Old Books and Old Writers
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Old Books and Old Writers
It's different if you are reading an actual book in your hands, as oppose to reading a book from your computer screen. By a book, I am talking about the ones with black and white pages, bound together and carefully numbered at the bottom. The kind of books with a front and a back cover, the kind with a very distinct smell of old paper and ink, and the kind with a spine with the author's name and the title of the book on it. The kind of book you slot a bookmark into, the kind that requires your fingers to flip the pages instead of the clicking of your mouse. I am sure, if you search hard enough on the internet, you can find every modern classics there is to find, all scanned and uploaded onto a website. That's how advanced our technology is these days, the way we can read books just by downloading them from the internet. But there is something wrong with that, don't you think? It'd be like replacing the function of our legs with conveyor belts, or replacing the function of our brains with microchips. You can always replace mail with e-mail, replace your pets with electronic dogs, but you just cannot replace books with anything else. Books are books, there isn't another way to it, whatsoever.
It's different if you are reading an actual book in your hands, as oppose to reading a book from your computer screen. By a book, I am talking about the ones with black and white pages, bound together and carefully numbered at the bottom. The kind of books with a front and a back cover, the kind with a very distinct smell of old paper and ink, and the kind with a spine with the author's name and the title of the book on it. The kind of book you slot a bookmark into, the kind that requires your fingers to flip the pages instead of the clicking of your mouse. I am sure, if you search hard enough on the internet, you can find every modern classics there is to find, all scanned and uploaded onto a website. That's how advanced our technology is these days, the way we can read books just by downloading them from the internet. But there is something wrong with that, don't you think? It'd be like replacing the function of our legs with conveyor belts, or replacing the function of our brains with microchips. You can always replace mail with e-mail, replace your pets with electronic dogs, but you just cannot replace books with anything else. Books are books, there isn't another way to it, whatsoever.
My love for the books has been abandoned and neglected for way too long I am afraid, so long that it took me painfully long just to finish Lucky Jim, a book that is just slightly over two hundred pages. I feel ashamed of myself, yet somewhat accomplished. It has been too long since I actually sat down in a quiet place to finish a book, and I guess the opportunity doesn't get any better than this long and hot summer holiday of mine. People seem to be busying themselves with their daily affairs, trotting about in the blazing hot sun and minding their own businesses without a time to just sit down and chill out at all. People are going overseas, traveling to distant cities for shopping sprees, hanging out on their own in virtual worlds or simply locking themselves up in their bedrooms and doing nothing much at all. Whatever their activities may be, they certain do not involve me by any measurement that I know of, which is probably why the books that have been left unread on my shelves have suddenly become my very good friends. This makes me a horrible owner, a horrible friend, and a horrible person. Nonetheless, these books do not complain, they do not whine. They do not shun away from you when they have a bad mood. They are always ready to please you, always ready to entertain. I love books, and I am sorry that I have allowed the dust to grow so thick on you.
Lucky Jim is a great book, but then it might just be one of those books you feel good about because you haven't read one in ages. I am not sure why I wasn't able to get pass the first twenty pages the first time round when I tried to read it. You know how it is with new books, you tend to take a while before the style of the writer sinks in, and another period of time before you gain actual momentum of the narrative. I guess the flow just never caught on to me the last time I took a shot at the book, and it has been sorely neglected I'm afraid. Anyhow, at the beginning of the holidays with nothing to do, I decided that it was about time to pick out a book that I have not read yet, and forced myself to finish at least one of them from the start till the finish. Lucky Jim turned out to be that book, but I didn't need to force myself through this time around. Kingsley Amis has this brilliant style of writing that put forth the old British humor so well, that it was such a joy reading really. The book is about James "Jim" Dixon, an history lecturer at an university in England, being the understudy of Professor Welch. Jim isn't particularly enthusiastic about his job, but at the same time he had to suck up and please a professor that he didn't like, and his family whom he didn't fancy all that much either. But there's the catch, the beautiful girlfriend of Welch's son, Christine. Her presence complicated things, and the book is choked with how Jim desperately tries to wriggle himself out of tight and awkward situations.
