Encore & Other Thoughts

I thought books in a great measure had lost their power over me, and I could never revive the same interest in them as formerly. The reason being the obvious that after we’ve spent enough time pursuing our passions or hobbies, whatever you call it, their charm on us begins to wear thin for a while, but the dying embers still remain, and when a chance wind blows over them, they put us by our best thoughts! Isn’t it true that we ‘perceive’ when a thing is good, rather than ‘feel’ it?


At times the existence of this blog, where I write only about books, depresses me a lot for it presents a picture that is indifferent, mute, and lost in itself, seldom caring about the external world. Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. My parents have never read books, or for that matter their parents as well, but they are refined and cultured too. And in the house opposite the window where I write this there are laborers, who like the huge mass of mankind eat and drink, and sleep…..I mean why they should even care what Dickens or Hardy wrote. They move on hardly caring or rather ignorant of all those finely writ theories, philosophies and distinctions that have made ‘us’ lie prostrate on the feet of bards and writers, and what do they know or care about what I am writing about them or what men have written about other men? They are survivors, who care nothing about our scribbling; they are the ones who show there’s life and hope outside of books!


Now, reader, do not let those contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm current of your reflections on books, for confused souls like me would always disharmonize your thoughts and would make you wonder with silly eyes at a far more sillier world! All I wanted to say is that, I was in such a mood before I revived my not-so-auld passion for reading, and my auld delight in books. No wonder old habits die hard!


So, dear reader, whenever you feel that the idle vein is returning upon you, and you sense that you’re no longer interested in books, I suggest that you take a break from the “words” of contemporary literature, and visit the finely spun sentences of the great Victorians. And, as I had said somewhere that antiquity when revived after ages it acquires a queer grace of novelty and believe me that’s a welcome relief from the dark humour of present day compositions!


For reasons unknown I had a strong itch to return to works that I had already read, in spite of the unread section lying as an unscaled mountain but Henchard simply seemed irresistible! Once seduced, there is a newly acquired confidence and security in the second seduction, as you are assured that you will get what is expected. In other words the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. On reading a book for the second time you not only have the pleasure of imagination and a heightened appreciation for the writer (in my case it is Hardy), but you also have the added pleasure of memories. Memories that make you re-live the same feelings and associations which you had during your first read, and which you are sure that you can never have again in any other way. Boy! It’s like falling in love with the same person all over again!


Periods of such inadvertent swerves saw me applying my knuckles on the doors of Catherine & Heathcliff, and of course the o’Hara babe! It was like visiting the times when early youth fluttered (and Kishore sings pehle bhi main tujhe baahon mein leke jhooma kiya aur jhooma kiya……), a silly romantic pleasure that thrills you, bringing back to mind images of the day when you had got it, the place where you sat to read it, the feeling of the air, and all your early impressions with them. Boy, that’s heavy! No wonder, I am being carried away, but that’s exactly how they impinge on you. At some point of time I even convinced myself that these characters, this countryside, and these feelings that came across me as I retraced the stories and devoured every page are much better than any modern novel that I had ever read. Boy, what an ecstasy it was when I hung I silence over pages where Hardy talks about the “bees and butterflies” of Casterbridge, or when Henchard meets Susan after eighteen years and simply chooses to say, “I don’t drink…….you hear Susan?- I don’t drink now-I haven’t since that night.”; and boy, what language of thought can ever describe the scene where Elizabeth-Jane discovers the dead body of a goldfinch, and if that’s not enough Hardy comes up with Henchard’s will, and then there’s nothing but silence……….a ghostly silence that engulfs all!


Man, Hardy thou maketh tragedy sweet!


If Casterbridge was silently witnessing the irony of fate then Wuthering Heights filled itself with sound. Every scene coming with its concomitant of a storm or rushing wind. A constant sound that seemed to me more important than words and thoughts. The novel is great, but I cannot remember anything in it apart from Heathcliff and Catherine; people who set the ball rolling with their separation and then close it with their union in death!


In most ways I was sorry to get to the end of them but I wouldn’t mind treading these lanes once again in the near future.