Stella's Literary Memory

I started my reading life when my elder sister passed on a whole library of books to me. It was a whole new world. I remember that my first book was Enid Blyton's The Little Brown Bear and the first story in it was "Forgetful Fanny". I loved the magical creatures and the talking toys. Then came The Wishing-Chair Series and The Magic Faraway Tree Series. After which, I moved on to the less airy-fairy books by her, like The Famous Five Series, The Adventurous Four Series, The Secret Seven Series. I enjoyed the mix of the detective genre and the adventure genre. Of course, I didn't consciously note these things, but what I did remember noticing was I wished my childhood was just as exciting and interesting. I was constantly looking out for the criminals that these books warned me of and reminding myself how my critical eye and detective mind could help rid the world of such bad people. I even prepared a mini torchlight and snacks in a plastic bag to facilitate potential stake-outs. When I "graduated" to the more 'grown-up series'--The Malory Tower Series and The St. Claire Series--I became aware of the different types of social interactions through these boarding school story series. I secretly imagined a boarding school life and the 'stake-out package' became useful as the 'stay up late and sneak out of bedroom to have a midnight picnic package'.


In Primary 3, my elder sister introduced Nancy Drew Mystery Stories to me. I read these greedily and received more recommendations from my sister to expand into The Hardy Boys Series and The Three Investigators. I was very much into detective stories and loved the thrill involved. However, when I've read too many of these, I got bored of the cliched endings of good triumphing over evil and the neat resolutions. In other words, I was getting cynical and didn't believe that these stories were as 'true' to me as they used to be in the past, where I'd imagine I'm a fellow amateur sleuth and there are real cases to be found around me in my own life. This was when I realised that novels are not about real life but are really fictional constructions of what seems to mirror or imitate real life. With this knowledge, I developed an interest in the more blatantly fictional (and surreal) novels, i.e. the sci-fi and fantasy fiction. It felt like a progressive regression, because I was reading the upgraded versions of the magical faraway tree. I read The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. The Harry Potter Series came out when I was Primary 6 and I started to become curious of other similar texts. I remember begging my mother to get me all 7 books in The Chronicles of Narnia in Secondary 1 and I remember watching Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV and then borrowing the Charmed series, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and the spin-off Angel series from the NLB.


During this exploratory reading experience, my reading enrichment in Primary school exposed me to Jane Austen's writings. Through abridged editions of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, I was made aware of another era that was not "protected" by the airy-fairy plots of magical time zones cut off from the reality of my own life. It was a fictional piece based on real historical contexts. However, being a little kid that I was, I didn't bother myself with understanding such things and I remember thinking that I'd die if I were a girl living in Jane Austen's era (although the dresses sounded like they'd look pretty, like Disney princess dresses).


I need to backtrack a little so I can explain my literary awakening. (wow so smart-sounding) I started reading when I was really little. Strangely, I "read" the Three Character Classics when I was 3. I say "read" because I was reading the book without understanding what each character meant. I was taught to recite it by my mother and she explained it to me line by line. So all I knew was that what I recited corresponded with each of those complicated looking characters in the book. It is only on hindsight that I realised what my mother was trying to get me to do; I was acclimatised to seeing unusual characters so when I started schooling I wasn't afraid of Chinese like almost all of other counterparts in school. Then I developed an interest in idioms and started reading Chinese novels in Primary 5. I suppose it was also the sense of superiority (haha!) that I enjoyed when I aced Chinese papers while my classmates were scrambling around finding competent Chinese Language tutors that got me going. I recall reading the Huan Zhu Ge Ge novels and  learning the basics of critical (literary) analysis when my mother highlighted to me all the linguistic and literary mistakes, and the erroneous socio-cultural and historical references that Qiong Yao made. She even gave me Qiong Yao's background as a person and as a writer, the times in which she had grown up in, the publishing environment in Taiwan, etc. Interestingly, it was reading Chinese novels that taught me critical awareness in reading. Since then, I have never read a book simply again.


Secondary school life started awkwardly and the stress of a huge increase in the number of subjects partially killed my private reading life. I read Sing to the Dawn as my Lit text in Secondary 1 and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and The Merchant of Venice as my Lit texts in Secondary 2. These books gave me a different perspective on human life and widened my knowledge on how to read. It was also the first time that I was conscious of my contact with books that were labelled as Literature. I became aware of the separation of such texts from the usual books that I've been reading. After streaming, I chose my full humanities subject to be Literature and had to read I'm the King of the Castle and Twelfth Night, Or What You Will as my O'level texts. Outside of school, I still went to the NLB diligently--but only in the holidays--to read a wider range of books. I tried to leave the 'youth section' and experimented with 'young adult' books. I picked up some Anne Rice's novels, which were intriguing because of the witches and vampires, X-files series, because detective stories with aliens intensified the thrilling factor, and others. I was also beginning to become aware of the sexual content that such novels hold. Language became very secretive; I used my detective skills in deciphering words and came to know that there were subtexts (though I didn't know that such things were actually called 'subtexts') in every novel. Curious of what the Lord of the Rings trilogy were like after watching the movie, I borrowed them and tried reading. I must admit that I couldn't appreciate it when I was 14. Unused to the language and confused by the landscape and complicated relationships, I gave up after persevering for about a third of the novel. That aside, I continued to indulge in the Harry Potter series, Stephen King's novels, Nightside series (by Simon R. Green) and other random vampire, werewolf, necromancer, ghost series. Of course, I did read some chick Lit too, e.g. Sweet Valley High and Dawson's Creek.


