Feeling Nerdy

Who should we thank for roadside booksellers? 

I can’t believe I read a book in record time considering my incurable slow reading pace. I stopped by at a roadside bookseller to see if I could pick anything interesting. Interesting in this case means the lucky book must have a please-pick-me cover and an arresting blurb. And hopefully, it could also have a string of endorsers from notable writers and critics.

I don’t care how roadside booksellers get their merchandise. A friend has too many theories about their source; the most telling is that they are stolen. But I begged to say some of the books were give-aways. Charity. Why should I care anyway? After all, I’ve bought some books that I may never have stumbled at in most of the bookshops I know. I buy them at ridiculously cheap prices. Hey! Save the jest, I buy expensive books too! It was from this same seller that I bought The General’s Labyrinth, written by the Nobel-winning Colombian writer Gabriel Marquez. Surprisingly, most of all the books are new. 

I digressed.

A regular customer, I stopped by as usual. Took random glances at the scattered books.

There it is! There! I blinked, maybe twice. I shucked off doubts from my eyes. A section of the cover page, where the author’s name is written, poked out from underneath the thesaurus that rested on it. Slimely, I moved closer to the book. I measured my step in such a way as not to suggest to the seller that it’s a big book I was about to pick… lest he decides to inflate the price. You can’t trust these sellers!

Author, J. M. Coetzee. Book, Elizabeth Costello.

I picked the book. I didn’t bother to read the blurb. What matters only was that it was written by an author whose work I have longed to read. J. M. Coetzee – South African-born Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2003), two-time Booker Prize winner (1983, 1999).

Written like an abridged biography of its major character – a distinguished Australian novelist, Elizabeth Costello is a starkly interesting and haunting book. It has eight chapters, each chapter represents different philosophical musing of the major character. In some cases, her musings are responses to other people’s stance.

It’s the first book by the author that I’ve read. It does suggest to me Coetzee’s brilliance. His presentation of serious issue in less serious language is remarkable. How he built a fictional character to argue serious matters, matters that are largely discoursed in academic writings is baffling.

It’s a good read, considering the style of writing and the fanciful dramas the author wove together. There is a part of the book where Elizabeth, the main character, compares the treatment of animals in the modern world to the Holocaust. Gush!

One of my favourite parts is the part where John, Elizabeth’s son anticipates his mother’s response to a question… “What led you, Mrs. Costello, to become a vegetarian?”

“You ask me why I refuse to eat flesh. I, for my part, am astonished that you can put in your mouth the corpse of a dead animal, astonished that you do not find it nasty to chew hacked flesh and swallow the juices of death wounds.”

I almost made a decision to turn to a vegetarian after reading that excerpt. But nothing can stop me from eating my Suya (skewered meat!) 

“To Elizabeth, our oppression of animals – keeping them in captivity,… and breeding them in order to kill them on an industrial scale – arises from an unwarranted privileging of man and the faculty of reason,” says a critic of the book.

Hopefully, I’ll read other books by this author.
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Status updates on some of my books

The Tesseract, by Alex Garland – been struggling to go beyond the second chapter. Beautiful narration but no humour, maybe when I read further.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt – been reading this lovely book since five months ago. I just can’t pass the first chapter. I’m afraid other chapters may not be as funny as the first.

Ibadan: The penkelemes years by Wole Soyinka – second reading actually. My brain has been on a slow-mo for Soyinka, lately. I don’t know where I stopped. Forgot to dog-ear. 30+, bookmarker is not working.  

The Culture of Narcissism, American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch – Serious book that I’ve been reading unseriously. 

The Audacity of Hope by Barrack Obama – 2008 most over-hyped book. I’ve finished reading this…. wait for it… after seven months ;) My favourite chapter is the last one, “Family”.
 
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An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away. ~ Mae West

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