Someone famously said that you are what you eat – but by the same token, are we what we read? On my continuing journey to become American and understand who I am in the final analysis I began thinking this week of what books I’ve read through my lifetime. There are many, of course, that I do not remember but many that somehow marked my progress through life.
Early memories of reading involve the two children’s book series that my mother bought and took to India with us when I was a baby. The first was My Book House which progressed from a book of nursery rhymes to the more advanced ones that had condensed versions of Dante’s Inferno, Pilgrim’s Progress and various other Western classics. It was a beautiful series – in color – it ranged from a pale green, through blues, to darker greens. The other series was the Childcraft series and were also arranged progressively in reading level. I loved those books – had them read to me, and then as I became the oldest sibling to 3 younger ones, I read to them. We had nothing else to do in the evening except listen to Radio Ceylon when the short wave radio could pick up the signal. We read every night.
When I began reading chapter books for myself I was in boarding school. In third grade my friend Mary and I would sneak a book to the mandatory playground time and hide behind one of the gymnasium walls and take turns reading to each other. I don’t remember any of those titles but they were mostly morality stories about little children – The Little Match Girl is the only title I can recall.
By middle school I was reading books after lights-out in boarding. In 8th grade I discovered James Bond and somehow managed to read all 7 of them, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia with Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger. I must have borrowed them from someone as I am sure they were not in the school library. I also didn’t have any appreciable amount of spending money and was only allowed into the bazaar on special occasions. After lights out I would pull the quilt up over my head, turn on my flashlight and enter the exciting, sophisticated, daring life of 007. He was indescribably sexy and appealing and I had many pleasurable hours immersed in the fantasies. I learned about what daring women wore, how they did their hair and make-up, and that caviar and lobster were delicacies.
The pattern of reading everything I could find by one author was something I continued with in high school. I discovered Richard Halliburton’s travel books and read all that were in the library although I don’t remember anything about them now. I read On The Beach by Nevile Shute and was equally entranced with A Town Like Alice.
There were not many books in our home - two bookcases that I remember. They were mostly reference books for my mother’s lab and chemistry work and things like the Merck Manual for my dad’s agricultural work. One book that I must have read more than once was Marjorie Moringstar by Herman Wouk and was my introduction to people who were Jewish . Another one that I remember was Girl of the Limberlost – the plot of which I have no recollection and was glad to see that Wikipedia at least had a summary.
Reading Gone with the Wind as well as Uncle Tom’s Cabin also were memorable . I got into my bed in our home in the mountains, covered with at least two heavy quilts and read into the night to finish Gone with the Wind. When the Peace Corps volunteers began to arrive in India in the mid-60’s I read at least two of the books from their required reading libraries – the MalayanTrilogy and The Ugly American. About the same time I read Mitchner’s Hawaii and still have great misgivings about the treatment of native people in Hawaii. These books began to shape my values and point me in the direction that I have gone since then.
Hearing a report one morning this week on the radio about how closely Ayn Rand’s philosophy is aligned with some of the Republican candidates I was more than a little startled. I read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I recall being impressed with her sweeping stories full of sex and grand gestures but as I realized on hearing the news stories I have completely turned her philosophy around in my mind – I was sure she was a socialist and true to her communist past. Again – I am not sure how I could have gotten my hands on her books but I did.
The books we were required to read at school were not unlike what was required in American schools because our curriculum was American and accredited by a U.S. accreditation board. The books we read as juniors in a class led by a newly graduated Barnard student, Miss Selby, were Camus’s The Fall, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and two books of poetry by T.S. Elliott. She had never taught before and we did a line-by-line analysis of each book, etching them forever into my memory. I read The Tale of Two Cities on the long drive from India to London in the summer of 1963. My father thinks he remembers that I was reading comic books in the back seat but he is, uncharacteristically wrong, as by then I had a distinct prejudice against anything I thought was not “intellectual.”
One book required for school was nearly my undoing – a biography of Hitler, by Bullock. Titled Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, it is still regarded as a definitive work. It is, however, 458 pages long and we were to have read it over the 3-month winter vacation. I found it such heavy going that my mother resorted to reading it aloud to me in an attempt to get it finished. I remember little about the book but I do remember the panic the day before the exam that covered it when I went off into the woods and found a quiet spot under the trees to try and finish it.
Our class had rejected the mandatory daily devotions at school and in their place we had negotiated with the chaplain that we be allowed to read from Dag Hammarskjöld's Markings – we felt victoriously self-righteous, grown up and intellectual when we were granted that privilege.
What do I read today? My bookcases are filled with books written by Indian authors, writing in English about India. I am currently reading Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, and on my Facebook page I list Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Mistry’s A Fine Balance as two of my favorite novels. In spite of my experience with the biography of Hitler, I find it increasingly is a favorite form of literature. An extraordinary one that I read last year is Memoirs of a Rebel Princess by Abida Sultaan.
