Detached Thoughts on Books

Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that I love to lose myself in other men’s minds. I cannot sit and think. Books do that for me. Period.

I should thank the Native for tearing me away from the growing fascinations of having a threesome with cough, cold, and cramp, and that my dear readers, I know, is a bad alliteration. Ahem! Ahem! So the Native and I decided to meet at the book fair, and hold your breath guys, was I walking with a Gulliver by my side, I mean my body had an additional cramp in the neck by the time I returned home. So much for ‘high-talking’!!

If you are a book lover from my city and you still haven’t visited the fair, then guys you just lost the chance of buying Shantaram for just a hundred. Yes, you heard me right, the ‘old books’ market just got better this time, the collection is absolutely seductive, and what more, it is cheap too. But, it turned out that the Native had a queer repulsion for second-hand books, and he kept buzzing in my ear, “god, how can you have something that had been in somebody else’s mouth”, (yeah, he actually said that), and he wouldn’t even let me read the blurb. “Dude, I’m not going to put these in my mouth, so it doesn’t matter, and I’ll have them anyway”, that seemed to settle things, and silence the ideologies of Mr.Native.

But how the old books speak of the thousand thumbs, that might have turned over their pages with delight!!- of the lone at hearts, whom they may have cheered, after a long day’s toil, when the person would have snatched an hour, and lost his or her mind within the front and back covers. I wouldn’t desire a book less soiled!! So much for my elitism!!

Having said that, the new ones certainly give a pleasure; of enjoying the very ‘feel’ of the paper, the smoothness or roughness of the covers, the look of the frontispiece, and the perfume of the paper drives one crazy. The fresh, white pages that no thumb has sullied, is a possible attraction and every reader is ready to take the plunge. Ah! Who wouldn’t fall for such seduction!! So much for my double standards indeed!!

In conclusion then: it doesn’t matter whether you read an old book or a new one, what matters is your magnanimity in reading and embracing all kinds of books. I bless my stars for a taste so secular, and so unexcluding.

Anyway I got The Catcher in the Rye, The Woodlanders, The Great Gatsby, and The City Of Joy, for just 275, and the Native, got only one, brand ‘new’ War and peace.

Now Playing:: Would you be happier……………..The Corrs