(Un) Natural Born Reader

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Less than a week ago, in the middle of a dinner, a friend of mine told me that another friend of mine told her that he thought I have changed, socially, so to speak. According to this vague friend, the old me (of whom he apparently prefers) would have routinely joined any nearby herd, tagged along updating myself with some new buzzing gossips, and cracked some loud hillarious jokes, not to mention did things for reason of madness and spontaneity alone. The present me, as my friend put it, would only sit silently, reading a book, and being ignorant of the surrounding. I don’t know for a fact whether he was regretting that I turned into an inadaptive self-isolating alien or expressing sadness for losing a hip friend. I do know he put an emphasis on reading.

On All Radar

This week alone, I have so far accumulated comments about my reading habit from six different people. These aren’t people who ask what I read, but question my reading behavior. This is a breaking record considering today (when I write this sentence) is only Wednesday. I feel a bit skidded off the main track of normalcy. There should be some perspective to put me back in the ‘Regular Joe’ category and then feel relief.

The first approach I was drawn to use was to point some finger to someone else. I read averagely 300 pages a week, while my sister does 300 in just two days, and she appears to does so without much efforts. That should say something about being normal. But then again, it could be that none of us is normal; and that text consumption was just in our book-crazed genes --the Jusuf Gene (though she has more of it). This point-finger approach just doesn’t work.

This one I think is the right one. Back in college, much more time to read was available. I can easily left the books in my backpack untouched, put off the drive to read for a while (the same drive I still have today), knowing in nighttime I would have hours uninterrupted. And for years the avid readers in me have passed his days undetected. Now, dedicated reading time is only available for less and less. Reading is now inevitably reallocated in bizzare times: for five minutes after parking in, for five minutes before parking out, for fifteen minutes to half-hour between work, for five minutes before teaching, for any time left between after buying ticket and seconds before the movie starts, etc --clearly most of them are in public space. Moreover, after we --my college friends and I-- graduated, almost none of them are around to talk to. Restoring my old suppressed habit just seemed natural --at campus included. The book bug is now on everyone’s radar.

Freak of Nature

The habit was not just restored, I think it also rocketed. It didn’t just come back, it wanted more. For some time, I think of why I read anything. I have tasted cliché-ishly arguing myself that books (and other reading sources) are the pleasant kingdom of ideas. I have retired it as a primary reason, not because it is false, but because I believe there must have been more private reason(s), one(s) that need not be philosophical.

It turned out, I realized later, that it is wasn’t only what I read that matters, but also who wrote them. I seem to make praises to the author first. Those on the contents will come next. After reading any book, I will google up its author and be amazed of who and what he/she is. This product of culture I call, and have taken for granted as, “text” is the closest thing a non-outgoing individual like me to making social contact with people with various professions and, for the lack of a stylish term, personalities. Man, did I get to meet an atheist scientists, a part-time-novelist comedian, a self-investigating illed neuroscientist, a dead ancient greek philopher, a pessimist white-trash, an ex-nun, a hired economy assassin, a historian/mathematician codebreaker, and --whom I envy the most-- a 23-year-old The Economist journalist. And list goes on. Although I make many enough friends in real life, it is my imaginative literary acquaintances who offer me varieties of life.

However, the act of reading itself, in my case, (that word “case” just turned myself in a clinical box) is something I think I need to watch very closely. When I read, I don’t just read, I read (half) outloud. By that, I pretend that the speeches that come out belong to the author whose book I am reading. I don’t ignore people when I read. I don’t ignore people at all. I may not engage in an interaction, but I don’t ignore them. Ignoring is something I don’t do. It is just I am in the middle of a conversation, too. Someone is telling me a great story though only through the sound I made myself. And the sound of speech of someone explaining something --the intonation, the pauses, the sound of consonant and vowels-- is like music. It is something worth paying hard attention to (and makes other things seems disregarded). That music is somewhat addictive. And it made my reading rate is naturally for me, as opposed to unnaturally to most others, escalating.

At some parts, if not many, of that argument I can see that I sounded weird. I began to see my friend’s point (if it was his point). He may just be right. Maybe now I am an alien.

Natural Freak of Nature (saved by a penguin)

At one night, in the middle of staring at those sky-scraping stacks of books on my table (and what a beautiful view it was!), I realized that more than half of my collections, at least the ones on that table, are Penguin books. This dominance happened without my intention. Because I don’t know much about book publishing business (matter of fact, I’m completely business-blind that even if I had all the knowledge in the world I will still have the greatest difficulities to turn them into any kind of financial triumph), my explanations on this trivial puzzle sounds highly subjective.

First, I judge the book by its cover and I probably cannot help but to stand the first in line to defy anyone who says otherwise. I say: “Good books deserves good covers, and (good) publishers realize this!” It’s probably also because that there is still left in me the graphic designers/ illustrator/ visual communicator. I couldn’t just sit still witnessing a fail art. If there is a good book hideously covered, I will make one for it --my private and better version of it-- as soon as I purchase it. Penguin makes good covers. Second, I think it’s because --and this is as I told you, highly subjective-- Nick Hornby, my favorite fiction writer seems to have a special professional association with Penguin (and I don’t fancy much fiction writing). Penguin even made him his personal website. And yes, I love covers Penguin made for all Hornby’s books (I collect them, all versions of them).

I don’t know what it is about the logo, but there’s something about that penguin with its head facing its left that I just can’t help but enjoy looking at. I don’t know what the logo means (all I know is that it was beautifully designed by an English 17th century poet by the name of Edward Young), but I know someday I’ll get it just like I mostly get any other logos. In fact, I don’t even know where the name Penguin came from (not even Wikipedia is much help). Publishing houses sometimes name themselves after the name of their founders (as in the case of Harper-Collins and McGraw-Hill, to name a few) or universities they belong to (Harvard Press, Oxford, etc). Other times, they choose a metaphor, a word or phrase, to describe how they aim to aspire their readers, like Phoenix (“We publish books that soars”). My favorite of this kind is Gramedia, of which the name has an ambiguous meaning: “The House of Books” (Grha + Media) or “The Heavy-weight Books” (Gram + Media).

The name Penguin didn’t make any association to literary culture that ring a bell to me (it’s cold, too black-and-white, etc). But I know this for sure. Penguin is the only publishing company that put a stamp saying “read more” on its back-cover. It’s perfect and there’s no better place for it. So when I’m done reading, as I close the book and still feeling happily enlightened, there it was, a message waiting the on back for me, and only me, “read more, dih.” That’s a beautiful thing to say. And so I’ll comply.

Now I think I sound sane.