My Reading Adventure Thus Far...(Zaidah)

"She was so deep into her book that no one could find her, and she was safe from the world."

~I had read a similar quote somewhere and fell in love with it

            My first foray into the world of reading began on my mother's lap as she voraciously read to her young children, using the reading sessions as opportunities not only to broaden minds but to inculcate a sense of curiosity and love for language and culture. I absorbed every detail with relish and later discussed, or argued, with my mom about the plot of the stories and, when I was slightly older, passionately debated the way words were meant to be pronounced--I remember "island" being one of our biggest contentions. As a child, I always had books around the house--some bought, many passed down to me (an advantage of having a big extended family and many cousins who moved on from their books very quickly). Although my first "reading" experiences came in the form of stories being narrated to me, I quickly learnt to read on my own, thanks to my mother.

            I read a variety of genres as a child. I remember reading many children's stories that came with advice ("The moral of the story is...) at the end of the narrative. I learnt about the virtues of honesty and kindness, amongst other things, through those stories. I also read children's Islamic and biblical stories at a young age; my parents did not restrict what I read. Once, when I was in primary 1 or 2, I picked up a teenage fiction book from a pile of books that was given to me by a cousin who was already in secondary school and got introduced to the "fascinating" world of courtship which later left me unsettled because of the hand-holding and kissing scenes I had read about in the novel. I was traumatised for a while. In primary school, I loved the reading sessions that my teacher would periodically hold in class with big books contaning huge printed words and adorable, colourful characters. Once, I wasn't allowed to participate (I was at my desk instead of sitting on the floor like everyone else listening to the story) because I had not completed a Maths assignment (I was never a Maths person), and I felt bitter. However, I was so enthralled by the story that I neglected my work to listen to the story being read. My teacher soon realised that I was not doing my Maths sums and told me off. I don't know how it happened but after I got caught, I somehow managed to complete my entire worksheet in mere minutes (I "bled" for the love of books) and could enjoy, not join, the reading session. My teacher called my mother up to complain about my "bad behaviour", citing "concerns" that I was bothered by external factors and so was not able to concentrate on my work. My mother got very worried and we had a chat about the possible causes of my distraction in class. I never said anything--because there really was no cause for worry--but my mom came to the conclusion that I could not focus in class because she had not given me a toy (and some other things) that I had asked for some days before that and that I was thinking about those things. Needless to say, I got everything I asked for--in exchange for the promise that I would pay attention in class--and it was only fairly recently that I confessed to my mother that I had just wanted to listen to the story and didn't complete my assignment on time because I was bored and tired. No, I did not get into trouble. Reading sessions in primary school were happy times for me.

            I was also captured by fairy tales, horror stories, Enid Blyton books, and encyclopaedias and science books in primary school. I read Disney and non-Disney fairy tales, preferring the Disney ones because the latter proved a little frightening (the little mermaid turned into bubbles and disappeared! The horror! The horror!). I also always looked for the movie versions of the tales, but I would found myself disconcerted because there was always something that didn't match--missing plots in the book that was portrayed in the movie, the movie didn't follow the plot in the book closely etc.. Russell Lee's True Singapore Ghost Stories also played a big role in my reading adventures as a young reader. My brother and I never fail to get the new edition of the books each time they get released. We've also submitted stories and fan letters to Russell Lee, and once I won 1st prize  for a letter I had sent in and got $150 (I think) from Angsana Books. I was over the moon! I've also met the man himself twice, assuming the Mr. Lee who turned up at the events was the same person both times! There were downsides to reading the stories--many sleepless nights filled with fear, an imagination that stayed in overdrive mode for weeks, and upset parents who had to endure many weeks of being woken up in the middle of the night for toilet duties. My brother and I never gave up reading the True Singapore Ghost Stories series, and we later got our sister hooked to the books (hence triggering another cycle of fear, paranoia and toilet duties).

            Like many of my peers, Enid Blyton's books filled my reading list. However, I did not really fancy the long novels or the adventure stories. I preferred the short stories, especially the ones that revolved around fairies, gnomes and pixies that live in the garden and have cupcake parties with human children. I was upset for the longest time that I did not have a garden or backyard where I could make merry with fantasy creatures that I had to keep safe from my parents (also known as disbelieving, world-weary beings who have forgotten the magic they had known as children, and the fairies would attest to that). I was also intrigued by encyclopaedias and science books because of the vast amount of information in them. I learnt about Egyptian royalty, the oceans, and the animal kingdom, among various other things, from encyclopaedias, and how to make pinhole cameras, volcano magma, and how to test for static energy from science books. It was probably because I was shy as a child (my teachers may disagree) that I looked for adventures to go on from encyclopaedias and science books instead of getting into other kinds of trouble (again, we can agree to disagree).

            It was in secondary school that I got exposed to "proper" literature--unabridged versions of texts, the Bard, and poetry other than those I used to write or read in autograph books. I was especially enamoured by Shakespearean plays because I did not know that I could actually understand and appreciate works written in a language I was not used to reading. I also loved the way my Literature teacher analysed the stories we read in class. It was probably in secondary school that I realised that Literature and I would be passionate lovers. However, life in school was not easy (I thought being 16 was a curse, then I turned 18!) because of the rigours of the academic and school systems I was in, and I found myself turning to self-help books for comfort. The Chicken Soup series, among others of a similar genre, was a faithful companion. I learnt about how other people coped with their pain and loss and how I could overcome my hurdles. I gained insights into how to view life from the lens of another and about empathy from the stories that I read.

            In junior college, Shakespeare's presence was still a big part of my literary journey, but I was also introduced to World Literatures then. I read The Caretaker by Indian author R.K. Narayan, and The Woman Warrior by Chinese American author Maxine Hong Kingston, among other shorter pieces of writing from different parts of the world (Irish, African texts etc.), as part of my college's Literature syllabus. I had been contented with the world filled with fairies and gnomes and dwarfs that existed in my head, but a whole new world unveiled itself in front of me in college. I also realised that up until then I had been reading works mainly from the English literary canon and texts by authors of Eurocentric persuasion. I did not have much time or space to read many other works then (junior college was crazy!), but it was the exposure that I got in Lit class that solidified my decision to major in English in university later on. I also discovered Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho one day as a lacklustre junior college student randomly scanning the shelves in the school library, looking for nothing in particular except the license to self-aggrandise, something I thought books would allow me to do for I viewed the browsing of the Literature section of the library and the study of Literature as highly intellectual activities. Mr. Coelho changed my life, and until today he remains one of my favourite writers. 

            When I decided to major in English in university, I knew I was in for a whale of a time, and I was right. I was lucky that the English department I belonged to offered a wide variety of courses and I got to immerse myself in many great literary works (and jargons!). I also read the writings of many international authors, and Postmodernist, Victorian, African, Feminist and Asian diaspora texts delighted me greatly. I read the likes of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Thomas Pynchon and Flann O'Brien for my final year project where I sought to prove (hopefully successfully) that ideals postulated by Postmodernism could exist harmoniously with religious ideals. In grad school, I pursued research in feminist studies in Arab literature. I read works by prominent Arab writers such as Nawal el-Saadawi, Naguib Mahfouz and Hanan al-Shaykh, and I researched on the growth of feminism in the Arab world. I am also interested in the various religions' views on feminism, having researched on Islamic, Christian and Jewish feminism, parts of which I included in my thesis. Women's rights will always be a passion of mine, and I foresee myself engaging in more feminist discourse and research.

            And now, for one of the biggest crises for a Luddite (oops!) like me: Should I get a Kindle?