In his essay ‘Of Studies’, Francis Bacon remarked, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” He was suggesting how a reader should approach books based on the quality and depth of their content. Those ‘tasted’ were worthy of a quick read, while those ‘to be swallowed’ contained important knowledge, like scientific facts, and those with philosophical ideas need to be ‘chewed and digested’.
However, during my reading experience, I have come across books that appear hardly promising while being ‘tasted’, but during a second read, they tell a different story – almost the opposite of what I had earlier thought. I then realised why critics have labelled them as classics.
I first encountered this while reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during my college days, as it was a part of my course syllabus. I had never read a Conrad novel before, though books like Lord Jim and Secret Agent used to be prominently displayed at bookshops and libraries.
Heart of Darkness appeared much slimmer (150-200 pages) in comparison, but its structure and the main character Marlow’s narration tied me up in knots. I could barely figure out what the novel was about and gave it up midway.
Once the exams were over, and I had nothing better to do during the vacation, I picked up the novel again. Probably because I was in a much more relaxed frame of mind, Marlow’s narration appeared much more comprehensible and the horrors brought about by Western colonialism in Africa became palpable. I immediately realized that I was holding a masterpiece in my hands.
The novel was later adopted by filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola to make Apocalypse Now. Coppola changed the setting to Vietnam to narrate the horrors caused by the US military misadventures.
Interestingly, in both the novel and the film the villain's name is Kurtz. He subjugates and rules over the local population. The main protagonists (Marlow in Heart of Darkness and Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now) are given orders to eliminate him.
Another such book is James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. I had tried to read this novel during my college days but gave up halfway as it appeared too dense and convoluted. The stream-of-consciousness narrative for which Joyce was famous for appeared a hard nut to crack.
This writing style rests on the premise that we never think chronologically. Hence the writers try to capture the randomness of the thought patterns of their characters, and the readers are allowed to “listen in” to the characters’ thoughts.
I found this narrative style a big turn-off and became wary of its practitioners – Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, and others. However, I also used to get baffled by the accolades the critics used to shower upon them. Joyce’s Ulysses is often rated as one of the best books of the previous century.
After a long hiatus, my interest in Joyce got rekindled while reading a piece on Ernest Hemingway’s advice to an aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson. The Nobel laureate had provided him with a list of books he needed to read before deciding to become a writer, and James Joyce’s Dubliners figured in it.
Since Dubliners happened to be a collection of short stories, I decided to revisit Joyce. The brevity of short stories made them less daunting. While trawling through second-hand books I came across Dubliners and the price was low as the book appeared somewhat soiled.
I bought home the book and took the plunge. What struck me was the incisive characterization. Joyce takes us into the minds of the protagonists and brings out their eccentricities and quirkiness. However, the endings often were somewhat vague, a far cry from the dramatic O’Henry twist. Some stories even make the reader wonder whether the story is really complete.
I didn’t read all the stories in Dubliners, but after reading a few I began to see Joyce’s writing as less intimidating.
A few months later I did see a copy of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man at a second-hand bookstore, but baulked at buying, as previous experience weighed heavily in my mind. However, while going back home I thought maybe it was a mistake. I made amends during my next bookstore visit.
As I waded through the first chapter that recounted the childhood of Stephen Dedalus, the timid and precocious alter-ego of Joyce, I began to see the book in a new light. In fact, it came across as a very vivid picturisation of the insecurities and anxieties while growing up, and makes you wonder: Isn’t this similar to what we all underwent during our school and college days.
The dinner table discussion after the death of Charles Stewart Parnell, a polarizing Irish freedom fighter, with the elders of the Joyce household getting divided into two camps, reminded me of similar discussions my father and his friends used to have during the Emergency. While most saw Jayaprakash Narayan as a great white hope, some were wary of his intentions.
Though Joyce spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Dublin remains the muse for all his works. In Portrait too he recreates the sights and smells of the city and eccentricities of its people. Those were the days of gas lights, as electric street lights had not made their appearance.
It was also before the advent of telephones. I often wonder how Joyce, a master stylist who experimented with the language and coined new words, would have approached the present-day SMS lingo used by mobile phone users. YKWIM.
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