My earliest recollection of reading is when I browsed through picture books of bibles stories. I felt indignant over Samson's capture and was elated when his hair grew back. I wondered what would happen if Daniel could actually talk to lions, and made up conversations in my head between Daniel and the lions in the den. I also remember telling myself that I would never in my life wash anyone's feet with my hair. Interestingly, though I read many of Enid Blyton's series, I do not have lasting impressions of them. But I do remember being fascinated by Roald Dahl's The Witches, The BFG and Matilda, and the Goosebumps series by R.L.Stine. And I was swept away by The Chronicles of Narnia, wishing I could ride on Aslan as well. (I felt the same way towards the polar bear years later when I read Pullman's His Dark Materials--if only Iorek were my friend!) Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl was "highly recommended" in school, and it wasn't difficult to get my hands on it because our class library always had a copy in stock.
Secondary school was a time when I indulged in the Sweet Valley High/University series, flopped on the couch with romance novels by Judith McNaught and Danielle Steel, and savoured the thrill of tales by Christopher Pike, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice. A particular favourite was Stephen King's The Long Walk. I found a really old copy of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club at home, and that was my first taste of Asian American Literature. (I think I would prefer Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior now.) I picked up Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller at a community library, and it enthralled me because its unique structure, imagery and second-person narrative made it unlike any other book I had read, until I was introduced to novels such as John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman and Georges Perec's A Void in university. (I loved the latter so much that even though I can't read French, I bounded into bookstores in Paris in search of a French copy of the novel.) What made me consider taking Literature in JC and university was the study of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. I loved the themes and symbols, and found myself sympathising with almost every character in the novel.
Similar themes are evident in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which is little wonder why I found myself deeper in love with Literature in JC. I also enjoyed comparing and contrasting that with Achebe's Things Fall Apart. John Donne's (religious) poems struck a similar chord in my heart, and I was enraptured by his use of metaphysical conceits and imagery in both his religious and love poems. Sheridan's The Rivals, Wilde's plays and The Picture of Dorian Gray were delightful reads, and lectures on Shakespeare's Hamlet and T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land were, oddly, pure ecstasy and cathartic bliss. It was also during this time that I started falling in love with novels by Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood and George Orwell, and I remember feeling a rush of pleasant goosebumps whenever I heard the sounds of the awesomely long word "utilitarianism" when we discussed Dickens' Hard Times (it was an awesomely long word to me then!).
Strangely, very few novels affected me in such ways when I majored in Literature in university. Perhaps it was because I was distracted by the numerous activities and courses/disciplines on offer. It was a period of exploration as Literature took a back seat and I found myself poking a finger into almost every pie. The few novels I loved then include Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Salman Rushdie's Shame, and Primo Levi's Surviving in Auschwitz.
My love for Literature and reading came back with a vengeance after I graduated. My friend introduced me to really cool children's authors like Kelly Link and S.F.Said. I delved into Thomas Mann and H.G.Wells, went ecstatic over Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, and took delight in easy reads such as Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Robert Rankin's The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. It was during this time that I started to get hooked onto comics and non-fiction writing such as Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, Kampfner's Freedom for Sale, Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and essays in The Portable Atheist. I also started to explore Ayn Rand's fiction and non-fiction writing, and Objectivism. All these got me interested in trying to relate other subjects/topics to Literature, and what greatly fuelled this interest was Jennifer Ouellette's Black Bodies and Quantum Cats in which she discusses how literary works illustrate theories of physics (some simple examples: citing Magneto to demonstrate electromagnetism and Addams Family Values to show Newton's laws). On a related note, another book I've always wanted to pick up is Madame Bovary's Ovaries, and maybe I will get down to it this December.
Postgrad studies by coursework was the best time in my life. That "cathartic bliss" I felt in JC became a familiar sensation as we worked through issues in novels such as Manuel Puig's Pubis Angelical, William Faulkner's Sanctuary, Don DeLilo's Underworld and Joan Didion's Democracy. I fell in love all over again with George Orwell and Anthony Burgess, and developed a strong fondness for Stanley Kubrick's films. Three non-fiction works that left particularly deep impressions on me are Huyssen's Present Pasts, Agamben's Homo Sacer and Felman's The Juridical Unconscious. The ideas (and ideals) of politics, democracy and justice stayed with me when I switched jobs and was fed a diet consisting of Winning Against the Odds and Hard Truths. I think I am still striving to find common ground between ideals and pragmatism. Right now, however, I'm happy with George Martin's Game of Thrones.
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