In some countries, it is still possible to buy books with the pages uncut.

You take a blade and slice through the folds, hearing the papers as they rip. The page edges emerge ragged and personal, as individual as the hand that has cut them, innocent and crumbly as sandwich bread.

Thus you have the perfect opening to the ritual of reading – knifing a book to get to the pure heart within.

Vowel

June 19, 2009

How many of our childhood memories are spelt with words.

Teacher stood at the blackboard. ‘A’, she wrote. Then ‘E’, ‘I’, ‘O’. “Who knows what’s next?” she asked. “Anybody?” “‘U’!” I cried, jumping up and down in excitement, scuffing my white Bata shoes.

Then I glanced at the doorway, and saw that my parents were standing there spying on my progress, and Mother had tears in her eyes.

Loo

June 15, 2009

Why do we read when we go to the loo? What is it that makes us feel we cannot bear our own company, even during those most private of moments? Could it be that we cannot stand the immediacy of our own presence as we sit down furtively and fix our gaze on the back of the toilet door?

What is it about clearing our bowels that makes us feel we must ingest some words?

Why do we enter the lavatory clutching our books, as though reluctant to part with our literature for a few minutes, while we hardly ever step into a library?

Cram

June 14, 2009

For many years, I thought something was wrong with my book shelf.

It just didn’t contain things exactly the way I wanted it to. Some volumes would be too large for its shelves, others too tiny. There did not seem to be enough space for quirky books, out-of-the-way books, unexpected books and books of poetry. Encyclopedias would slip out and tumble to the floor. Cookbooks would pop out every which way.

Then I realised the problem was that I had a shelf in the first place. Life wanted to flow in untrammeled, and I was worried about whether everything would fit in nicely. So I broke my shelves, and now constantly resist the temptation to build new ones.

Lopsided

June 13, 2009

Reader, I envy you. It is so unfair. Our relationship is so lopsided.

By the time I finish writing my novel, assuming that I do, I would have spent several years working on it. You, on the other hand, would require only several hours, perhaps several days, to read it back to back. Or take this post, right here. I could have dedicated anything from three minutes to three hours preparing it. Yet you will need only thirty seconds to finish it.

And all this while, I should be grateful you read me at all.