Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination. On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love.
Book-journeys
I recall a friend who wasn’t much of a reader being put in a quandary by a college application essay question: ‘If you had to take no more than 3 books with you to live for the rest of your life on an uninhabited island, which would you choose?’ Although posed as a hypothetical question, it resonates strongly with any book lover who knows that journeys, brief or lengthy, casual or purposeful, are incomplete without books. That perhaps explains the presence of book stores, even in today’s digital age, at airports and railway stations, the physical points of arrival and departure in our lives. Embedded in these outward journeys we take books on are the inward ones that books take us on. Both journeys change us, the travelers, in ways that are not entirely tangible. Below you will find four distinctly diverse journeys from across – and even out of – the globe, made extraordinary by their travelers and their love for books.
1.
For this Emperor, the pen was as mighty as the sword. Documented accounts reveal that through victories and defeats, Napoleon Bonaparte’s close and trusted companions were books. Arranged in mahogany chests, books on a wide range of subjects accompanied him on his military campaigns and even on his exile to the island of Elba in 1814. To accommodate his voracious appetite for books, he gave meticulous instructions about their size: books were to be printed in duodecimo size (each page one-twelfth of the size of the printing sheet) so that a1000 volumes could be carried in his portable library. Homer’s Illiad and the epic poems of Ossian were his inspiration and the poets were reportedly described by Bonaparte as “poets who lift up the soul, and give to man a colossal greatness.” When in need of relaxation, Napoleon turned to picaresque novels, his favourites being Don Quixote and Gil Blas. Born a Roman Catholic, the religious works he carried in his traveling library included the Old and New Testament—but surprisingly, also the Koran.
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At the time of his death in 1821, his library contained 1,814 volumes. Of these, he bequeathed 400 which he was “accustomed to use the most,” to his son. His companions took what they liked. What remained went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London two years after his death.
2.
An uncommon devotion to books by a group of people that began in the 19th century and survives more than a 150 years later, was sparked by a simple desire to relieve the tedium of a target-driven job and be well informed. For many a cigar worker in Cuba, even today, their first book-journey begins in the hot, humid interiors of the cigar factory. Sitting in rows, heads bent forward, fingers stripping, sorting, cutting and rolling tobacco leaves and fashioning them into cigars, they listen intently to el lector—the reader—who is someone from amongst them and must garner maximum votes to assume this coveted role.
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Being able to read and having a good voice are the minimum requirements to be a reader; a flair for drama is bonus. Workers wait for the afternoon when the reader, perched on a podium, will pick up a book and transport them into imaginary worlds (the morning is reserved for the reader to read from newspapers which is how the practice of la lectura started in 1865). Selecting the book is the prerogative of the workers who are drawn to authors ranging from Shakespeare, Hugo, Ibsen, Tolstoy, and Dickens to Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling, Marquez, Agatha Christie, Wilbur Smith and Dan Brown. Cuban authors too have joined the list over the years. Although some are clear favourites, there have been none quite as popular as two tales of tragic love. Paying the grandest tribute they can to Dumas and Shakespeare, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta, are international cigar brands! The practice spread to USA (Florida), Mexico and Spain for a while but lives on only in Cuba. There is hope among Cubans that UNESCO will recognize la lectura as a form of cultural heritage.
3.
As if a premonition, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 27-man crew set out in December 1914 on the most heroic but ill-fated expedition to the Antartica, aboard the ship named—Endurance. Within weeks of setting sail, their ship was trapped in ice. For the next 10 months or so, as the ship drifted in ice, the crew stayed aboard carrying out daily chores. They kept their spirits high by playing football matches on ice and chess indoors, conducting science experiments, typing—and reading. Photographs were taken of daily life aboard the stranded ship by a crew member, Australian photographer Frank Hurley. Of the 120 negative images he succeeded in preserving, 68 were digitised a hundred years later (2015) by the Royal Geographical Society.
Image Courtesy: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35633374
One of them is the interior of Shackleton’s cabin, offering a glimpse of the readerly side of the explorer. Shelved along with dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and books about other polar expeditions, are seen a variety of books. Some titles /authors which readers of today may be familiar with are Plays: pleasant and unpleasant, Vol. 2 Pleasant by G.B.Shaw; The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; and Poetical works of Shelley. The others were popular fiction of the time reveal that Shackleton enjoyed mystery and detective stories, humour, and historical romances as well. How much did Shackleton treasure his literary possessions on this arduous journey? A small clue, poetic and poignant, says it all. When the ship sank on November 21, 1915, he carried outside Rudyard Kipling’s If framed on his cabin wall (seen in the image).
Post Script: After camping on floating ice for almost five months after the ship sank, the crew left for the uninhabited Elephant Island in small boats that had been taken off Endurance. Miraculously, the entire crew survived and reached the island after seven long days.
4.
The year 2011 is noteworthy for two journeys which coincided in time and space. It was Space Shuttle Discovery’s final mission and aboard it a children’s storybook was making its maiden voyage into outer space. Educator Patricia Tribe and astronaut Alvin Drew knew storybooks were the best vehicle to get the young generation to read and learn about science. To “test” the idea, they selected astronomer-author Jeffrey Bennett’s story about a dog and a young girl taking their first trip to the Moon to travel on Discovery’s final mission; Drew read aloud the electronic copy of Max Goes to the Moon from orbit. In 2013, the Story Time in Space program was fully launched with physical copies of Bennett’s set of “science adventures,” Max Goes to the Space Station, Max Goes to the Moon, Max Goes to Mars, Max Goes to Jupiter, and The Wizard Who Saved the World, taking off for the International Space Station (ISS). Embedded in the stories are science concepts which come alive in the right “atmosphere” and inspire children to think about this wondrous universe and the ways in which it works. The observatory module on the ISS is from where stories are read out to children by astronauts and it is called “a room with a view” for good reason! As the astronauts read from within it, the Earth is visible from its windows. At last count, fifteen children’s stories were aboard the Space Station. Come listen to one such story being read—at 17,000 miles per hour!
Beena, Thank you for this beautiful piece. I had no idea Napoleon loved reading. Wonder which books he took to his island!! The other examples too set me off on a quest to know more. Isn’t that the touchstone of good writing – to make you want to explore further?
Regards. Usha
Beena, absolutely amazed by this piece! I am listening to the story time from space as I write. How cool is that!!! Brilliant