Life in Books

I've been reading. Often. For fun. I am so glad to be back to reading and for adapting to the Kindle. I don't want to accumulate books that I can't carry with me. I've had enough of leaving bits and pieces behind. Plus Kindle versions of most books are also now more affordable, allowing me to read more. The Kindle app across platforms means I am not stuck to owning a Kindle. Here's my list of recommendations, which surprisingly has more non-fiction than fiction. Usually I go the other way.

Seeing Like A Feminist by Nivedita Menon

The title is a dead giveaway. What I enjoyed most about this book is that it is a concise, pithy read about feminism(s) in India, its various spokespeople as well as its schisms. I've often lamented about my lack of knowledge about feminism in India and its appropriation as an all-round bad word. So it was really refreshing to read this book. I am going to leave you with some of my favorite lines.

"By gendering, I mean the ways in which people are produced as proper men and women through rules and regulations of different sorts; some of which we internalize, some of which have to be violently enforced."

...

You must.

Some of my favorite quotes

 “Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”

― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

"A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."  ~ Francis Bacon

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The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. ~ L.P. Hartley

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Adulthood

I think of part of the joy of adulthood as finding those who calibrate at and around the same wavelengths at which you like to live your life. A line that I remind myself of, again and again, year after year, joy after disappointment, lifetimes after moments:

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path."

Buddha

Searchers

“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains,, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know – unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”

- James Kavanaugh, There are men too gentle to live among wolves

This is in the foreword of the book. There are many beautiful poems in it as well. While I read them in spurts between classes yesterday, I hope to return to it over the weekend.

Lightly, go lightly

When I was a younger, sullen person, sulking a bit much at the world and all its travails, I was given a very good piece of advice once: to learn to be light and use humor. I don't think I have succeeded in all facets of my life but goodness knows, I try. I was looking at some old collections and came across these lines I had saved in a draft. I hope you enjoy them as well. 

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.

When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.

No rhetoric, no tremolos,

no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.

And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.

So throw away your baggage and go forward.

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,

trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.

That’s why you must walk so lightly.

Lightly my darling,

on tiptoes and no luggage,

not even a sponge bag,

completely unencumbered.”

~Aldous Huxley

Thought for today

“It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types—people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing—are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse."

~ Laurie Colwin

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach

Without Reservations is one of my favorite books. It blends language, cities, travel and reflection in a way that I tremendously enjoy. I don't remember how I came across the title, only that I was very grateful for having found it. During my stint in Vietnam, I found myself missing the book. It was an unusual feeling. I started re-reading it when I returned home and for the first time in my life made notes on a book, underlined text and committed the worst of all book-related sins, dogeared pages. I don't feel guilty though. This is one of the few books that I intend to take with me and there is so much in the book that I rather vainly believe reflects my life, that I am going to hang on to this copy for life. It also reminds me of my intent to search for (or start?) a book club that enjoys fiction. In brief it is the story of Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who decides to take a year off from work and travel. She goes to Paris, London, Oxford and Italy and spends time there. She reminds me that to get second chances, one must first make mistakes. I can't offer much of a review, I am clearly biased. What I will leave you with are my favorite bits from the book. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did and they offer hope and comfort to you in the way they have to me:

Vacation

“What we want out of a vacation changes as we age. It changes from vacation to vacation. There was a time when it was all about culture for me. My idea of a real break was to stay in museums until my legs ached and then go stand in line to get tickets for an opera or a play. Later I became a disciple of relaxation and looked for words like beach and massage when making my plans. I found those little paper umbrellas that balanced on the side of rum drinks to be deeply charming then. Now I strive for transcendent invisibility and the chance to accomplish the things I can’t get done at home. But as I pack up my room at the Hotel Bel-Air, I think the best vacation is the one that relieves me of my own life for a while and then makes me long for it again."

Ann Patchett, “Do Not Disturb,” in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage