PORTABLE MAGIC
‘Book Haul’ by Cecil Robin Singalaoa, watercolor on cotton rag paper, 2020, 4×6 inches
There’s a wonderful word for one’s to-be-read (TBR) list in Japanese: Tsundoku. Wikipedia defines it as “the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.”
Retirement duties of journalist Rolly Fernandez include dusting his library.
My tsundoku was a pile growing by the bedside table until the family librarian, my husband Rolly Fernandez, couldn’t stand it anymore and shelved each book, including three Mannix Abrera graphic novels. At first, I was able to delay his move by declaring the pile as my “emotional support.” Got that from a New Yorker cartoon, I think.
What I need is another solo word to describe my habit of opening a book, getting distracted (usually by social media), casting the material aside, inserting a bookmark to remind me of my place, and then starting a new title.
But Rolly wanted to begin the year on the right bibliophile’s foot. That also meant dusting the tops of the books on their respective shelves with an unused paintbrush. Two of the traits I admire in him are he’s a fast reader and an organized collector. He also has set opinions about the things he has read that we talk about over breakfast. If only he’d write them down, I’d say in frustration. But if it’s a novel he’s reading, I beg him not to utter spoilers.
The novel that is a perfect ode to books and the love of reading.
In my sure, slow way, I managed to finish over a few weeks an ode to books and reading by the young novelist Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books. The recommendation came by way of writer Jessica Zafra’s Instagram account. Fully Booked was efficient and neat in its out-of-town delivery.
The novel tells of hikikomori (recluse) boy Rintaro Natsuki, an orphan and “reader extraordinaire” who experiences another loss when his grandfather, a proprietor of store for secondhand books, dies. He inherits the shop, misses classes in his high school, enters, like Alice in Wonderland, three succeeding labyrinths leading to memorable persons who are endangering the life of books. These men hoard books, shred them and sell them at throwaway prices.
A talking fat tabby cat, the fantasy element in the novel, explains the importance of books: “Books have a soul…These days people rarely pick up books anymore, nor do they infuse them with their thoughts. Books are gradually losing their souls…A cherished book will always have a soul. It will come to its reader’s aid in times of crisis.”
A side story is Rintaro’s being able to open the world of reading to his classmate Sayo beginning with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the love stories of Stendhal, Gide, Flaubert and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, the last puzzling her. The two have that shared conspiracy of book lovers with the boy explaining to her that if something is difficult to read, that “means it’s because it contains something that is new to you. Every difficult book offers us a brand-new challenge.”
Translated into English by Louise Heal Kawai, The Cat Who Saved Books has made me pause to ask myself what kind of an avid reader am I.
My unfinished pile of TBRs consists of fiction and non-fiction, even a pioneering translation into Filipino of the Garcia Marquez landmark novel by Baguio’s Luchie B. Maranan. The photo of the TBRs even shows the tips of the bookmarks to indicate where I stopped.
I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki has been my on-off companion as I battled yet again another bout of depression
The Korean bestseller I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee has been my on-off companion as I battled yet again another end-of-2022 bout of depression. Frankly the author records the therapy she underwent for dysthymia, “persistent depressive disorder (a state of constant, light depression).”
Like her I want to see if I can pin down “the fundamental causes of my feelings so I can move in a healthier direction.” Baek Sehee confesses to posting “fake things about my life on social media. It’s not that I pretend to be happy, but I post things from books or landscapes or writing, showing off how great my taste is. I’m trying to say, Look at what a deep, cool person I am. And I judge other people. But who am I to judge them? I’m so odd, even to myself.”
When I read those lines, I tell myself not to believe all the status updates I see when I scroll down Facebook or Instagram. I may even be guilty of being such an impostor during my manic phase.
Well, if anything, Rolly has taught by example how his reading discipline is woven into each day. Post-breakfast, he does the dishes then heads out for two to three hours of sun and gardening. After lunch, if there’s any editing gig to be finished, he also sets aside two to three hours with occasional stretching and snacking. What follows are his sacred reading hours, an average of four to five until it’s time to sleep. Sometimes, he wakens at unholy hours to continue reading.
I cannot say the same for myself even as much as I want to finish Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo’s memoir What I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up: A Writer’s Early Apprentice. So many recollections bring me back to my St. Paul College of Quezon City years (where the author also went for her elementary and high school): talk of crushes, focus on academics, chafing at parents’ strictness, the book and the radio as friends et al. Interruptions come when I hear the iPad pinging and I respond to inquiries and messages, most of which don’t demand prioritizing. Rolly is better at this—he pretends to be deaf so he can concentrate on his reading.
We haven’t stopped acquiring books despite the struggle to fit them into our daily duties. The Goodwill Librarian in FB shared a meme about TBRs, and it applies to us: “Think not of the books you’ve bought as a ‘to be read’ pile. Instead, think of your bookcase as a wine cellar. You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place and the right mood.” Thank you, Luc van Donkersgoed!
