On Reading - I

I am grateful to a mosquito. Bizarre but true! I was the perfect host, providing my uninvited guest with that nourishing drop of blood and, in return, it deposited in my veins the larvae and the consequent malarial fever which all of us try so hard to avoid. Mosquitoes are persistent little buggers* and despite all the precautions, there was I feverish, cross and confined to bed.

Doubters would wonder how I could possibly find the silver lining. Chills and sweats and bitter quinine are hardly the harbingers of halcyon skies. But there is one thing one can do very comfortably while lying in bed – read. I looked at all the titles on my bookshelf (some borrowed, some owned) waiting for that opportune breathing space. Was this to be it? Why not?

I picked up a light and frothy whodunit by an unfamiliar author (recommended by the library) which took care of day one. I found myself mulling over the kind of reader who could gush over such appalling triviality, a sketchy plot, oodles of amazingly wondrous settings and much too much gratuitous sex. And the blurbs on the dust jacket were ecstatic to say the least! Who was that who said, ‘Never judge a book by its cover’? I turned with alacrity to the familiar and well thumbed Agatha Christies and shed much of my irritation. On to PD James who bids fair to oust Christie from her ‘favourite’ position. James’ language and descriptive sketches – not least of the personalities that walk through her novels – are so wondrously absorbing. The reader actually meets the person and appears to live in the setting. And the prose is impeccable.

Lulled into a false sense of comfort, I became a little more adventurous and decided to sample another new author. Once again, the blurbs used adjectives in the superlative. Once again, I was left wondering about integrity in the world of publishing. Reviewers are supposed to be objective; though it is hard not to bring personal tastes to bear, surely if the work is not up to scratch it should not be foisted onto the unsuspecting reader? Peer reviews, which are a common trend, tend to put the reviewer in an invidious position and are therefore, in my very considered opinion, compromised!!

The book, which brought all this on, was nothing more than a collection of newspaper columns reporting various crimes. Since each successive report of the same crime was included, there was so much repetition, and the phrases ‘he said’, ‘he opined’, ‘he reiterated’ ‘he indicated’ concluded every sentence. Surely, the reports could have been collated and rewritten in more readable prose without negating the ‘true crime’ element? If this is what is required to write a ‘bestseller’, then all one has to do is accumulate clippings from the local newspaper and collate them into a single volume.

Perversely, I tried yet another new author. This time I laughed my way from cover to cover. No literary pretentions here. Another whodunit set in New Delhi, the narrative evoked the sights, sounds, smells and personalities of the locality so colourfully that it was impossible not to enjoy. Good ‘time pass’ to use a local phrase. I may not seek out this author (Tarquin Hall), but if another of his works comes my way, I will not turn up my nose. The review (in a magazine) was honest and reality met expectation.

I love to read and will continue to dip and delve and explore. Reading is like life – you have to take the bad with the good. Forget the first and savour the latter.

*One of the recent reference texts that came my way was titled ‘Teaching the Buggers to Write’, so I guess that’s one bit of slang that is now mainstream and I have taken the liberty of using it!