Modern writers differ from postmodern writers, the way the people in old photographs look different from the people in the new ones. It's not the quality of the pictures, or the type of photographs taken. The people of the past just have this look in their faces that is unique to them somehow, something which I cannot pinpoint myself. There is a certain style of writing that is only capable of by the writers of the past, though that is not to say the postmodern writers are, in any way, inferior to them. They have different writing styles, and certain aspects of that style is just so irresistible and alluring for me, as a reader. Writers of the past have a way with romance, and I must say that I am a sucker even for a genre like that. The way they write of the kinds of emotions that go through one's mind while they are in love, or even the kind of struggles involved is simply unsurpassable. And of course, they do not writer humor the way that we write humor.
It might be the work of paparazzi, or just the over-exposure of celebrities these days that has caused a certain decline in their status. In the past, movie actors were seen as demigods of sorts, simply because you know so little about them aside from the movies that they make. Actors and actresses in the old movies tend to have this aura of greatness around them, a sort of surrealism that cannot be matched by the ones working in the industry today. How I wish, to be transported back into the past, and watch an Audrey Hepburn film for the very first time without any memories of ever having my eyes upon the most beautiful woman to walk the face of this planet. The characters in these old book written in the past have the same god-like quality to them somehow, as I have observed while reading this book. I mean, they were not purposefully written to be any more different from us, but there is just something so different and timeless about these characters. The villains are just so hateful, the protagonists are just so likable, and the women are always so unbearably beautiful.
I love reading books, I love everything about it. If there is one thing in this world I am willing to spend money on without much thought, it'd be books. I love the feeling of it between my hands, the thought of reading a book until dawn, or just being completely immersed amidst the story and to live amongst a bunch of fictional characters. As you can see, the love for books is life-controlling.
*
Bertrand rose to his feet again and faced Dixon with his legs slightly apart. He spoke in a level tone, but his teeth were clenched. 'Just get this straight in your so-called mind. When I see something I want, I go for it. I don't allow people of your sort to stand in my way. That's what you're leaving out of account. I'm having Christine because it's my right. Do you understand that? If I'm after something, I don't care what I do to make sure that I get it. That's the only law I abide by; it's the only way to get things in this world. The trouble with you, Dixon, is that you're simply not up to my weight. If you want to fight, pick someone your own size, then you might stand a chance. With me you just haven't a hope in hell.'Dixon moved a pace nearer. 'You're getting a bit too old for that to work any more, Welch,' he said quickly. 'People aren't going to skip out of your path indefinitely. You think that just because you're tall and can put paint on canvas you're a sort of demigod. It wouldn't be so bad if you really were. But you''re not: you're a twister and a snob and a bully and a fool. You think you're sensitive, but you're not: your sensitivity only works for things that people do to you. Touchy and vain, yes, but not sensitive.' He paused, but Bertrand was only staring at hom, making no attempt to interrupt. Dixon went on: 'You've got the idea that you're a great lover, but that's wrong too: you're so afraid of me, who's nothing more than a louse according to you, that you have to marsh in here and tell me to keep off the grass like a heavy husband. And you're so dishonest that you can tell me how important Christine is to you without it entering your head that you're carrying on with some other chap's wife all the time. It's not just that that I object to; it's the way you never seem to reflect how insincere...''What that bloody hell are you talking about?' Bertrand's breath was whistling through his nose. He clenched his fists.'Your spot of the old slap and tickle with Carol Goldsmith. that's what I'm talking about.''I don't know what you're talking...''Oh, my dear fellow, don't start denying it. Why bother, anyway? Surely it's just one of the things you have because it's your right, isn't it?''If you ever tell this tale to Christine, I'll break your neck into so many...''It's all right, I'm not the sort to do that,' Dixon said with a grin. 'I'm not like you. I can take Christine away from you without that, you Byronic tail-chaser.''All right, you've got it coming,' Bertrand bayed furiously. ' I warned you, you dirty little bar-fly, you nasty little jumped-up turd.''What are we going to do, dance?'
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on Sunday, May 04, 2008 at 12:29 AM.
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