Jan 27, 2011

The way only a book can

I have been thinking of expressing it somehow....my love for books, though I cannot pride myself on reading too many of them, neither on the variety of whatever I have read.  But when I see a book, the cover, the images, that give an identity to what lies inside, I feel a strong rope pulling me to the story, my curiosity urging me to delve inside and float in the words that weave a life, a chain of events, that become your and yours alone.

A book is like a hidden secret.  You cannot see or survey it. You cannot find what the next paragraph offers, until you move into it, until you are dragged into the web of the story.  As in films, you are not supposed to fast forward, if an uninteresting plot passes by.  You have to go through the piece, just like you have to go through your life, the good, as well as the bad, finding you irresistible, unwilling to let go of you, indifferent to your judgements, and still leaving you elated or shattered...time and again.

The characters are yours, and nobody else's because the book doesn't force you with a face, you can imagine one; the words only show the way, never holding your hand and pulling you to a definition.  You are free to visualise, to think of what it must have been like.  You read a book, but make your own story.  That way, it gets immensely personal...each person may have utterly emotional connections with the story...a dialogue, an expression, a turn of event, a betrayal of expectation and hope...and much more..

Whenever I start a book, I start with an indifferent attitude, but soon it hooks me, and I cannot let go...this happenes usually when I am more than half way through the book.  I cannot wait to complete it.  It is then, that I can relinquish everything ....food, sleep, water, or even moving my posture.....just to get to the end of the book.  When I near the ends of a book, I feel as if a tremendous event is going to befall, a change of season, a quake, the end of a life, or the beginning of a new one.  Almost invariably, I shiver and tremble when I am in the last few pages...my mind rushing with how it will end.  But when I trail past the last of the lines, nothing changes.  All I feel is emptiness. A cruel emptiness, angry at the book, for ending.  Angry at the writer for ending it. Angry at myself for reading it so fast.  Sad, that it will not haunt my days any more. 

It leaves you broken, and at the same time stronger, it leaves you melted, takes you out of your world, your body, your life, and leaves you in darkness, sadness, danger, threat and fear, and it leaves a mark on your mind, on your memory, in your heart, ......the way, only a book can.

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