Ter_waltz

It defies explanation how well the author inserting personal anecdotes into their novel can work, especially if it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the story at hand.

I encounter the books I read in unconventional ways. One book will have a passing mention of another, a writer will reveal his enthusiasm for another's work, and so on and so forth, like a train of mailmen carrying different letters with different messages, addressed to different recipients.

I enjoy following the trail of letters, seeing what corners they lead to. Some are damp and dark, betraying their age in their composition and styling. Some are radiant, bestowing a joy that cannot possibly be of this age. Still others are like messages to the future, encapsulating hopes for those who could come next. Juan Perucho's works lay at the end of one such trail, and it's a grotto I have returned to frequently.

The prologue, I think, sums up my feelings towards the book entirely:

In this gallery of mirrors are reflected imaginations, strained breaths, dreams, almost nothing...This dark gallery directs one nowhere. Naturally, however, there is a door, by which one can come and go.

And yet it does lead somewhere. Not doggedly (there is much detouring), but the collection of fables, short remembrances, diaries and musings do terminate in a man's love for the people and things around him, a love of the beautiful because it is beautiful, unabated enthusiasm for whatever it is that interests him, be it art, science, or customs.

More a collection of writings that share a mood than an anthology (I hesitate to call them that because it implies some connection, some shared root, that many of these writings do not share with each other), I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the gallery, and hope to return one day.

I know it's Tuesday, but cut me some slack.

• Read some (The Conference of the Birds)
• Ate leftover brisket from my uncle's wedding (revered around these parts apparently, the bride's father is a part of a BBQ team that won first place at the rodeo XD)
• Bought some more pieces for a budget Dragon Link deck I'm building bit by bit.
• Had alcohol for the first time in like 2 years

This weekend was quite packed compared to the relatively lax previous two. Taking my time searching for gifts for my family.

May also erect a Christmas tree for the first time in like 3 years.

Most of us, upon reaching a certain age, are able to recognize a collection of symbols arranged in a particular order as words, which we learn to associate with things, emotions, places, people. A series of these words results in a sentence, which conveys further meaning about these aforementioned things.

What on earth happens when you read, though? From a bit of ink on a page we are able to traipse through places unknown to us, paint portraits of people we have never met, and experience emotions which we may have been subject to otherwise. Most people who enjoy books will agree that it is a singular experience, as magnificently spellbinding and terribly inexplicable as listening to music.

What of those who read? Why do they read? How do live among their fellows, who may or may not share the same enthusiasm for the pile of paper in their hands?

It's these questions that Alberto Manguel attempts to address, and I thoroughly enjoyed his exploration of their various facets via the three metaphors chosen by him: the reader as a traveler through not only the physical tome in their hand, but the space traversed by the characters; the reader as an individual seeking refuge from their reality in the ivory tower of the book, with all the gifts and scorn that brings; and the lector as a larvae, devouring every page they can get their hands on, but ultimately digesting nothing and remaining stagnant.

It's a book about reading. It has made me a better reader. Give it a look if any of what you've seen about it interests you. It will most certainly be worth the time you spend with it.