My book cycle
By LYDIA TEHIn conjunction with World Book Day on April 23, LYDIA TEH recounts her love affair with page-turners.
I WAS hit by a car while cycling to school one day. I was out of school for a couple of weeks. When I returned to class, my thoughtful classmates presented me with two Enid Blyton books – The Naughtiest Girl in School and Second term at Mallory Towers. To this day, I can still remember the cover of The Naughtiest Girl. It showed a girl with a mop of brown curly hair with defiant sparkling eyes, standing with hands akimbo.
Whatever the critics may say about Enid Blyton, she has done a great favour for young children. Her stories of talking toys, gnomes, boarding school girls and young sleuths have captured the hearts of millions of children worldwide. I’m one of the beneficiaries who have acquired a love of reading, thanks to her.
Secondary school saw me moving on to young detective series like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I spent so much time in the school library hunting down these books that the librarians saw it fit to rope me in as their secretary.
The amateur sleuths later lost their appeal to Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome of M&B books (initials stand for Maths and Biology when speaking in the presence of teachers; at other times they were known as Mills & Boons). I hogged the bookstands set up on five-foot ways. They rented out M&B books for 50 sen a pop which is still cheaper than paying three or four ringgit for a brand new book.
At about this time, a Filipino family moved into our neighbourhood. The father was a bank manager and the pretty teenage daughter had an entire library of M&B and other romance novels. Gasp! I was like a toddler let loose in a sweet shop. Gleefully I borrowed stacks of books at a time and devoured them till the wee hours of the morning. And my mother thought I was studying! Little did she know that I was ensconced in a super-romantic world spun by Janet Dailey, Denise Robins and Barbara Cartland.
After a while, the same old formula in the romance novels began to turn stale and predictable. I reached saturation point where one more helpless stammering heroine and one more aristocratic hero with inscrutable expression would drive me up the wall.
Exit Mr Handsome and Ms Pretty. Enter Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. (I seem to have this thing for detective stories). Their acute powers of observation and deduction earned my highest admiration.
Sixth Form exposed me to the works of William Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters and poets like Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning. I digested these works in the course of duty rather than the pleasure they could afford but I learnt to respect their skilful penmanship in critical appreciation class.
When I joined the nine-to-five brigade, reading was relegated to the back burner. Still, I did find time for the occasional Sidney Sheldon, Arthur Hailey and Stephen King novel. When I became a mother, time became the scarcest of commodities. There was hardly time to catch my breath, let alone read a book. Reading had become a luxury.
I remember going on a special holiday once. My husband had to attend a seminar in Singapore for a few days. I borrowed two thick novels from the library, left the children with my mum and tagged along to Singapore. While my husband was out, I holed myself in the hotel room and read till my vision blurred and my temples throbbed. When I went out to grab a bite, the book went with me. When I went down to the pool, I brought the book to read on the lounge chair. That was one unforgettable holiday. I hope some day soon, I’ll have the opportunity to have another such break but it’s going to take some working. Then I had only two kids, now there are four.
It is difficult to find time for reading books these days. If I do read them, they are confined to how-to books and short story collections. These don’t have the pull of a page-turning novel like John Grisham’s or Amy Tan’s.
I can’t resist a good yarn. I would become like an ostrich. Instead of the head being buried in the sand, mine would be stuck in the book. My eyes would be glued to the pages and my posterior to the chair. Meals would be served late. Children’s whining ignored. Hubby’s grumbling shut off. Television would have lost its lure.
Nothing can beat a good book.
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