When I entered JC, I read Shakespeare's Othello, George Eliot's Silas Marner, and Geoffrey Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale for Paper 1, and Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, and Boey Kim Cheng's Another Place for Paper 5. I was boggled by the variety I have to deal with and tried to read more books that were labelled 'Literature' to become more Literature-ish. It was during my JC years that I started to read more Literature extensively. I read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the unabridged edition, again and found that I could relate to the content better this time round. I also started to use the internet more and read bits and parts of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughs, William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, etc. I was a depressed teen in JC and liked the catharsis that Literature provided; so although I did very badly for Literature academically (in school), I still liked Literature, because it had got personal and had become a source of comfort for me.


When I entered NUS, I was happy. Literature was taught just the way I like it. I was curious about every genre and text type. Studying film texts was a new way of viewing the term and the classification 'Literature'. I enjoyed Hiroshima, Mon Amour, In the Mood for Love, Happy Together, Goodbye Dragon Inn, My Beautiful Laundrette, Psycho, Vertigo, etc. Literary terms were not limited to those used to describe writing techniques but were expanded and inclusive of cinematic techniques. The audio elements become just as important as the visual; the visuals and their associative meanings (involving language analyses) made unpacking a film text complicated yet very interesting. I learned that interpretation was an open-ended exercise and enjoyed making multiple interpretations based on the same facts or observations, which were put down by my JC (Paper 1 and Paper 8) teachers. The modules' reading lists were starting platforms for me to explore further. Reading anything and everything became qualified and classified as 'doing homework'. I especially enjoyed Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, Wilkie Collins's No Name and The Law and the Lady, Toni Morrison's Sula, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and others. It would be ridiculous to list every other text here, but I must say I was glad to try out in-depth studies of a range of texts, including critical theories. I liked the many perspectives that I can take to read each text over and over again. Frankenstein was a good example; it can be psychoanalysed, read as a Romantic text, read as a Gothic text, and read as a Nineteenth-century text. Reading became a fun yet critical thinking activity that contributed to the constantly expanding literary mindmap in my mind.


Along the way, I've read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Series, etc. Although they have earned certain derogatory labels, I'd say they do have some redeeming qualities. If you'd applied critical theories to them, you'll get much more than just the frivolous plots. If you don't, no loss either, because they are pretty good books to rely on for entertainment/amusement. Right now, post-graduate life has become caught up in the craziness of NIE's many assignments and weekly tasks. Even so, I try to read (to keep sane); although time is never enough, I procrastinate completing homework to re-read Günter Grass's Crabwalk and Katherine Mansfield's short stories. I also entertain myself on my train rides with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, paid for by the LDS fund (ha!).

Li Ying's reading Journey

Growing up as a child, I remember spending most of my childhood (pre-primary years) in the library on weekends. My mum is an avid reader and she believes in instilling the love of reading in us. She would sign us for all the various workshops/programmes offered in the library. Before I could read a book on my own, I would often get my mom to read to me (before bedtime or when I was bored). My favourite was books on folktales. As far as I could remember, my first books (those I could read on my own) were the Ladybird Classics (Thumbelina etc) as well as the Enid Blyton series.

During my primary school days, I began to read works by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, BFG, James and the Giant Peach etc) because we had to do weekly book reviews for class. These activities got me hooked on reading, unlike some of my peers who were totally put off by the use of reading as an assignment. I also began to read the Bookworm Club series (and I was a member too) as well as the YG series. I remember my favourite book was Matilda because I was captivated by Maltida—her powers—and also because my class had to do a drama performance on Matilda. Growing up with an elder brother also means I had to read the books of his choice so I was exposed to a lot of R.L. Stine and True Singapore Ghost Stories. It explains my obsession with the horror genre: ghosts, vampires, and the supernatural. I was also caught in the whole Sweet Valley High: Senior Year craze and bought almost every single title in that series (which I still have in my possession now). I would say I devoted most of my free time to reading (since I was a librarian as well, I was surrounded by books daily).

Unfortunately, I did not and could not spend as much time as I would like on reading in secondary school. But it was in this period where I got exposed to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and till today, they remain one of my favourite series of all time. I also borrowed my brother’s collection for my reading pleasure (whenever I had free time to read): Dan Brown’s works, Life of Pi, Sophie’s World, and Stephen King’s works. I was very captivated by Sophie’s World and the philosophical discourses.

I would say I was only introduced to the world of Literature in JC. I decided to take the plunge to do Literature instead of Science because I figured I might as well do something I would enjoy doing—that is reading. But I never knew what I was in for. I must confess, it was at the juncture that I was exposed to the works of Shakespeare. King Lear immediately enthralled me and it remains my favourite Shakespearean play. I also love Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and it remains the only Sci-Fi book I would ever read the second time. I also learnt more about stylistic devices and literary terms and I was glad to be exposed to dramas and poetry since majority of my reading journey consists of prose only.

Majoring Literature at NTU built my repertoire of books, and expanded the variety of genres/authors I knew. I absolutely adore Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods and Written on the Body, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the time of Cholera, and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and If on a winter’s night a traveler. I love the rich imagery and their ability to make language sound so beautiful. I also discovered my interest (and passion I would say) for feminism and twentieth century continental philosophy such as theories proposed by Jacques Lacan and Helene Cixous. It was also in university where my love for Literature doubled. I like the flexibility and the endless possibilities that Literature allows an individual to take.  Creative Writing modules also expanded my technical knowledge of literary terms and devices. It made me more aware of its application and helps me appreciate every author and every work even though I may not like the writing style.

If I could start my life again, I would take the same route. Somehow I believe, not taking Literature at O levels enables me to appreciate Literature more (I have this feeling that if I’d taken Literature at O levels, it would kill whatever love I have for reading). C.S. Lewis once said, “we read to know we are not alone”. I guess reading provides an alternate avenue for us to be in solitude yet in the company of readers/writers before and after us and I believe that is something only Literature can offer.