Literary Indigestion
Reading has been a big part of my childhood growing up. My earliest memories include me reading the famous Pinocchio story. How Pinocchio’s nose would grow every time he lied and the ‘Moral’ of the story was ‘Never Lie’. It's funny that all these morals which are taught to us as children, end up being not followed at some point or the other. I guess we just realize that the world isn’t always black or white, rather, mostly, shades of grey.
Through Middle School, I read a lot of books, to the point I would complete novels in a day. The books were the usual suspects any child grows up reading, The Famous Five, comics of Asterix and Obelix (one of my favorites to read), and, Roald Dahl. I never got into the hype for Harry Potter or Percy Jackson which was going around at the time. I enjoyed reading, it took me to another dimension, for some time. I was a voracious reader, eating up books and pages in days and weeks. For someone who loved reading this much, I hated the English textbook prescribed in our school curriculum. It had meaningless poems and prose consisted of ‘moral stories’ and nothing experimental or imaginative or real. Some of these books helped me develop my imagination, and maybe that’s why I enjoyed reading them.
After that, gradually and slowly, I stopped reading. Academics became more important and somehow I didn’t have time or made no time to read for myself. My reading consisted of mathematical equations, differentials, integrals, Chemical formulas, and weird-looking graphs. The voracious reader in me died slowly but the flame wasn’t out when I came across Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The protagonist, Howard Roark was a brilliant architect who due to his rigid and foresighted ideals, for a long time went unnoticed and ridiculed, but finally was recognized. It was a very simple story, but I was never exposed to this kind of writing before. I completed the book in one night. I didn’t sleep that night, even though I had an exam the next day, it didn’t matter. I completed that book in the wee hours of the morning and it felt like I was sitting on a rollercoaster for 5 straight hours.
After years, I dusted off the Kindle my dad was gifted by his co-workers. He never used it, I thought might as well. I was also going through a tough time with a break-up and a lot of existential crises and being locked up at home during the 2nd wave, I had nothing else to do other than reading. I started with Atomic Habits by James Clear, a recommendation one of my friends gave me. I mean it was alright. Pretty useful information for developing and maintaining good habits and for eliminating the bad ones, basically a self-help book. I eventually gave up reading that because it got too “boring”
For some reason I wanted to read Bukowski, I knew him as this eccentric person who wrote raw literature, something that would make you feel a certain way, something real. I started with Post Office where Bukowski describes his life when he was working at the Post Office under the pseudonym of Henry Chinaski. The Ayn Rand magic was back. I couldn’t stop reading, I went on and on, flipping pages after pages. After decimating that, I moved on to Women, another Bukowski masterpiece. I didn’t stop to think at all how this was subconsciously playing on my mind, but I enjoyed tweeting out things I found insightful, looking back I feel I was just trying to show people, ‘Look at me, I am so well-read and knowledgable.’ Well, my life goal has been to be that well-read and fun uncle rather than a boring dad, maybe that was the underlying motive.
That one piece of technology, named Kindle was inseparable from me as I went on to read Animal Farm by George Orwell. I topped it off in one day and felt stupid for not having read it before. It is one of the most entertaining books I’ve ever read. I later realized it's an allegorical work, and usually taught to students in High School. It was a moment of anguish and relief. Backing up Animal Farm I went on to read Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. It was too much reading for someone who hadn’t read for some time and it overloaded my brain to the point, one of my best friends told me to stop with all the philosophical talk.
In times of distress and emotional turmoil, reading kept me sane. I chased it like it was the last beam of light disappearing into a supermassive black hole. I chased it to avoid a lot of the issues, and in turn created another shit ton of issues. I coined this term, Literary Indigestion in this process, which is a phenomenon when a person, charmed by mere characters on a page, becomes disillusioned with what real life has to offer.
Currently reading Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut, hoping that the light I’m chasing finally has some clarity to offer
