Of how books empower

 

 

 

THIS is the classic and universal version of everybody who comes in serious contact with books -- that words and books mean not just something but everything, beyond mere words. Of course, Markus Zusak tells the story of girl (or woman) who gets into the habit of thieving books. Of course, for her, books were not actually for serious reading, but almost as if stealing those was her psychological need. No matter the complexity a fiction-writer presents to expand the idea or the story, the observation about books becoming ‘everything’ has an undeniable substance. When a toddler first encounters a book, that comes almost as a plaything, so to say, possibly to hold it upside down, to tear its pages, to throw it around in the room, possibly to sit on it or even pee on it and chew its pages ...! But if the toddler is not stopped from doing all that with the book, she is most likely to become a book-lover of sorts.

 

After tormenting the book physically, she is quite likely to start looking what lay within the covers, on the pages. Initially, the words and lines would not mean much. She may even give up her trysts with books if she feels terribly bored. But if the interest continues reasonably, she is quite likely to become a serious consumer of books. True, Markus Zusak says in one place in the book, “You can’t eat books, sweetheart”. Yet, haven’t all of see many people virtually ‘eating’ books, devouring those hungrily?! A euphemism for this is ‘voracious reading’. But that’s all right. Reasonable. But as one delves deeper into books, gets more involved in books, one realises that they mean so much -- which means ‘everything’.

 

Stories abound in all cultures of people who rise to great heights of excellence and achievement because they climbed the ladder of books to that awesome spot high up in the ‘mountains’ of knowledge. Many of them, then, do not miss noting that their growth is almost entirely because of books. Of course, serious readers make their choices -- fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays ...! No matter that detail, the book has an infinite capacity to elevate the reading individual to heights unimagined beforehand. And so we have accounts of wonderment expressed by serious ‘consumers’ of books about how they found themselves in a position of strength, thanks to their engagement with books. And, this is a universal version.