Emblems of a Secret Brotherhood

Emblems of a Secret Brotherhood

Only a small percentage of my reading diet consists of fiction these days. It is not that I do not like reading novels---one can actually learn quite a lot too from reading fiction--just that good novels often affect me emotionally.

Stephen King said in the introduction to his short story anthology, Skeleton Crew, that a short story is like a "kiss in the dark" while a novel is like a "love affair". I fully agree with that.

In immersing oneself in a work of fiction, one grows to love or hate its characters; characters which one lives together with over days, weeks or even months. Coming out from a good book, one feels like one has just awaken from a dream--reluctantly, at times.

When I read it a decade ago, Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being affected me deeply. It's effects are still reverberating in my mind even now. In this case, it is more than an affair--it is a marriage.

One of the characters in the novel, Tereza, (played by Juliette Binoche in the movie adaptation) was clutching the book Anna Karenina by Tolstoy when she first met the hero, Tomas (played by Daniel-Day Lewis). She, a small-town girl, hoping to escape from her dreary existence, was proud to show that she is different from the rest of the people in the town. The book that she is reading becomes a differentiating symbol "because books are emblems of a secret brotherhood" --as Kundera so eloquently put it.

We delight in knowing that someone else has also read a book that we have. It is like having a mutual friend. And we bond immediately.

I can think of so many books that have influenced me deeply throughout my life. (Each of these could be the subject of one blog entry--but I'll spare my readers the torment). I have written in a previous posting, suggesting light-heartedly, that people are more important than books--because people are like books, only better ones.

It is also true the other way round. The greatest influences in my life are not people I've known or met but books I have read. Books have a reality and existence that is as important as people.

Whenever I see an interesting new novel in the bookstore, I would hesitate and my heart would palpitate--it's almost like meeting someone you find attractive--and I wonder what kind of dangerously exciting paths will it lead me down.

These days, I often "play safe" by reading non-fiction. At least, the experience is only limited to an intellectual one. But I could be missing out a hell lot.