BLOG 5 - A Life with Books

The Reader is requested to bear with me during the course of this blog, as it is about my world of books, My fascination for good books started in my Eighth Standard, when I was made Assistant Librarian in Stanes High School, Coimbatore.

I suddenly had access to a cascade of books, starting from authors of the 1920s.

Dornford Yates' mystery stories, WE John's "Biggles" adventures as a fighter pilot,

"Billy Bunter" series of a school boy's life in an English Public School, "Sherlock Holmes" series - were all what started me off and sent me into an unknown world.

At a later stage in life, books became my lifeline, my way of keeping my sanity in a tumultuous world. that was bewildering at every stage.

So, I dedicate this blog to my "World of Books".

BLOG 5

Chapter 6

A World with Books

Thanks to my brother’s treasure trove of books that he used to bring when coming on leave, I was introduced to Bertrand Russel, Jean Paul Satre, both being more philosophical in content. The content was quite above my brain grade and I had a difficult time navigating though the philosophy.

George Orwell’s books, when read in the 1960s itself showed a society where ‘Big Brother’ is king – fast forward to 2020 and transpose ‘Big Brother’ for ‘Big Business’, in fact much more so. Governments are trampling upon the common man, hanging out carrots on a stick, while yesteryear millionaires become the billionaires of today, the nation’s wealth stays with them, the politicians are in the pockets of big business, where the freedom of the individual is guaranteed only by the Constitution and not by the ruling government. Is it reasonable to accept that – as statistics show – that more than 85% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of a mere 1% of the populace. Big businessmen take loans worth billions of dollars and, finally, escape to seek asylum in Britain, Barbados, Buenos Aires - all taxpayer's money.

I now realise that my entire life of 73 years I have spent in servitude, where I worked and gave my best to make somebody else richer and richer, without being appropriately compensated. Like George Orwell puts it, the looming, overwhelming presence of a government that taxes us incessantly in one form or the other – and does not tax the billionaires – and has evolved a surveillance system to keep a watch on every aspect of our lives – our bank accounts can be scrutinized, our phones tapped, our correspondence read.

John Steinbeck presented a bleak picture of life. I was not attracted to his books. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Pearl S. Buck books were a class act. ‘The Good Earth’ led me into the mind of the Chinese, true even today. ‘Come, my Beloved’ was gently set in British India. She won the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ and the ‘Nobel Prize’.

My love for science fiction started with Isaac Asimov. First came the Elijah Baley series namely “Caves of Steel’, ‘Naked Sun’ and Robots of Dawn’, followed by the Trilogy of the ‘Foundation’ series, all read by me during 1965 / 1966, written by Isaac Asimov, who has kept me company even more than 50 years later. His return to the ’Foundation’ series in the 1980s and 1990s was pure ecstasy for science fiction readers. I spent the intervening years between the late '60s and the early '80s catching up on the numerous short stories that he had written.

‘Nightfall’ was one of the classics. On his return to the ‘Foundation’ series, the great writer that he was, he very adroitly interwove most of his short stories, his Elijah Baley series and his ‘Foundation’ trilogy into a beautiful fabric that forced you to go back and ‘binge’ read his earlier novels and short stories. I was fascinated by the way he could thrust and project me into a future that encompassed galactic empires, interstellar travel without giving up the supremacy of Earth or Gaia. I could write volumes about him, but I will desist from doing so as, in today’s world, all you have to do is type in ‘Isaac Asimov’ into the search column of the World Wide Web and a mass of information comes flooding down to the reader. When he passed away in 1992, I felt as if a close friend had left me.

Having kindled the ‘science fiction’ spark in me, Isaac Asimov led me to other science fiction writers – Robert A. Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut and a host of others – and I also came to know about the ‘Hugo Awards’, a kind of Nobel Prize for science fiction writers.

Arthur C Clarke and his ‘2001 - A Space Odyssey’ joined the realm of Science Fiction Classics in later years. The thousands of communication satellites of today were due to his fertile imagination. As early as 1945, he proposed satellites for communication using geo-stationary orbits, his proposal seeing the light of day and becoming a reality from the 1960s onwards.

Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and some others were part of a ‘think tank’ for NASA, where their ideas and thoughts – even if far fetched – were turned into reality by the NASA scientists.

And then came PG Wodehouse, that master of the English language, that weaver of humour into the simplest of acts, the author who put Wooster into impossible and irretrievable situations, only to be rescued by the inimitable Jeeves, the innumerable Wooster and Jeeves books, the way pigs could be interwoven as heroes (or heroines) into hilarious stories, spoofing the English upper classes and nobility – all without rancour – all for the singular purpose of transporting a fascinated teenager into another world.

Ian Fleming’s books – I think I read all of them during the 18 months I spent in Secunderabad. Over the years, I have returned to them again and again. So, it was a natural progression to see all the James Bond movies as and when possible after their release, starting with ‘Dr. No’. The movies’ releases are spread out over a span of 5 decades. I continue to remain an avid fan.

John Le Carre- I first read his ‘The Spy who came in from the Cold’. The spellbinding way in which he wrote about the chess-like moves of espionage, of the Cold War era without resorting to any melodrama, was wonderful. The character of ‘Smiley’ as the protagonist in most of his books was unforgettable, as was Isaac Asimov’s ‘Elijah Bailey’. Over the course of the next 50 years I read all his books, as and when I laid my hands on them. He passed away in Dec 2020.

Lloyd C Douglas - “The Robe” is a book worth reading, where a Roman Consul gets the Robe of Jesus Christ as his share of Jesus’ possessions, when He is crucified. “Magnificent Obsession” is another classic that inspired me and made me help others without any fanfare or publicity. “Let not the left hand know what the right hand doeth” is the theme of this book.

AJ Cronin - “Adventures in Two Worlds” is a book that epitomises humanitarian values that a person should aspire to, in total contrast to the “Me Only” culture of today. It is a fantastic book and I have read it at least 10 times in the last 40 years, starting from my PUC days. It is one of the few books that has inspired me and made me try to be a better person. But I did not succeed.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Irwing Wallace, Nevil Shute were three other authors, whose books were wonders of storytelling.

I will stop here and not write about books or authors anymore, and will continue my core narrative of what transpired prior to my joining Marine Engineering in my next blog.

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