that it was her most favorite book and who wanted me to read it. Of course, true to my style, I made insulting comments about the book the moment it was given to me, thus leading to reactions such as, "...You made fun of my book the minute I gave it to you and I don't forget that easily! You can't get away with that kinda thing." (She perhaps never expected me to read this book, or at least she claimed that it did not matter; but I anyhow started reading the book and hope to finish it soon. But that is a sidenote!)
However, I have not yet reached the page 100 of this 300+ page book and hence I cannot comment on it. However, I noticed a few things that made me write this.
This same person often passionately 'ridicules' me for my stand that everything in life is grey, instead of the usually perceived black-and-white. (I put ridicule within quotes, because the ridicule is usually in a friendly way! I say usually, because sometimes it's done not in the friendly way!). Also once when I told her that I think that if there is a God, he has much better and important things to do than to worry about my petty problems, she 'vehemently' protested against this statement of mine and said that God has time for everything and everyone.
But then, when I started reading "The Kite Runner", her most favorite book, I came across a couple of sentences which are exactly in tune with what I said. On page 15, what I read was: "The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little." Then, a few pages later (perhaps it was page 18) I also read: "If there's a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork."
Did she possibly not read this in the book she loves most, and notice it? Was it that the grey talk she heard from me was the first time she heard this? If she is so opposed to my aloof, nonchalant stand, how could she digest that statement in the book so easily?
I have not yet finished the book, and so my words here will be based on speculation. She reads, she thinks and things that she sees pains her (On the contrary, nothing pains me, because I see everything in grayscale!); she is an intelligent person.
Why did then she overlook it? Actually, I do not know. As I mentioned, my words are based on speculations. It could be that she read and remembered those phrases in the book. It could be just that she did not agtree with them, and when I said the same things, she found them even more disagreeable, coming from a live person in real-life talking! I don't know.
Psycho-analysis of somebody is not what I do for a living, or as a hobby! I am not qualified to do so; nor do I like it. What I want to write here, instead, is a thing or two I feel about reading a book (with, obviously, some blatant self-appraisal).
When we read a book, often we like certain things and dislike some others, while remaining pretty neutral to some other things said in the same book. If the same book is given to a few different people to read, what each of them remembers is a subjective matter. What points intrigue or interest me need not make any impact on you. The same could be said about a bunch of people watching the same movie in the same room. Each of them would have a differnt story to tell, if they are asked to descirbe the movie. It's kind of Rashomon!
I generally retain much of a book (or a movie, for that matter) when I read it. It's not because I'm smart; it's just a by-product of the way I read a book. I like to keep going back and forth, read and re-read many of the lines and incidents, and then at a point, I retain many of these things. It could also be the by-product of the fact that I live in a virtual world, with not much to do, without many friends or many real-life distractions. And so, when I read a book, perhaps I can put my whole into it. I do not know!
(When I was doing my last years of school, I met a couple of friends, who knew that I usually studied for very short time and that too, only sporadically. They also noticed that I often used to sit in darkness outside the dorm and just gaze somewhere. This made one of them, P, comment that, "Studying for him is like meditation", because he thought that I used to sit outside and think and analyze what I read. Nothing could be further from the truth!
However, the fact remains that I rarely opened a textbook and so when I studied, I could put my whole heart into it, and retained almost everything I read. But then, even while reading textbooks, I, like everyone else, had things that I liked and remembered, and things that I disliked and never cared to remember!
The other friend, S, once remarked that he used to get nervous when he saw all our classmates studying dilligently; as far as I was concenred, however, he said he felt similarly when he saw me not studying but playing cricket instead.)
This same person often passionately 'ridicules' me for my stand that everything in life is grey, instead of the usually perceived black-and-white. (I put ridicule within quotes, because the ridicule is usually in a friendly way! I say usually, because sometimes it's done not in the friendly way!). Also once when I told her that I think that if there is a God, he has much better and important things to do than to worry about my petty problems, she 'vehemently' protested against this statement of mine and said that God has time for everything and everyone.
But then, when I started reading "The Kite Runner", her most favorite book, I came across a couple of sentences which are exactly in tune with what I said. On page 15, what I read was: "The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little." Then, a few pages later (perhaps it was page 18) I also read: "If there's a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork."
Did she possibly not read this in the book she loves most, and notice it? Was it that the grey talk she heard from me was the first time she heard this? If she is so opposed to my aloof, nonchalant stand, how could she digest that statement in the book so easily?
I have not yet finished the book, and so my words here will be based on speculation. She reads, she thinks and things that she sees pains her (On the contrary, nothing pains me, because I see everything in grayscale!); she is an intelligent person.
Why did then she overlook it? Actually, I do not know. As I mentioned, my words are based on speculations. It could be that she read and remembered those phrases in the book. It could be just that she did not agtree with them, and when I said the same things, she found them even more disagreeable, coming from a live person in real-life talking! I don't know.
Psycho-analysis of somebody is not what I do for a living, or as a hobby! I am not qualified to do so; nor do I like it. What I want to write here, instead, is a thing or two I feel about reading a book (with, obviously, some blatant self-appraisal).
When we read a book, often we like certain things and dislike some others, while remaining pretty neutral to some other things said in the same book. If the same book is given to a few different people to read, what each of them remembers is a subjective matter. What points intrigue or interest me need not make any impact on you. The same could be said about a bunch of people watching the same movie in the same room. Each of them would have a differnt story to tell, if they are asked to descirbe the movie. It's kind of Rashomon!
I generally retain much of a book (or a movie, for that matter) when I read it. It's not because I'm smart; it's just a by-product of the way I read a book. I like to keep going back and forth, read and re-read many of the lines and incidents, and then at a point, I retain many of these things. It could also be the by-product of the fact that I live in a virtual world, with not much to do, without many friends or many real-life distractions. And so, when I read a book, perhaps I can put my whole into it. I do not know!
(When I was doing my last years of school, I met a couple of friends, who knew that I usually studied for very short time and that too, only sporadically. They also noticed that I often used to sit in darkness outside the dorm and just gaze somewhere. This made one of them, P, comment that, "Studying for him is like meditation", because he thought that I used to sit outside and think and analyze what I read. Nothing could be further from the truth!
However, the fact remains that I rarely opened a textbook and so when I studied, I could put my whole heart into it, and retained almost everything I read. But then, even while reading textbooks, I, like everyone else, had things that I liked and remembered, and things that I disliked and never cared to remember!
The other friend, S, once remarked that he used to get nervous when he saw all our classmates studying dilligently; as far as I was concenred, however, he said he felt similarly when he saw me not studying but playing cricket instead.)
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