Firestarters. These books ignited my lifelong affair with reading.
If you’d ask the fourteen year old me, I would have said that reading is for chumps. In this day and age, I would smack that child with a badminton racket til his head looks like wire mesh. Somewhere down the line, reading is injected into my veins like white blood cells that’s ready to weed away any stupid thoughts that come my way (though they still often get through).
My high school lit class, captained by Miss Mackenzie who kept ciggies in her purse, got me into the habit of reading. In studying novels I learned of the relevance of fiction to what’s happening to the past and present — the need to view everything in a holistic way, in learning who we are and who I am, in the beauty of language and its utility. In my early reading days, every book I read was a banger and I would almost always pick up an important lesson which to this day, I still come back to and debate within my own mind. Reading is a treasure trove then, as it is now.
However, literature eventually and inevitably became an obsession. Whether this is for the better or for the worse is an entirely different debate, and thus a different rant altogether. But yes, reading has filled my days in between, it made unpalatable places to live more livable, and provided me a consolation from not being able to physically participate in the activities that I like while I was injured, and allowed me to pick up a handful of sheilas in Bumble. So there’s that.
So here’s to the books which were seminal in my late teens to forge the habit to always carry a book everywhere I go.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Éxupery
In a secondhand bookshop in Singapore, where most of what’s being sold are university textbooks, I came across a glossy and coloured version of The Little Prince, translated by Kathryn Wood. I guess as a sixteen year old, the quirky images and the flight of the prince on strings captivated something in me — the risk, the stupidity and the beauty of its recklessness.
I fell in love with the book from the very first page, where a drawing of a hat is not really what it seems (spoiler alert: it’s a boa constrictor who had just swallowed an elephant whole). I love the fact that the most beautiful and fitting drawing of a sheep is the drawing of a box (of course, with the sheep within), which switched on a lightbulb in me on the power of the imagination — we prefer to bridge gaps ourselves, and define things as they are beyond mere appearances. That in the shelter of our imaginations, things are more vivid and beautiful (or terrifying).
The romance of the rose nursed my heartbreak with a primary school sweetheart and all the women that I have loved and lost had become that very rose. The innocence of the little prince — that he cannot belong to this world, touched something deep, especially for somebody who’s a perpetual outsider. In a way, any reader of the book may see themselves as the young prince: innocent, out of place, curious. I’d like to think that I’ve stayed young because I have not lost the child within me, and this book is a huge reason for that.
The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiongo
In the same bookshop that I found The Little Prince, I also picked up Ngugi’s The River Between, drawn to the fact that he’s an African writer and at that point in time, I did not cross out the idea of taking on humanitarianism as a career. I have always been drawn to Africa in my more naïve younger years, perhaps thinking that it is where I can do the most good.
For a teenager who’s just starting off on his reading journey, The River Between was mind-blowing. I got sucked into the symbolism of the two cliffs facing each other in opposition, but where the people meet in harmony down below in the river which somewhat united them. I admire the ballsiness of the book addressing the uncomfortable issue of female genital mutilation.
But at its core, it’s a man at odds with his own community. It is a man struggling with his principles to succumb to traditions or to foster change despite all odds. And for me, a man’s struggle with his principles are some of the most compelling reads.
I have loved many books by Ngugi and other African Writers since. I still collect Heinemann’s African Writer Series to this day, but I have yet to come across another book as poignant and as masterful as The River Between.
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
I picked up Machiavelli’s The Prince as a side read to one of my lit class texts. That text I can’t remember what, but The Prince is still burned to my memory. The word Machiavellian can get lost these days for somebody ruthless and sadistic — but The Prince is a pragmatic set of instructions to maintain power, to manoeuvre the political fabric of an institution, regardless of the means.
And how did that affect me as an early reader? It made me more skeptical about how the world works, that those who can manipulate would often get to the top and stay on top. It taught me that though I can be what the book instructs me to be, that it will go against my values as a person and thus to stay humble. I think to this day, I have remained humble enough and though I have not hit the top echelons in my life, it is a very contented life.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The book that launched a thousand trips, perhaps had also launched my restlessness and waywardness. It is a book that embodies what it means to be free, to decide on one’s own where to go, how to get there and who’s coming along with you. Then there are people who you’d meet along the way who would offer you those unforgettable moments.
But it is also a cautionary book on freedom, that things change and people mature. The Sal Paradise who we meet at the start of the novel is not the same Sal Paradise at the end of the book. The Sal Paradise who revered Dean Moriarty at the start of the book has a different outlook of who Dean is at the end. Dean Moriarty is the spirit of freedom taken to excess.
It is a book to have with you in your duffel bag when you’re on the plane to some place you can’t pronounce, it’s a book that even late into your maturity still promises so much out of life, and dare I say it, delivers. It is a book to revisit and reread, as a younger person and a much more mature person.
White Fang by Jack London
Found in a university sale for a single dollar, the Dover Thrift edition of this book has been going on rounds for my friends back then. A friend of mine had borrowed the book on his trip to Japan with six other friends, and they all passed it along on that same trip and loved it. Then I lent it to a friend and he never gave it back. Motherfucker.
It is a book that I read before becoming an exchange student in France, and forced me to get out and speak the language. It is a book that forced me to drag my luggage around in snowy Charleroi so I can get a SIM card, which believe it or not was difficult to find when you’re about two hours away from your next flight. It is a book that teaches you that you are in fact, living in the wild, much like Machiavelli’s civilised society and that sometimes, only the strong survives and that it takes a lot of courage to do so.
